Marching orders

Out through the front entrance of the estate

That first day, walking was really tough. The doctor had taken me off any medication, so no anti-inflammatory pills any longer, and even my glucosamine sulphate tablets were banned. Consequently, my hip joint was aching at night and was not comfortable for a walk in the country. It’s not the walking itself that is the challenge, it’s keeping the balance. On a rough track through the woods the path is rocky with alternating pools of dust, rocky outcrops and grassy tufts; the challenge is to keep balance which is easy if your hips are fully functional. My left hip joint is seriously worn away so even on pavements I walk with a limp.

The early morning “brisk walk” is shortly after 6am, in the dim light of breaking dawn; it’s difficult to make out the path and easy to trip and stumble. I thought it would be easier in broad daylight, but by the time I completed this wake-up exercise I had decided that in future I would use my hiking poles – the kind that look like ski poles and which people use for Nordic Walking.

Down along by the river 

There’s a pleasant, level walk, starting along by the river bank and then winding through the paddy fields and vegetable gardens. It’s a wonderful context for getting back to the realities of life: the simplicity of life in what is essentially a tribal society.

On my second day here one of the girls who work here as a cleaner was to be married and the management organised transport so that both staff and guests could attend the wedding if they wished. Under normal circumstances I would have gone, but I was too drained by the combination of the journey and the start of the ghee treatment and I decided to take things easy and continue to relax into the Spartan regime.

The story behind the wedding was fascinating. The bride was a simple girl from a tribal family. Her father was a fisherman, and theirs was very much a subsistence life-style. There was a real family crisis a few weeks back because it seemed unlikely that the family could afford to pay for a full-scale wedding. However, the owner of this establishment offered to provide transport for estate staff to attend which meant that the bride’s coffers would be swelled by the cash contributions that are traditional at weddings. Then, when the paying guests here were also invited, not only were the financial problems completely removed (because of all the extra cash) but also the status of the bride’s family rose enormously from being attended by the cosmopolitan group of guests from around the world.

Staying here, surrounded by the homes of very ordinary, very humble people puts this time in Kerala into context. The facilities at the local level may not be to the standard of Western society but villagers have clean water, food, health services and education. What is more, they live in a society that is expanding dynamically with the newspapers reporting daily on new economic and social developments. By contrast, I find so much of Western society in cynical, social and moral decline. India has a genuineness that permeates so many aspects of life, and you get very close to it here in the bush, rather than in some 5-star Intercontinental Hotel.