Kochi

This thriving West Coast city is the final stop on our India expedition, which now, in near-retrospect, feels to have been a whirlwind tour. We have indeed explored more parts of this vast and diverse country in three-plus weeks than any other expedition we know about. We have also, it seems clear, seen much more of India than most Indians will ever see -- a humbling notion.

Before leaving, my research on India revealed that there are many "official" languages in this nation. (The number ranged from about 11 to 17 depending on source.) We availed to learn some Hindi before arriving here, which was quite challenging but helpful. It turns out that those many languages are street realities, and Hindi is not much used in the places we've most recently been. It is Tamil that carries the news across Puducherry, and Malayalam is what you hear here on the southwest coast. This is in stark contrast to my experiences across Latin America, where relatively subtle variants of Spanish are spoken across thousands of miles of turf. Another of India's unique features, I surmise, is that despite centuries of foreign domination, the local communities in some key ways managed to hold their own.

Kochi is a fishing and port town, historically, and it shows the influences of many traders and invaders. This has long been a spice export hub; Kochi has a notable Portugese historical presence, and there is an ancient synagoge here that we hope to see today. Reputedly Judaism arrived in Kochi before it arrived in Europe; the synagoge is located in a neighborhood universally referred to as Jew Town. The icon of the Kochi of today is a huge, spindly, hand-powered Ancient-Chinese-style fishing net in the foreground, with a vast container ship steaming into harbor in the background.

This town seems breezier than Puducherry, though that could just be the current weather. In any case, the heat and humidity seem better mitigated by an onshore prevailing wind than they were on the east side of the subcontinent. Yesterday we took a Keralan-style boat ride through some of the back-channels that comprise this extended estuary. Dozens of rivers flow out of the Western Ghat mountain range to form a vast network of small waterways lined with minimalistic homes, dugout canoes, fishing villages, and other people-powered enterprises. We saw a koir facility where palm fibers are woven into mats, shell-collecting and grinding operations for supplying some kind of paint industry, and -- most stark of all human-powered endeavors -- dredging, done by diving with a basket and bringing sand up to a dugout canoe, for sale to concrete manufacturers.

This seems a fitting end to our journey, paradoxical as are so many things Indian, as we are staying in a quite nice hotel (showers!) in a rather run-down neighborhood, in intense heat that is eased by the ocean breeze, and relaxed enough to take time to write but with a busy itinerary about to begin. The students seem to be managing the paradoxes, as they are surely all looking forward to home, yet working to stay receptive to the immediate. Without doubt, much of what is to be learned from this overwhelming endeavor will take time to manifest.

Again, as a welcome surge of coastal air sweeps this open-air Internet space, I once again feel deep gratitude for this awesome opportunity and all who made it possible.