Bollywood by the lake

BY ANDREW TAYLOR

It's hard to imagine a less-glamorous movie debut. Shirt soaked, forehead glowing like a piece of chicken tikka, my leading-man looks have sadly evaporated under the blazing sun of a Kerala morning. I doubt Brad Pitt would cope any better without hair, make-up and a punka-wallah to fan away the oppressive heat between scenes of the Bollywood film I've stumbled into after an early-morning meander through Fort Cochin.

But then, the star of the Tamil-language Suzhal, Anoop Aravindan, has to mop his own sweaty brow as he waits for the director to script his latest co-stars.

Sadly, there's no dancing. Instead, we're pretending to be tourists wilting under the ferocious sun as Anoop's character, a detective, shoots passers-by with his long-lens camera.

From "action" to "cut" is more like 15 seconds than the 15 minutes required for fame but my overacting gets the thumbs up from the star as he strides across Church Road.

A former badminton champion, Anoop towers above Suzhal's cast and crew. He also has ear lobes so big it's a wonder they don't attract the attention of the nearest mahout.

"It is very hot here, no?" he says, eyeing my sweaty face. "The fat will shed off."

There's an idea for Kerala's tourist board to explore: surgery-free, weight-loss tours to the southern tip of India. If the dodgy water doesn't melt your spare tyre, the pre-monsoon heat will.

And you stand a good chance of scoring a part in a Bollywood extravaganza; later that day, I spot two other vans carrying posters for different films. Our host at the delightfully airconditioned Malabar House Hotel, Joerg Drechsel, tells us the Fort is a popular setting for films.

After inviting us to join the film crew for lunch, Anoop lopes off to the

17th-century David Hall, named Rose Villa in the film, to commit a murder.

I offer to play the corpse. "You could do that but you'd have to be there for 30 days," Anoop bats back.

There's another murder in the air as squawking crows flap across the sky, chasing a lone blue kingfisher from the limbs of one of the rain trees that shelter Cochin's dusty roads from the monsoon.

Cochin, Kochi (as it was renamed by Hindu nationalists) or COK, as it is rudely abbreviated by airlines, has long been a magnet for visitors of all colours, creeds and waist sizes.

Claiming prime real estate on the slender finger of land between the Arabian Sea and Lake Vembanad, the Fort has been settled, invaded and sweated in by the Chinese, Arabs, Jewish, Portuguese, Dutch and the British.

It's also popular among learner drivers, if the number of driving schools is any guide, including the nun speeding past Koder House, a 19th-century mansion built in Europe and shipped to Cochin to be the family home of one of the city's prominent Jewish families.

The Jubilee driving school's white Ambassador shudders in protest as the sister careers around the corner of Nehru Park, scattering hawkers, children and the odd goat before coming to a halt.

The nun isn't the only novice driver on the streets of Fort Cochin. A convoy of brightly coloured rickshaws - one painted like a New York taxi, another like Simba the lion - splutters and wheezes around the Parade Ground before easing into the grounds of the United Club.

All the drivers are Western tourists, including aspiring Sydney tuk-tuk wallah Andy, taking a crash course in subcontinental driving before embarking on a 3000-kilometre charity rally to Kathmandu.

It makes my earlier one-handed bike riding, without a helmet, seem much less a death wish.

Fort Cochin is undoubtedly kind to cyclists but punishes late risers, with a cacophony of barking dogs, squawking birds and honking horns ruining any attempt to sleep after sunrise. The Parade Ground is already dusty with children playing cricket and soccer when my travelling partner, Susan, and I wobble off on one of Malabar House's sturdy bikes. Swerving to avoid a well-struck cricket ball, I discover my bike's brakes are decorative rather than functional.

Never mind. At this hour, there are hardly any speeding trucks, buses, rickshaws or lazy cows that refuse to move their sacred haunches on the roads. Potholes are few and far between and the sun is yet to fire up as we bump along Ridsdale Street, past St Francis, India's oldest church and the initial burial place of Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama.

There's a lot of God-bothering in Kerala, which is hardly surprising in a place calling itself "God's own country". Drivers pin their Christian, Muslim or Hindu masts to the back of their buses, prows of fishing boats or on their tuk-tuk dashboards. Admittedly, Cochin's Jewish population thought otherwise, having almost all left in 1948 when the state of Israel was formed.

God, however, shares Kerala with Karl Marx. As Drechsel drolly observes: "We've developed everything, despite the mosquitoes and red flags."

But while Maoist insurgents bomb trains in northern India during my visit, Kerala's communist government seems content with encouraging people to wear a handloom sari at least once a week in an effort to help local weavers.

The local textile industry is also kept busy making Soviet flags, which outnumber the Indian flag's Ashoka Chakra on the streets of Cochin.

The only thing more ubiquitous than the hammer and sickle is the Tata logo, which appears on trucks, buses, cars, ceramics, water filters, phones, salt, shovels, travel agencies and hotel walls.

The only thing Mr Tata isn't into appears to be underwear, which is catered to by the House of V-Star, proud purveyor of "vest, brief and trunks" and, for the ladies, "bra, panty and hoses".

Back at the beach, the air is pungent with ginger, cinnamon and cardamom - fitting, given that Kerala is the only place in the world where spices are still traded as stocks. It's also thick with the rather less-romantic smells of burning plastic, rotting vegetables and manure.

Pushing our bikes along the seawall, we're soon followed by a ragtag army of hawkers trying to flog percussion instruments, postcards and plastic toy tuk-tuks.

