backwaters

A tranquil boat cruise through the backwaters of Kerala provided yesterday's backdrop of calm, murky waters and lush greenery, the likes of which I have never seen. It was as though palm fought fern to clamber towards any gap not yet occupied. Everything is saturated with life.

I left a country deep in drought and arrived in a water world. Lakes stretch into long fingers of slow moving rivers that change direction with the tide, and they in turn branch into small channels only marginally wider than our boat. We mover from river to channel and are silently propelled by a bamboo pole deep into the labyrinth. Grasses and flowered undergrowth poised on the edge of the bank reach and stretch into our watercraft fashioned from cane and bound together with ropes made from the husks of coconuts.

We maneouvre around an impossible corner, briefly drowning waterlillies that pepper our path like ice in a bath. I close my eyes and inhale the forest, rich in subtle scents of green with pink flashes and a hint of human. Even out here in a maze of mnarshes and naturally cut lines of liquid people are living. People live everywhere here. I wonder if people own land all the way out here, sell land or just aquire land and build. The shelters are varied but consistently simple, form huts fashioned from discarded wood, recycled tin and tarpaulins, to concrete houses jutting awkwardly out of a landscape void of straight lines.

I cannot help but ponder the thoughts of the people that live here. They live such simple lives compared to that of my homeland, that now seems so intricate by comparison.

Are they happy? They certainly greet us with warm smiles and sharp beaming eyes but perhaps happiness means different things here, if it means anything at all. Does a simple life dictate a simple philosophy, or at least influence its development? Is there a place for philosophy here at all where survival is the game rather than our modern pursuits of expression, decadence and a fruitless search for mneaning and purpose, whatever they are. It seems almost ludicrous to ponder 'meaning' in this explosion of humnanit, where 'ifs' and 'buts' become no more than humid air, something of which there is already no shortage. This is a owrld of 'is' and 'is not'. The question of 'why' that usually keeps me awake at night, if it is not waking me from my shady dreams is completely lost here and I am glad to let go of it if it can allow me to taste another perspective on the human menu of perception.