text: IV - OFF THE RAILS After a string of ‘rather uninspired’ work written for the *Times*, my services have been placed on temporary hold, to ‘reinvigorate the senses,’ or (more likely) so I can quietly disappear. It’s terrible really, how often I find myself in these situations. Just last month I looked so proudly at my exploits: dodging bullets in Qatar, protesting in Venezuela, being nominated for countless awards courtesy some writing association dictating journalistic standards as if they could grasp excellence... I’m bitter. I sit sweltering in South Indian heat approaching forty degrees celsius. The Kerala Express violently jerks in reaction to what looks like rusted rails and... air. My mother sits beside me, gazing through barred windows as childhood ghosts streak the passing fields. We are on our way to visit perhaps our fifth set of relatives, custom dictates a meeting with each one, ‘especially after so many years, *this* one held you when you were just a baby!’ The trip was her idea. Watching me waste away through journalistic failure sparked her idea of a cure: The motherlands. Kerala, *God’s Own Country*. ROAD TO ADOOR We spew from train to train platform through noise you’ve never seen. Coolies balancing massive suitcases on their heads, weaving through crowds. Patterned shawls sweeping the platform with the speed of instinct. The clamors of commerce, the smells of fried foods. We pass by vendors selling all kinds of wares, from water bottles to purses to peacock feathers, careful not to look too long in one direction as we head toward the exit. We find our driver, Santosh, outside the station. He’s a stoutly built man about fifty dressed cleanly in an off-white dress-shirt and gold-lined lungi. His grey hair seems doused with a lifetime supply of coconut oil. We awkwardly exchange greetings and I help him with the luggage. Santosh is the talkative type and begins chatting with my mother in Malayalam about their family histories. Apparently, my mother knows his wife’s second cousin’s dog’s best friend’s previous owner’s nephew. They bond on this. They continue chatting as I peer through a one-way glass. I am there but not there. I understand most of what is being said but I cannot really speak the language. Growing up in Canada, my parents thought it best to not teach me so as to not impede my English (??). Hence very little of the language is now my own, and I have even less to pass on. Santosh’s car, a white Hindustan Ambassador Grand, finally stutters to start and we pull away from the station. I am too tired to complain about the lack of air-conditioning. Driving on these roads requires obscene levels of apathy and assertiveness. Every crack of space between the piled cars is quickly filled with scooters and motorcycles, some of which hold three people. Motor horns are used constantly, not out of anger or frustration, but as a subtle warning before the driver bursts onto their desired route, forcibly merging. Stuck behind a truck going too slow, Santosh begins weaving behind it, taking note of oncoming traffic before quickly overtaking and only slightly avoiding a collision. My mother’s high blood pressure and hypochondria have gotten the best of her. She reproaches Santosh about his ‘crazy driving’; he is courteous enough to listen and agree (with a few wobbles of his head), but the drive has remained more or less the same, and my mother has been forced into silence, into staring at *anything* but oncoming traffic: at billboards of fair-skinned beauties in glittering bridal wear and jewelry, at countless 5G wireless ads and vivid almost cartoon-like political posters. Scattered patches of huts face the road with their storefronts, several of them with branches of *nendran* bananas (delicious) hanging right above their entrances and commercial refrigerators with *Pepsi* signs seen easily from the road. Small clusters of population gather variably near the huts, immersed in the inescapable vibrations of 1.3 billion souls packed in space less than one-third the size of Canada. I’ve seen the *same* man several times. He is an old and lean and veiny figure. His skin is sun-stained and dark and deeply wrinkled, especially around the eyes. He watches the passing noise with a blind and almost vulgar sort of distaste, his head slowly oscillating and his hands clasped behind his back and his eyebrows furrowed and his face prickly and unshaved. He watches. He is condemned to watch the noise with a blind and almost vulgar sort of distaste... We park at the side of a junction. My mother spotted a *chaya kada* (tea shop) and felt wistful for a cup. Tea, or *chaya*, is somewhat of a national pastime. India is the world’s largest consumer of tea (consuming thirty percent of the world’s output) and its second-largest producer (after China). But Kerala chaya is different. Frothy, creamy, and delicious, it is locally called *Adicha Chaya*, meaning “One Meter Tea.” Served in a small glass, the shop owner prepares it by boiling water, adding smashed cardamom and smashed peppercorn, and then adding loose black tea leaves. After letting it boil, he adds milk and stirs often, straining the leaves and--finally, pouring the tea from one mug to another, again and again, *one meter* apart. The motion serves many purposes: it mixes the tea, cools its down, spreads the aroma, and creates the frothy texture--all while producing a rhythmically calming sound and spectacle. We sit and sip our chaya in front of the hut and take in the mixtures of flavor, heat, and bustle. Santosh tells us a story of his childhood, of a man called *Half-tea*. Every morning he would purchase a glass of tea (ten rupees), but then instruct the shop owner to give him only half. Returning from work at the end of the day, he would then request the other half, earning his moniker. Santosh cannot remember his *real* name; Nicknames, or *house