If that's not enough to remind us we're tourists, a man sporting Merv Hughes's moustache stops in front of me and hisses: "You want marijuana?" I decline (yes, really) and instead accept an invitation from a couple of fishermen to hop over the rubbish-strewn beach and board one of Cochin's famous "Mongoloid fishing nets". That's how the fisherman, who introduces himself as Simon Mandela, labels the teak-wood and bamboo contraption, which resembles an enormous catapult. We're soon hauling the fishing net up and down (for a price, we later find out).

We tootle back to our hotel along streets lined with flame trees, frangipani, coconut palms and tamarind trees.

Street signs are written in English, Hindi and Malayalam, whose voluptuous alphabet looks like a parade of bosoms and bottoms.

A motorbike carrying five people bumps past us, putting us to shame when two of us grunt and groan into the back of a tuk-tuk to explore Mattancherry Palace, the dusty, dishevelled home of the last king of Cochin (he's now an accountant).

Next door, in Jew Town, is the oldest synagogue in south Asia, paved with 1100 exquisitely painted tiles from China and hung with enough chandeliers to dazzle Liberace. The synagogue tower has three clock faces, one each in Hebrew, Roman and Malayalam.

Meanwhile, my fellow traveller's curves are winning fans among the shopkeepers of Jew Street.

"Hey, you're beautiful," one man tells Terri. Another whistles appreciatively. They ignore me.

Desperate for some aircon, we drop into a sari shop where two charming saleswomen try to convince me that one of their beautiful hand-woven saris won't make my backside look big.

Celebrity chef Nimmy Paul is certainly not taking responsibility for my spreading girth.

Invited to her home, where she holds cooking classes, Nimmy serves us an afternoon tea of khatti rolls, potato bunda and lemon cake, while gently emasculating her husband, Paul Paul. Asked how she became Cochin's answer to Jamie Oliver, she shoots back: "I had to go back to work. He wasn't earning enough money."

The formidable Nimmy, whose son can barely manage to boil water or toast bread, also tells us she stores spices in the fridge, favours sunflower oil over coconut oil and prefers a simple vegetarian meal when the mercury rises. However, she adds: "I don't want to be known as cooking a shoestring menu."

Our guide, Abe, takes issue with Nimmy's spice storage solutions and preference for sunflower oil, though, tellingly, he isn't brave enough to say that to her face.

After Nimmy's fiery opinions, a sunset cruise on Lake Vembanad holds the refreshing promise of a sea breeze and an icy-cold beer.

To our collective horror, we discover the MV Aquilo has sailed back to the Prohibition era, thanks to a government crackdown on sunset booze cruises. As we round Bolghatty Island, home to an 18th-century royal palace that is now a government hotel run along Basil Fawlty lines, the ban on grog seems less unreasonable.

Traffic on the lake is as hectic as any Indian road; freighters, ferries, dolphins and tourist boats jostle for space. The Arabian Queen, in particular, proves to be a pushy miss, barging across our prow for prime viewing position as the sun turns yellow, orange and then a nuclear pink as it sinks into the Arabian Sea.

Not long after, it pushes past again as our captain tries to give us an iconic photo opportunity by aligning the Chinese fishing nets in front of the setting sun. Instead, I get a partial eclipse of the sun caused by the giant hairy belly of a tourist on board the Arabian Queen.

THREE THINGS TO DO

1. Kathakali theatre, with its extravagant costumes and plots worthy of a soap opera, can be experienced at Kerala Kathakali Centre, K. B. Jacob Road, Fort Cochin. Learn how to express joy, anguish and horror with a raising of an eyebrow and pursing of the lips. Music, dance and martial-arts performances and classes are also offered.

2. Stock up on saris or have shirts and strides made to measure by one of the many tailors lining Princess Street, their shopfronts framed by bolts of brightly coloured fabric and creaking sewing machines.

3. Combine art and eating at Kashi Art Cafe, housed in a charming Dutch row house, Burgher Street, Fort Cochin.

TRIP NOTES

Variously home to spice traders, tea traders and bankers, the 18th-century Malabar House is an attractive boutique heritage hotel filled with beautiful art and blissfully cool aircon, in Fort Cochin. It has an ayurvedic kalari massage centre, restaurant and a wine lounge.

Wildlife Safari has custom-designed tours to India.

Nimmy's Kitchen: Sample Nimmy Paul's "tongue-tickling pickles" and listen to her frank views on what foods to eat as the pre-monsoon heat rises. Acclaimed Sydney chef Christine Manfield is a fan of Nimmy's fragrant home cooking.

Laid-back Cochin is one of the most child-friendly cities in India. From watching, or better still joining, an early morning game of soccer on the Parade Ground to buzzing around town in a tuk-tuk, Cochin is a great way to experience India's sights and sounds for the first time.

If you time your visit right, you'll see richly decorated elephants parading the streets to the cacophony of drums, or cheer on snake boats ploughing across the harbour.

The streets of Fort Cochin are not crowded with traffic and you can take in its many historical sights on foot or bicycle - the Chinese fishing nets, churches and Dutch colonial architecture - and enjoy the heady aroma of ginger, cardamom, cumin, turmeric and cloves. And if the heat gets too much, you can find a roadside cafe selling coconut juice or sultry Indian snacks to train your kids' taste buds.

Further information cochin-tourism.info.

* The writer was a guest of Singapore Airlines, Wildlife Safari and Banyan Tours.

- © Fairfax NZ News