Kerala

We visited the southwestern state of Kerala, a state known for the beauty of its backwaters and its progressive culture. For instance, Kerala is thought to be one of the states that pushed women's roles in society (such as hiring the first women police officers). These acts are not insignificant in South India, where traditional ways of thinking, such as gender disparities, are still very much a part of life. Many of the more progressive Indians believe that, as a result of it's many breakthroughs, Kerala has one of India's highest literacy rates (90%, average life expectancy (73%), and household income. A seasoned Pediatrician I worked with who has practiced in multiple states in India (and also in the US) gave an example. He believes that much of Kerala's low infant mortality rate (1/3 of India's average) is attributed to the education of women--because more of Kerala's women are literate, they are also more educated about health and nutrition in prenatal care and parenting.

Much like many of our experiences in India, our journey to Kerala was a perfect example of losing our usual sense of control over our lives. In a sense, we travelled for 13 hours to another corner of India which we knew almost nothing about. Our journey started with an exhausting first day in Cochin. You see, during our time in India, I gradually acquired a stubborness in bargaining and an "excessive caution" of being cheated or taken advantage of. This became problematic in the tourist-saturated Cochin. If a rickshaw didn't offer a desired price (even if we are carrying all of our luggage, or are exhausted with achy feet).......we will walk the entire distance. Needless to say, we could barely stand at the end of the day.

Thus our second day began with a lazy morning sitting on a boat that gave us a glimpse of Kerala's beautiful backwaters and village life. It struck me how on an island just adjacent to the city, a completely different lifestyle could exist...where women fetched their daily water from a reservoir in the ground (which can often run low), harvested their own cooking oil and vinegar from coconuts, and wove fishing nets for the men who spent all day on the water. We also saw a rich diversity of plants that had uses from medicines to insecticides to henna ink. The last part of our journey in Kerala was spent in the cliff-side beaches of Varkala, where this chapter of our time in India closed beautifully. Much like we watched the sun rise from the East in the Bay of Bengal only a week ago, Varkala showed us the sun sinking into the West, into a layer of mist hovering over the Arabian sea.