Lookin for the answer to all the questions in my life
Will I be alone, will you be there by my side?
Is it something you said? Is it something you did?
I wonder why..
Are you searchin for a reason to be kind…
I said…Pray for me Brother….

Every person has a story to tell - different stories that come from different experiences. Experiences that make us who we are. In the 11 months I’ve been in Lakshadweep, I can safely say that I’ve had many singularly unique moments that I hope will one day make great stories to tell the grandkids..

My work with the turtles and surveys on the beach are often interesting enough, but living alone in Lakshadweep is in itself something of a novelty for me…It’s scary to stay alone in a place when people tell you horror stories of leery men, thieves and rapists but it does give you the confidence to live a completely independent life..I never had that in Goa. It was true I left home, but I also had a roommate and a hostel full of friends..It was never too quiet for very long..People were always around for a good conversation in English. That’s something I don’t have here..not one person speaks marginally good English here so it gets a little lonely sometimes without someone to talk to or eat dinner with..

Besides the utter lack of company, I also have to buy my own stuff like vegetables and milk which isn’t easy to get. I have to wait for the ‘manjus’ or the cargo boats that ferry provisions and furniture from the mainland to the islands. There are no markets here of any sort and all the goods come directly to the few shops on the island that sell everything from groceries to easy chairs. So the system is I have to keep asking when the next boat arrives and make sure to give my veggie list to the provision shop one day in advance. If I miss it, I have to either wait for the next manju or try my luck at the three or four other stores on the island. But chances then are I would have probably missed the fresh stock. Milk is another problem. The cows here have a tendency to turn into beef pretty quickly so I have to resort to buying cartons of Goodlife. Having grown up on the taste of good ol’ south Indian fresh filter coffee, switching to semi-sweetened packaged milk sucks big time. I guess it’s just marginally better than milk powder though.

Also, since I’ve rented my own house here, I also have to make sure everything’s safe, clean, and properly maintained..Like the other day I had to replace the fan condenser in the office room (I never knew what the hell a condenser was till the day it stopped working). Needless to say the fan now works super fast and I am now just that much wiser on the functioning of fans. I guess I should have paid more attention in Unnikrishnan’s ‘Electrical Gadgets’ classes in school..maybe in between all the bad grammar and the ‘climate’ entering the classroom, there was a useful tidbit or two on household appliances that I missed….

A particularly nasty side to living alone though, as I recently discovered is that there’s no one to run screaming to when things turn a tad ugly (which it always does ONLY in the middle of the night when not a soul is around). The other day I had a mouse running around my house the other day and I called my owner lady to help me chase it out. After it was gone she donated this sticky book which is like a pad with really strong glue on it that attracts mice. I didn’t really want it but I couldn’t refuse the owner lady so I took it and left it lying around the kitchen instead of keeping it in my room near the hole where I figured the mouse actually lived. Unfortunately for me, the same night the stupid mouse actually got caught in the book in the kitchen and I cried my eyes out when I saw it. There was just nothing I could do or even think of doing. I couldn’t free it without hurting it. I couldn’t get rid of it. I couldn’t kill it mercifully. I had not a clue what to do and worse, had no one else to take care of it for me either (cause as I mentioned, stuff like this only happens on dark stormy nights when everyone is asleep)...Finally, after an understandably restless night, I called Shajahan the next morning and asked him to get rid of it. I don’t know what he did and I don’t want to know either. I also made him give the sticky book back as soon as possible..I’d rather feed the damn mice…stupid tiny lifeforms..I’m glad there was only that one mouse..I don’t think I’ll ever forget it..It’s not that I’m crusading for the SPCA or the PFA. It’s just that in this day and age, you’d think someone would come up with better forms of pest control than rat poison and sticky books..if anyone needs inspiration to find alternatives, all they’d need is a vision of one tiny pair of helpless beady eyes glistening in the darkness.

But as morbid as that experience was, there are some things that make living alone somewhat less than a nightmare. The most obvious is of course that you can have all the space and freedom that you want. I love that I can do what I want when I want and answer to no one…For example, I can prance around my house like a little gay elf and no one would even know..I have no one to call me a slob when I make a mess or call me a ‘Monica’ when I clean as much as I want to..I have no one to yell at me when I watch movies till two in the morning and leisurely sleep till 2 in the afternoon. I’ve learnt to deal with persistant problems like neighbourhood gossip, neighbourhood kids and since this is Lakshadweep, the neighbourhood livestock as well. (Imagine having to spend a good part of the morning chasing billy goats around the compound..it’s trickier than it looks but I guess it’s good exercise.) I now feel like nothing is beyond me. I can handle monthly bills, basic plumbing, grocery shopping, bicycle maintenance AND carry two things at the same time. Also, I’m a little pleased to report that after the great ‘Dal Disaster’ (see previous post), my cooking is at least shaping up (which means I’ve given up the instant foods and actually making stuff from scratch..its not great but its edible and I figure I can only go uphill from here).

Such as it is, single life in Lakshadweep no doubt poses a lot of new challenges, but I guess in the end, whether you’re in the middle of a metro or in the middle of the sea, there’s nothing like the experience of living alone…

And as Calvin’s father would say - ”It builds character”!