Returning to India
Hello folks, its 5:30
a.m. on Saturday 1st November and chucking it down, thunder,
lightning, the works . Its been just over 6 months since we left India and the
last blog ended. I decided to give it (and you) a break over the summer, mind
you it’s not been uneventful, I might let you in on what happened later, when
I’m at a loose end.
Anyway, where were we? Ah yes, when I left off we had just
bought tickets to go back to India and six months on, here we are back in
Kovalam. In fact we have been here for just under three weeks.
We decided after last
year’s trauma of having arranged a house, getting off the plane to discover we
hadn’t got a house, moving into a hotel until the house was sorted, thinking we
had a house again, being told we had to wait for papers, discovering there was
no guarantee that the papers would ever be issued, having to change
hotels, playing location, location,
location , finding another apartment, moving in etc. we would abandon any idea
of having things pre-arranged for our return, i.e. to start from scratch on
arrival and skip straight to the house
hunting phase.
A word of warning, if
you are coming for 3 weeks or less I would advise you do NOT attempt this
strategy it takes too long and definitely don’t attempt it if you are arriving
in high season. Why? Because once the Russians have landed mid-November onwards
all the best houses and apartments will have gone until the end of February.
Don’t get me wrong there will be places to stay, but the choice and
availability here in Kovalam will be “restricted”. At this point you will also
find India understands supply and demand very nicely thank you and may discover it would have been cheaper to
stay in a 5* suite.
So, how did it go?
The Outcome
Success!!!! We are now in our house for the winter, it’s a
new build three bed villa/bungalow, each bedroom has its own fully tiled
en-suite wetroom (though one hand basin drains straight onto your feet as it
hasn’t been connected to the waste pipe), it has a brand new (recycled) fully fitted kitchen , a large lounge diner, marble floors throughout,
great roof space for yoga/sunbathing/laundry and a traditional Keralain veranda
with a fan to sit out in the evening . The house is on the edge of the
lighthouse beach area in farm land/semi
jungle (it’s not really jungle more banana, papaya, coconut plantation, it just
feels and sounds jungly) It’s a twenty
minute walk to the beach so just far enough to pretend that you have walked off
that extra naan bread or bottle of Kingfisher. It is as good as it sounds and
bigger than our home in the UK.
The Process
How can I put it, with the help of Christopher, our friend
from previous trips, no one died, it was less traumatic than last year, no
animals or children were hurt in the process (though once moved in I did come
close to strangling a small boy and his friends who thought playing commando creeping
round the back of the building to peer in a t the window and stare at my white
arse as I emerged from the shower was great fun. So much more entertaining than
local non-cable TV (to be fair they did have a point here, less adverts).
So what am I complaining about? After 8 years of coming to
Kovalam you’d think I was used to things by now but there are two traits of
Indian culture which when mixed with any business transaction drive me nuts.
The first is an overwhelming and delightful desire to please, anything and
everything are possible and your request no matter how unreasonable is likely
to be met with a smile and a positive response. The second trait is the
inability to understand the concept of time, in short “when” in relation to
specific time has no meaning. For example when Sarah asked how long before the
bungalow would be clean and papers sorted so we could move in these two factors
clashed massively. On one hand Gopi, the landlord, wanted to please on the
other under his concept of time and he did not think Sarah was actually asking for a date. His response of “It will be 10 days. No! 7 days and you can
move in!!! All will be ready!!! And we will have installed mosquito nets on all
windows, fully cleaned the house, varnished and polished all the furniture and
moved the 25kg of chilli which is drying in the kitchen. No problem. 7 days!!!.” All accompanied by
much smiling and wobbling of the head. (I should have known by now, see
previous blogs on the meaning of a wobbling head). Sarah may as well have asked
will you be wearing purple socks as “when?”.
From day 6 Sarah began to get twitchy (incidentally day 5
was Diwali so nothing was going to happen during days 3 to 8). Day 10 came and
went. Christopher had taken to hiding from us as the process dragged on and on
in the end he took two days leave and sorted things out.
In fact we moved in on day 13, which was in truth amazing,
imagine seeing a house you want to rent for five months on the 19th
of December, a house in which all the furniture needed varnishing, all windows
needed mossie screens fitted, a major post build clean and then getting it
signed off as suitable for habitation by the council over the Christmas period and
being able to move in on the 29th, oh and 25kg of dried chilli moved
to boot.
So we are here, its lovely and definitely the best house we
have rented so far. I’m really looking forward to this winter.
Cheery Pip
Kev
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