Dear Chechis and Chettas,
Since I was a child my wife Aliyah has been telling me to take her to Kodaikanal. I am not exaggerating. We were not married that time, in case you are wondering. She was my neighbour in Champakulam village, Alleppey district, and we also went to the same school. Now you must be thinking that we were in the same class also. No. At least not always. But I failed twice and then we were in the same class. Then I failed again and she went one class ahead. After that I decided to stop studying and started helping my father in his houseboat business. That also came to an end after I accidentally sank the houseboat by loading too many jackfruit belonging to Aliyah’s father. I had thought of impressing him by offering him free shipping for his jackfruit harvest to Kumarakom. You see, most of the time these houseboats are rented by couples and there is plenty of extra room. He challenged me that my houseboat was not strong enough and therefore I was not good enough. In case you are wondering what happened to the couple, don’t worry. They rejected the houseboat because of too much jackfruit smell.
You must also be wondering what is so great about Kodaikanal. I seriously don’t know. Aliyah also does not know. All she knows is that some movie shootings used to happen there and actresses would roll down the hills laughing, followed by Jeetendra in white clothes. She wanted to try it once to understand how rolling down a hill can be fun. She also says that it might bring the spark back into our marriage. If she wanted spark she should have married a welder, not a grocer. I don’t know who gave her the idea that rolling down the hills would cause sparks. I am not a scientist but I know this much that earth is a poor conductor of electricity. After all I spend three years in the same class with the same physics text book.
Well, we reached Kodaikanal and tried to look for some hills where rolling was possible. Our cab driver suggested we go to Pillar Rocks which were 400 ft tall and would provide distance for rolling. And since there were two of them, my wife and I could have one each. We could even have a contest on who reaches the bottom of the hill first. The approach road to Pillar Rocks was choked with vehicles, indicating that rolling was a popular activity and we were not alone in our quest. In fact I was now getting concerned that if there were too many people, we would have to share the hill. What if some fat person decided to roll after me crushed me with their weight? My fears were short lived, for the moment we saw Pillar Rocks, our reaction was –
I confronted our cab driver on why he thought rolling down from pillar rocks was a viable option. He said there must have been some misunderstanding. He thought we wanted to commit suicide together and since the government had erected barriers at the original suicide point, this would be the next best alternative. I explained to him clearly what we wanted to do, by showing him a HD quality Youtube video of Jeetendra rolling down the gentle slopes of a grassy hill and surviving.
Aah! Thambi, now I know what you mean. But this video was shot in Ooty. This is Kodaikanal.
– Cab driver with clarity
I took him to the side and told him to speak softly. If Aliyah heard that all the rolling was happening in Ooty, she would be very sad. We had exhausted all our vacation budget and there was no way we could go to Ooty now. Besides I cannot trust Rickshaw Rowdy to manage my shop for more than 3 days. God knows how many customers he has turned away already. The cabbie told us about another place called Sheep Farm where we could roll as much as we wanted as long as we could tolerate a mix of dung from horses, rabbits and sheep on our clothes. Sounded reasonable. You can’t have it all your way. So off we drove to Sheep Farm, and again came across a traffic jam. It was amazing how many people were ok with dung on their clothes, just for the rolling experience – kids, old people, disabled people, everyone standing in queue to get some dung. I didn’t know whether to feel embarrassed that so many people were going to watch us rolling in dung or feel relaxed that we were not the only ones doing it.
The moment of truth had arrived. I looked at Aliyah who was a looking a bit lost about the whole thing.
Fruity, what are we looking at here?
“Look dear, this place belongs to sheep, horses and rabbits. We are guests here. We should be thankful that they are allowing us to roll on their premises. Don’t expect them to clean up the place for you.”
“You have completely lost your mind. Why would we roll in dung?”
“Ok we can try out another place with no dung.”
“Awww shuddup Fruity. Why would we roll at all??”
“But Aliyah dear, you have been telling me since childhood that you want to roll in the hills of Kodaikanal like Jeetendra and his heroines.”
“What nonsense? When did I ever say that? I am not even a fan of Jeetendra! I have not watched a single movie of his!”
“But Aliyah darling, on a full moon night when I was 16 years old and you were 14 years old, you said it was your dream to roll down the hills. You even said that your sister Nusrat teased you about this all the time.”
“I have no sister named Nusrat. What are you talking about Fruity? Maybe you were meeting someone else that night. Who was it Fruity? Tell me who was it?”
This was a very stressful moment for me and a crazy amount of thoughts were crossing my brain. Why were we in Kodaikanal if we were not rolling? Whom did I meet that full moon night when I was 16 years old? Who is Nusrat? What am I going to tell Aliyah now? I felt like plunging head first into the grass and disappearing into the foothills, into the flock of sheep grazing there and becoming their dinner.
Providential hand came to my rescue and I managed to live by being dumped in the Kodaikanal municipality bin, which was infinitely better than being rolled into a lake full of opportunistic crocodiles pretending to be your friends.