I was fed rice and coconut noodles and yummy aloo mutter for breakfast, then Ajeesh showed me how to plant out cardamom seedlings. He took me on his motorbike to the nearby government Cardamom Research Institute. Despite being a random tourist, I was introduced to the director and shown the lab in which 4 research students were working.
Ajeesh then took me to see his friend, a keralan martial arts instructor. This man told me that a buddhist priest took the idea of martial arts to Japan, whence Karate and Kung Fu evolved. I have no opinion on the matter.
We had lunch - boiled kapa (tapioca) with mango and onion pickle - at a toddy shop. Sorry but toddy (coconut-milk wine) is still not to my taste. The sweet pickle contrasted yummily with the slightly cheesy taste of the tapioca.
On the way back, Ajeesh stopped at a house where a friend of his (a woman lieutenant-colonel in the Indian Army Medical Corps) was visiting her family. This woman was very different to every other Indian woman I'd met so far: outgoing and ballsy! Her sister showed me a paper she's submitted to a holistic education journal.
We also stopped for chai and bananas at a stall run by yet another of Ajeesh's friends. Ajeesh showed me where his sister (Ajitha) and her eco-development committee had planted grass to stabilise a river-bank. This scheme has caught on and now people all along this river have followed suit.
He also told me how he and his family ended up living where they now do. His father owned a logging company and an employer illegally harvested some sandal-wood (the trees are rare so it is a protected government monopoly). His father got off quite lightly (he could have been banged up for 12 years along with the employee) but the fine, combined with the cost of Ajitha's dowry, forced them to sell their big house in Nedumkandam. Hence they ended up living in an unfinished house, albeit in a beautiful location.
I can see that despite the lack of weather-proofing, glazing and intact roof, it's a houase full of love for each other, their local community and the planet. It's possible I couldn't have been in a nicer place and it's certain that Kerala is screamingly beautiful in many ways.
© (except the blatantly ripped-off bits) Random Bozo 2006