Hi, this is Cochin Blogger at your service. I’m based in a town called Cochin (officially, Kochi) in the state of Kerala, which is perched at the southern-most tip of India. It’s just a stone’s throw from Sri Lanka, and is famous for its unique natural beauty. Kerala is a slim, blue-veined beauty, with canals, backwaters, lagoons, rivers, lakes, ponds, and puddles galore, a thin strip of land caressed by the waters of the Arabian Sea.
Kerala’s trademark is tropical fecundity. It’s a paradise that is still largely unspoiled because of the low level of industrialization. Kerala first hit the international headlines when it voted the communists to power in 1957, this being only the second time communists anywhere in the world have formed a popularly elected government (the first time was in the tiny republic of San Marino).
Right, I’m signing off now. I’ll be sure to keep you posted. 🙂
The delicate pink caught my eye during my daily walk in the yard, and I’m pleased with how the photo turned out. The colors harmonize beautifully. An app on my phone tells me it’s the painted leaf begonia (Begonia rex).
Shot with a Nikon D5600, 70-300 mm telephoto lens with a Raynox DCR 150 fixed to it for the close-up.
A problem with macros/closeups is that if the subject is unfamiliar, the photo doesn’t tell us what the subject looks like in real life. The above photo will help you understand how small the flower is: I photographed the tiny flower resting on the leaf (right extreme).
Usually photographs trigger memories, but the following excerpt from a book of essays by Ray Bradbury (Bradbury Speaks) reminded me of the above photo, which I had taken a year ago with my cell phone from a moving auto:
Rifling my file of some thirty published and unpublished stories, I found variations on carnival and circus themes, most of them put away when I was twenty-six years old, one published in a pulp magazine when I was thirty, “The Black Ferris.”
The story told of a strange carnival that aged people younger or older, depending on which direction the wheel turned, backward or forward. Two boys, discovering the secret of the wheel, are almost destroyed by the carnival owner, who in turn, trapped on the wheel, is aged around and around, until he dies, an ancient mummy.
I had resolved to return later to capture a more colorful photo, but I didn’t find the time.
An ironing man from Tamil Nadu has been operating in our compound for decades. It’s a symbiotic relationship: we get some security from his presence and an in-house ironing service, and he gets a sheltered space from which to ply his trade. At the end of the day, his iron is kept in our house, and as the person who usually carries it inside, I can testify to its weight. Yes, it’s rather heavy, all-metal except for the wooden handle.
One day he bought a flashy new model, shown in the above photo. I asked him how much it weighed. Eight kilograms was the reply. And the cost? Ten thousand rupees.
I have a small portable iron that generates heat by boiling water with electricity. It’s useful for quickly ironing a crumpled shirt I want to wear then and there, but it can’t handle heavily wrinkled cotton clothes. For heavy-duty crease crawling and crease destroying, only the ironing man’s iron will do. It operates on charcoal, which is a “dirty” energy source. In India, coal remains an important source of energy, and many livelihoods (such as our ironing man’s) depend on it. The phase-out can only be gradual.
Hand-wound record player
On the first day of 2025, I was in an electronics repair shop when the technician (who is an expert at servicing anything electrical or electronic) showed me this mechanical gramophone record player. A customer had handed it in for repairs. He showed me how to wind the mechanism. Listening to the music from this ancient relic gave me an indescribable, child-like thrill. I’m old enough that my earliest memories of music are of gramophone records and turntables.
His Master’s Voice logo
These analog encounters made me think of how much our lives are dominated by the screen. Digital books and digital music are convenient — magical even, in terms of the amount of information that can be packed into a hand-held device. But we don’t own the music we stream; we rent it. Nor do we own the ebooks we buy; we rent them (unless the publisher provides non-DRM downloads, which very few do). An ebook publisher that closed down last year offered the following clarification from its Terms and Conditions: “An important thing to understand regarding this situation is that ‘lifetime access’ refers to the lifetime of the product, not you. We are not obliged to provide access for 75 years, but to provide you with access, as long as the products exist.” This publisher at least made alternative arrangements with another publisher; most disappear without a trace. The rug may be pulled from under your feet anytime.
What we sacrifice for the convenience and power of streaming music and reading ebooks is our autonomy. What was earlier our own record, cassette, or CD collection is today a playlist on a server located on the other side of the globe. Maybe that partly explains why vinyl has been making a comeback recently: unambiguous ownership of physical goods, a personal collection to gloat over. Nothing can take the place of a pile of records and a shelf of books. Analog imperfections — the hisses and crackles of tape and vinyl — are proud badges of authenticity, like the non-uniformities of a hand-made shirt.
Are we — or some of us — tiring of the bland digitalization — read depersonalization — of the virtual world? We humans need to touch — and be touched by — not just our fellow humans but also the universe. This need has been hardwired into our DNA by evolution. No, the touchscreen does not count. And as I’m reminded very evening when I carry the ironing man’s iron indoors, his iron does.
It was a sweltering evening, and this coconut water vendor was a welcome sight. After drinking the coconut water, he cut away the coconut meat and served it to me in the coconut, with a spoon cut from the coconut.
Coconut meat
It was delicious!
Before paying him, I asked him where he gets his coconuts from. His answer surprised me: “Tamil Nadu.”
Bringing coconuts to Kerala, the land of coconuts, from Tamil Nadu? Wasn’t this like carrying coals to Newcastle? I asked him in Hindi (I could tell he was a migrant) why he didn’t buy them from here. He said all the coconuts here went to factories producing coconut oil.
Fresh treats like this are, I think, not easy to come by in the West. A German friend who arrived in Kochi wanted nothing more than fresh fruit juice. Apparently only processed juice was available in Germany. Why? Health concerns. I couldn’t take that seriously: nothing could be safer than coconut water drunk straight from the coconut.
The garden lizard is usually shy, scooting into the undergrowth at the slightest sign that it’s being observed. However, this is not the case in the breeding season, when it struts around like a king surveying its domain. The bright colors it wears during this period stand out, but it doesn’t care. This lizard (click on a photo to enlarge it) in my yard made eye contact without flinching as I watched it from a few feet away.
It was only when I took a few steps towards it that it moved, heading for camouflage among the flowerpots near the wall, its color changing to match the color of the pots. Once within easy reach of this sanctuary, it turned back. It looked intimidating, even a little demonic, with its blood-streaked face, baleful glare, and jet black legs.
I took a few more steps towards it and it leapt headlong into the flowerpots. Here, it seemed to relax, and I got the above charming portrait.
This is the fruit of the curry tree (Murraya koenigii), which grows in the yard. This colorful cluster has berries in various stages of ripeness (they become black when fully ripe). We also have another tree that is pruned regularly so that it doesn’t grow tall. This “domesticated” tree, unlike the “wild” free-growing tree, does not bear fruits, and its leaves are used as condiments in cooking.
According to our domestic help, who lives in a village and is knowledgeable about nature’s ways, the lizard was harming the shorter curry tree by biting off the succulent shoots at the tip of the branches. I examined the branches closely, and some of them did appear to have been decapitated by something sharp.
However, I doubt that the lizard is a threat to the tree. In fact, from what I’ve read, it eats pests like aphids that could harm the tree. And if it occasionally varies its diet with the shoots or leaves of the tree, I’m happy to share.
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