So the weekend is fast approaching, time is flying by and we have just another five and a bit weeks here in India. This time next week Ruthy, Sarah's second cousin, will have arrived to get her first taste of India. I'm looking forward to seeing Kovalam through a fresh pair of eyes as much of "The Unusual" has become common place for us now. A familiarity as crept into how we see the place, we no longer remark on the litter except when its been cleaned up, the heat and day-in-day-out sunshine are taken for granted, occasionally I catch myself wobbling my head in response to questions but mostly it goes unnoticed and i find myself drifting into Hinglish syntax and phraseology. We are absorbing and being absorbed into this massive, populous, terrifying, delightful, confusing, wonderful country. We have learnt time here is relative and moves forward at its own pace, things happen when they will and trying to force the issue is pointless. Much as we have learnt to time our entry into the sea to reach safe swimming rather than to attempt dive through the breakers and end up thrown back onto the sand, we have learnt how to wait. When something is delivered "on time" it is to be celebrated but the important thing is that it is delivered at all.
This weekend the hotel being built just outside our kitchen window is due to finally open for business, you may remember we attended the official opening almost two months ago on the astrologically significant day as decreed by the temple priests, but this weekend should see the first fee paying guests arrive. The last few days have been a frenzy of bed building, laying of tiles and random cleaning. Praveen, the project manager, has gone from just looking like the most worried man in Kerala to the most worried man in the sub-continent. The afternoons have been punctuated by the sound of disk cutters, cutting, grinding and putting the finishing touches to the building while he stands and checks things off a long list of things to do. Incidentally, i have no idea how anything got built in India before the invention of the disk cutter, its used for everything. The standard method of construction appears to be to cast a large slab of concrete then sculpt the building out of the block with a disk cutter. If there are any detailed drawings scheduling first and second fix I've never seen them being consulted, its an organic process of design and redesign on the hoof.
The decision to raise the swimming pool on stilts outside the front of the hotel was such an organic development, a last minute decision when they realised they didn't have enough car parking, a car park which at the moment appears to have now morphed into a restaurant, when they discovered they didn't have one in the original plan and the access road is too narrow anyway. It will be entertaining to see the look on the guests faces when they are sitting having a romantic meal and we open our kitchen window straight into their restaurant. Almost as entertaining as when they are lounging in their infinity pool on stilts looking out over the sea as Sarah suddenly appears, apparently floating in mid-air, pegging out our smalls on our roof. Ah, I can see the guests now, a glorious sunset scene, lazing in the high tech infinity pool, mojito in hand, quaint wooden fishing boats bobbing in the bay and slap bang in the middle my (once white) pants hanging from the line.
In essence typical Indian building, unbelievably beautiful, high tech, traditional and but for the lack of planning... a bit pants.
have a good weekend
K&S
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