The Dockyards of Thought

I spent last night in Fort Kochi, in Kerala, India. By the docks, they have these huge cantilevered Chinese fishing nets - about 40 feet high, that sweep down into the Arabian sea and scoop out fish and trash and seaweed. I wandered around the dockyards and the merchants' export quarter until I smelled like a catch of the day, and retired to a Kathakali show.

Before I went to bed I ripped apart the Aloe plant I bought off a street vendor for 10 rupees and lathered it all over my bright red shoulders. I woke up at that awkward crack before dawn, when it feels like you're about to go fishing with your dad and he's downstairs making tea and rubbing his hands together, and prepped my backpacks.

I walked out and around the neighborhood to the main jetty, stopping for chai and deep fried coconut shavings, and hopped on a ferry to Ernakulum as the sun crested over the huge cranes that popped and whirred around me. I walked through the town whistling my favourite Bad Plus song to the street vendors and contemplated buying a copy of the Hindustan Times before I remembered that for one month, I'm going to let myself do all the thinking.

Right now I'm killing a bit of time in Kollam before I get on a canoe and drift through the rural backwaters. Tonight, I'm getting on a bus to Trivandrum - the capital of this province, the only Communist state government in India - and either tomorrow or the next day I will bus it up to Munnar, a mountainous range of tea estates and wildlife. From there, it's onward to the land of the Tamils; where, apparently, they speak no or less English and may or may not force me to abandon my regionally-centric, linguistic ignorance.

Tales from loved ones keep me warm: of Lanterns in Korea, of the Savoy in London, of mountains in Peru, of tree-climbing in Ontario, and of the various successes and ventures my friends are executing back in Ottawa or Toronto. But for me, and for now, I'm here and loving this.

I've had an immense amount of time to think and to write, with no deadlines and no formats, no scripts or word counts or 1st person penalties, or price per word or per article; I've composed poetry in post-colonial graveyards, where Portugese sailors cry out to Mary from beneath the weeds and lizards; I've pondered my future on long train rides through lush, trash-strewn palm forests, flying over rivers decked out with bathers and oxen; I've fished with Indian boys who boast they have sex with naive foreign tourists; I have supped on fresh mangos and pineapples and stared into the waves over local beer and seafood; I have dodged diseased cows in urban slums - and through and through and through I wonder and wander further still, not satisfied, sated, and thankfully - apparently - unsedated, though still tainted, by western security, values, and ideas.