When hunger clung on us we visited the depopulated restaurant where cheap Nepali were employed who served us in courteous manner and spoke to us with their warm smile.

It had been a wonderful stay until I woke up on the third day with a painful knee. I could not sleep nor could use the toilet so I relied on Nancy for the better part. She rode me to the nearest clinic where the doctor fired his medically masked jealous questions about my bed performance while holding my private part in his gloved hands.

Soon I presented my straight forward answer he appeared satisfied and directed me to follow the cute nurse. The smiling nurse distracted me by asking me some lovely question and gave a quick shot which I only realized after she took the needle out from my buttock.

Lessened the unbearable pain I was able to ride and we headed for Madgaon town to get train tickets as we had decided to continue our trip toward the southern part of the country. When the beaches in Goa looked forlorn with the arrival of monsoon we were not the real revelers that we had thought or imagined before we had begun the journey.

On our last day we drank to the place and got hold of a mini-van to get to the train station. As the van driver took us through another place the landscape appeared quite different with gigantic trees their gnarled branches dangling, sometimes, over the roofs of the beautiful houses and the tarmac roads now appeared bright and a bit slippery owing to the lashing monsoon.

Madgaon station was quite provincial yet very different from other train stations that I had seen in other states. I boarded the train with my limping leg but I was rather relieved after having spent some torturous hours on the platform sitting next to some Kerala-bound passengers releasing their traditional and audible burpings.

Apart from burping I was impressed by their well-pressed lungree and well-laundered white shirts. Chugging the train took off on time and in the morning we were in another station where after we stepped down from the lugging locomotive at Ernakulam station.

We were swarmed by solicitous auto rickshaw drivers offering various prices. Some of the prices were ridiculously high so we started walking away from the station casually haggling.

Soon we got to the main market we thought we had been relieved but there we were waylaid by textiles merchants calling us ' lovely friends, dear friends, my good friends' but we had to take an auto rickshaw though.

The lungree clad chap with well-trimmed mustache approached us and we took the price he offered and headed for the hotel recommended by Lonely planet in Cochin.

We were driven through the chaotic city walled by the lecherous pictures of south Indian models and film stars sometimes the driver was compelled to halt with the hasty arrival of cart pullers and cows vying to cross the narrowed roads.

It didn't take that long to get to the hotel. Names of the streets and the architecture of the place didn't speak anything of India.

To quench my curiosity I decided to take a walk on the promenade by the beach as the pain in my knee had subsided. Touching the sands and feeling the warm water brought by the wave I walked but that was to be called off after I stumbled on the carcasses of dogs wreathed by litters.

No more walk on the beach and what I had contemplated to make up for what I had missed out in Goa was to be put aside out of repulsion.

Early morning with glossy Times of India newspaper at the table and an outrageously sweetened cup of coffee I read the news of a western fellow taking the initiative to clean the beach who also made it a point to encourage the local volunteers to join him.

60 years of independence had not brought us enough people who can keep the beaches clean. Cleanliness comes in the spiritual form but the cleanliness that requires physical labour something that most people disdain. No wonder there were more spectators and photographers on the beach surrounding the cleaners when I went down to the beach to see the changes.

Friends in Pune had told me about Kerala and its old synagogue and the spice market so I made it a point to see the places. For the that I had to haggle with a driver who promised me to show all the places in 40 minutes for Rs.45. considering the money and time I yielded to what he offered and asked my lady to accompany me.

With a bit of swerve and twist and turn we were somewhere near the synagogue but to get to that place we had to go through the torturous calling of merchants calling us ' lovely friends, dear friends come and see original Indian silks and handicrafts'.

It was a short walk and we were in front of a big gate with a big padlock on it. This was the synagogue which was apparently closed but the driver knew it but didn't bother telling us. Next he drove us for couple of minutes and gave the direction to the spice market we followed it and found our way; a place which wore a deserted look, let alone the spices.

Enough of his ruse my lady wanted revenge and confided her plot to me. Soon we got into the vehicle he asked where else we wanted me to go but it was my lady's turn to talk and he was told to go where ever she pointed. He had to drive for 40 minutes to offset for his silly trick.

Certainly he was not happy and was on the brink to whimper and swear in Malayalam but he was paid the amount we had agreed.



To be continued ...