{"id":651,"date":"2016-06-22T17:30:15","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T17:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=651"},"modified":"2016-06-22T17:30:15","modified_gmt":"2016-06-22T17:30:15","slug":"home-is-where-ammachi-is-kerala-train-homecoming-onam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=651","title":{"rendered":"Home is Where Ammachi is"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span>t\u2019s that time of the year again. You\u2019re going back to the bosom of your motherland. You\u2019ve sent the out-of-office email, packed your bags with assorted gifts for assorted relatives \u2013 rice cookies for the younger cousins, a humongous torch for appachan, Dove cream for ammachi \u2013 included at least ten different portable chargers and power sources, packed the last of your least holey clothes. You\u2019ve checked your waitlist number on the IRCTC website a million times, hoping that the powers that be have decided that you deserve a seat until finally, the day arrives.\n\n<\/p>Inside the train you find your train legs, learn to move around the compartment, and establish your territory. You call dibs on the middle berth, until your dad makes you sleep on the cagey topmost berth, but you only realise its significance when you watch Episode 2 of Chai Sutta Chronicles<\/i> and finally understand the ways of men in trains. *Cue ogling* <\/span>\n\nBy the next day, you feel like you\u2019ve been lifelong friends with strangers you\u2019ve only known for about 12 hours. Seeing each other drooling on the luggage creates a special kind of bond. <\/span>\n\nAs the day goes by, you buy way too many pulp paperbacks, flower pens, and chammak challo-singing toy mobile phones, only to find them all crushed at the bottom of your bag when you get home. As your destination inches closer, you see coconut trees. And some more coconut trees. And communist flags. <\/span>\n\nBy Day 2, you\u2019ve exhausted all your ghar ka khana and look to IRCTC as your gastronomic saviour. You then do yourself a favour and order food from Salkara in Calicut for mind-blowingly delicious Malabari dishes, which are delivered directly to your compartment. (I know it\u2019s truly unbelievable. You\u2019re welcome.)<\/span>\n\nFinally, you alight the train feeling like you\u2019re bidding adieu to a second home, but not without snapping one last selfie inside the compartment and then as you step out of the railway platform, you act every bit like the royal who has returned from Mumbai. This lasts until you finally see your bratty cousins, and find your true blue Mallu groove and begin spouting edis and edas. Praise be to all those comedy shows and old Jayan movies.<\/span>\n\nYou get home, finally see the grandpeeps, and are reminded why the long sticky train journey all the way from Mumbai is worth it. And realise that you\u2019re nothing short of khandani once you\u2019ve been hugged and kissed by all the achachans, appachis, ammamas, ammavans, alliyans, ammachis, appachans, chechis, chettans, ithathas, and ikkaas under the sun. (PS, I wouldn\u2019t worry if you didn\u2019t remember any of these. Aanti and ungle will suffice for most occasions.)<\/span>\n\n

Your dream of staying in bed is ripped to shreds when you are woken up at 6 am, and made to clean the entire 10,000-sq ft courtyard with a coconut leaf broom.<\/blockquote>\nAfter that\u2019s done, you immediately get down to scouting around for the best bathroom and establish your territory. There ain\u2019t no shame in that. If you\u2019ve had the sheer pleasure and utter horror of living in a bona fide oditta veedu (old-fashioned, shingle-roofed home), then you know that attached loos are gold, and that birdsong and floating leaves sound better in books than in bathrooms.<\/span>\n\nYour dreams of staying in bed in your lovely Kerala cottage and enjoying a tranquil, languid holiday are ripped to shreds, when you are woken up at 6 am, handed a coconut leaf broom, and made to clean the entire 10,000-sq ft courtyard. This is when you learn to butcher exotic bug species that any entomologist would kill for, wheedle your way into the overstuffed storeroom that has been stocked up for the influx of grandkids like you, and take undue advantage of your grandparents by breaking your appachan\u2019s ancient deck chair, almost ruining a season\u2019s rubber crop by overturning the sap bowls, and giving your ammachi palpitations by climbing the topmost branch of the guava tree, even when you\u2019re clearly too old for that stuff.<\/span>\n\nYour planned visit to Ponnmudi, a little known trekking site that means Golden Hair, goes surprisingly well with not a single soul on the road. Until suddenly you land up in the middle of one of those famed Kerala hartals, facing dire danger unless you have a red rag hanging from the windshield. Extra points if you shout \u201cInquilab Sindabad\u201d or \u201cTozhilali Aikyyam Sindabad\u201d at the first sight of a surprisingly well-dressed, educated mob because political fervour is to Malayalis what cricket is to most Indians.<\/span>\n\nOn your journeys, you meet the lungi-clad brethren standing obediently in line for the next round of, wait for it, daaru. Because, in addition to being the state with the highest level of literacy and the highest female-to-male ratio, your lovely Kerala has the highest per capita consumption of alcohol and the highest suicide rate. (Much education. Such frustration)<\/span>\n\nYou hoard all the goodies that spell homecoming from mini thattukadas (literally means shelf shops), where sweet little ammachis sell palappam and kadala curry for \u20b915. And visit the kallushaapus (bars) where you find the world\u2019s spiciest beef and kappa. And since Kerala doesn\u2019t do khau gallis (eating on roads is a social faux pas), every third shop is a bakery from where you can buy enough marble cake, banana chips, and halva to last you a year, which inevitably lasts you three whole days.<\/span>\n\nSomewhere amid stacks of Archie\u2019s Double Digests<\/i>, ancient college degrees, sepia-toned photo albums filled with people sporting bell-bottoms, and your ammachi regaling you with stories of your dad being the neighbourhood terror, you reconnect with your roots. Nostalgia is a real threat when you\u2019re essentially living in your parent\u2019s childhood home.<\/span>\n\nYou try squeezing a year\u2019s worth of relative visits, food, photography, and familial love into 15 days. In the end, you cry when you leave home. And however reluctantly you\u2019d left Mumbai, with a feeling that you\u2019re sojourning to an uncivilised non-Hindi speaking Malayali land, dreading the upcoming 24-hour journey of sheer torture of the gluteus maximus, you return feeling like you\u2019ve left some part of your soul behind. Because that\u2019s where your people are, in all their accented, lungi-wearing, coconut-eating, \u201cGelf-going\u201d glory. And whether you come back by plane or train, Kerala will always be there to welcome you home.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You reluctantly leave the city to return home for the holidays. But it\u2019s only when you see the grandpeeps, you realise that the long, sticky train journey is worth it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":108,"featured_media":652,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1210,1211,1212,1213,1214,1132,1215,1216,998],"class_list":["post-651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-destination","tag-gods-own-country","tag-holidays","tag-homecoming","tag-journeys","tag-kerala","tag-onam","tag-railway","tag-train"],"yoast_head":"\nHome is Where Ammachi is<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You reluctantly leave the city to return home for the holidays. 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