names*, are a large part of Keralite culture. Usually given by parents, it is quite common to have a formal name on your birth certificate but then be called something completely different. My mother’s formal name is Sara, but her house name is Beena. Ninety percent of our community would likely not know her *real* name, and it would not be a stretch to say that she *feels* more Beena than Sara. We finish up our chaya and my mother spots a snack store. We are about to purchase in-bulk snacks for back home but not before Santosh warns us about their somewhat shady practices. Entering the busy store there are many workers, a common thread of bold fast-talking boys in jeans and dress shirts and flip flops. Their voices ring above the bustle and in between large vats of snacks: fresh plantain and casava chips mixed with every spice under the sun, endless flavors and textures and colors of halwa, fresh cashews... with no prices to be seen. We take note of each and give a list for Santosh to buy later. Though my mother and I are of local descent, our foreignness is painfully obvious; the way we walk, talk, and navigate space speaks more for who we are and where we come from. Santosh will return later and purchase snacks on our behalf (with a tip of course) at a more reasonable price. We enter the Ambassador Grand and pull away from the junction and continue on our journey. It’s different being in Kerala than anywhere else. Perhaps it’s because here I can’t *be* completely foreign, so my sense of identity starts to merge instead of reaffirm. Something stirs at these sights and sounds. I can’t place it. In the heavy heat, speed, sweat, the red dust spewing clouds through car tires. It emanates from Santosh and now my mother, something much bigger than them... I fall asleep to the sound of cars honking. ARRIVAL We arrive at the house around dusk. It sits at the bottom of a hill surrounded by tall trees and the road leading to it paved by gravel and tall weeds. The house is white and one-story with a flat roof and wooden sheds at the back. A woman in a saree, a helper, sweeps the porch with a broom made of dry wild grass. Inland India. Old Kerala. Much different than the brochure: Cochin airport powered by solar panels, Lulu mall, Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, drifting through Alleppy backwaters in a houseboat surrounded by coconut trees and wiry fisherman casting their nets in the foreground of a sun just about to set. *God's own Country*. I think of the places I believe I have seen. Perhaps they too were just the brochure. We are greeted on the porch by our relatives. It is only an hour until dinner so we exchange pleasantries and then quickly unpack. The house is noticeably old, cracks and other signs of decay line the pale-blue cement walls. There are no hallways, the rooms simply link to one another like a mash of mismatched cubes. But I sense a unique warmness that comes with this old worldliness and desolation. The warm yellow light, the cricket quietness, the faded flower-patterned bed sheets, the smell of mosquito coils. All my passions and restlessness--overwhelming back home, seem now like a restless dream. Dinner is served. Rice, avial, chicken curry, papadum, and lemon pickle. We eat using our fingers, the practice based on the premise that eating is a sensual activity, and touch is part of the experience along with taste, aroma, and presentation. The meal is delicious. My cousin sits next to me at the table. She is around the same age and is a history major. Her English is excellent (much better than my Malayalam anyway) and she educates me on the various spices used for our meal. Did you know that black pepper originates from Malabar, Kerala? Black pepper! An utterly essential ingredient for so many cuisines--all indebted to the Malabar Spice trade. We wash our hands and sit together in the living room and continue our discussion of history. She ends the night by declaring that she cannot possibly go through it all. I laugh and head to bed. UNSCRAMBLING NIGHTMARES I’ve been having trouble falling asleep. It’s very odd. I usually like rooms that aren’t my own. When the weight of my own decisions aren’t draped around me... I’m a sailor at sea. I’m a wreck without eight hours. Maybe it’s because the bed’s next to this wall--messes with the feng-shui. Writing helps I guess. Thinking too. Pacing. Thinking. Thinking things. Mosquitos hovering. A lizard just fell through the blurring fan blades, its tail detached--*it’s* still moving!--mind of its own, or nerves I think. Don’t look at the time it’ll make it worse. Exhausted. Right on the edge of sleep. Excruciating. Morning already. Strange feeling, dawn when you haven’t slept... like the world moved on without you. How many days have I lived like this? Jet-lagged and weary, going through the motions, just trying to get home. Home. So much to do. Santosh awake and dressed. Mom awake and cheerful. Quiet breakfast. Idli and sambar. Waiting on the porch and peering at wild dogs with testicles. Strange how strange it is to see dogs with testicles. Car horns. Melting through noise and heat. Crippled beggars. Skin-whitening cream ads. Malls--air conditioning (!). Piles of sarees and lehngas and salwar kameez bought and rarely--if ever--to be worn. *So cheap!* Carelessly crossing streets and hoping to make it. Faintly. Beginning to feel delirious. Crowds and heat. Pulse and breath just pounding through my core. I don’t like *knowing* there are this many people in the world. In their own worlds. Made of voices and fears and dreams as *real* as mine. Back at the house again. Finally. Sleeeeeeep. ***The rest of the story is available for free on my substack, the link is available through my profile!*** If you enjoyed my work and would like to read more, please subscribe tp my email list. I publish a monthly short story or essay every second Sunday.