Golden Sunsets and Silences
I went home, to Kerala, for a week, to spend some golden moments with my family.
On one of those halcyon days, we went to Kanya Kumari, and on the way back, we drove to a Resort my brother’s friend had recommended. It was a long drive, and the road went meandering in between paddy fields, villages with only two houses, towns with ten houses and a couple of shops, and larger towns. We got lost a couple of times and had to retrace our way, but nobody minded much.
Then we reached a jetty, and since my brother had taken the trouble to book in advance, we had a special ferry boat awaiting our arrival, and we got in, put on the mandatory life jackets, and sat on the seats, and the boatman started the boat.
For 25 minutes, on that evening, we traveled towards the setting sun, on the backwaters, fringed by mangroves on both shores. Imagine this: there is no noise except the muted sound of the boat, sleepy birds going home to roost and calling out a last goodbye to their friends, and some, more energetic than the others, swooping down to snatch at moving food. And a golden path, on the lazily curling wavelets, leading from the boat to the sun. Beyond a sandbank, as we turned a corner, all of a sudden, the crash of waves, Yes, it was the sea. We were all silent. Words were unnecessary. And from every heart there arose a silent prayer of gratitude and thankfulness for the chance of being able, even momentarily, to be part of this Paradise.
The Resort, called Poovar island Resort, was on an island, on the backwaters. ‘Aar’ means ‘river’ in Malayalam, and ‘poov’, is flower. Just like Munnar, which means the region of three rivers.
When we reached the Resort, we were completely unprepared for what we saw there……
©️ 2021 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.
This, is what we saw:
