If I have to nominate one person from all of Lakshadweep to be Person of the Year, I’d pick my idiosyncratic cook Shajahan..No contest really...Its not so much the fact that he’s a eunuch, a half woman if you may, and has ‘boyfriends’, or even the fact that his cooking surpasses all conceivable adjectives (even the bad ones)…It’s who he Is.
A gazillion monkeys given infinite time would perhaps compose all of Shakespeare’s work but I’ll bet they wouldn’t even come close to scratching the surface of Shajahan’s mind. He is what he does and what he does is, well, pretty much anything! He’s not just unpredictable but his lack of logic is in itself so random that any bookie worth his salt I’m sure would commit hara-kiri rather than place the odds on Shajahan’s next move. Let’s just say Kasparov wouldn’t stand a chance if Shajahan ever took to chess.

I’ll never forget the day my colleague A and I first made Shajahan’s acquaintance. Shajitha chechi brought him over on the second day after our arrival to Agatti..He seemed to me at the time like such a paavam palli, with his lank frame and long arms, a timid soul in a lungi, who would jump if we even so much as sneezed in his effeminate presence. I remember thinking that if we were to ever have a ‘safe’ male cook in the islands we couldn’t have picked a better candidate - provided of course he didn’t have ‘lesbian’ tendencies (god forbid).

It was amusing at first – giving him instructions, watching him nod vigorously and then finding out later that none of them had been carried out. For example, if we told Shajahan that he had to make a vegetarian curry everyday, he’d do it that day and maybe the next, but beyond that his concept of “everyday” would fail him and he’d have to be told all over again. And it wasn’t just vegetarian curries of course. It was everything! We figured initially that it was just a communication gap that could easily be bridged. (We were so naïve). Anyway we had our local friend Sallu come in and tell him everything in malayalam but somehow that didn’t have any tangible effect. We figured it wasn’t a memory problem or an Attitude problem (hah). It was just..well..what I’d really like to call – The Shajahan Factor.

The Shajahan Factor is an abstract phenomenon. It is to this day mysterious, unquantifiable and unreseached. But it is definitely not to be underestimated.
It wasn’t just our three square meals a day that depended on it but Shajahan and his eccentricities extended from being a mere domestic challenge to becoming an everyday battle to preserve our very sanity! I cannot the count the number of times when he’s had us both stumped out of our senses over the most basic of household chores like bringing in drinking water everyday from the rainwater tank. He seemed to have something against doing it even though the tank is practically on our doorstep. As I mentioned, Shajahan’s grasp of the concept of ‘everyday’ is as it is rather weak, but supposing on top of that, he’d intentionally decided (for no apparent reason) that A and I didn’t need to drink any more water again therefore making the trip to the tank irrelevant, how did the man expect to cook anything if there wasn’t any clean drinking water? He was, after all a cook. Well, the thing about Shajahan is that when faced with such a self-made crisis, instead of doing the obvious, which is to step outside and get more water, he’d “improvise” and come up with an alternative without having to go outside. He’d just use water from the wash basin or sink, mostly use it unboiled and of course carefully make sure not tell us anything about the whole thing.
No ordinary human brain could even want to concoct such random problems in the first place not to mention, come up with equally bizarre solutions (that’s also unhygienic by the way)..But then again Shajahan is no ordinary being. And its not that he’s evil, lazy, or uncaring. He’s..well..He’s Shajahan! (ta daa). He is beyond Logic. He is beyond Reason. Somewhere in that conical head of his is a brain that can stump a million Freuds and a billion more Einsteins.

A more recent episode revealed Shajahan’s amazing mathematical abilities. When A’s husband stayed with us for a month in between, Shajahan would often make coconut dosa-pies for breakfast (don’t ask me what a coconut dosa-pie is, it tastes like what it sounds like and I sure as hell don’t want to know more). So anyway, he would make this pie thing on more than one occasion for us and every single time he would cut it up himself into exactly 10 pieces. For the three of us. It was a mystery who the 10th piece was for. Not him surely. Perhaps he thought A’s husband, being the ‘man of the house’, deserved an extra piece. There’s also a slight chance he did it to test OUR skills of division. Even then, how does one cut a circle into ten equal pieces anyway? I guess it’s obviously Shajahan’s style to cut things into an indivisible number of pieces but to make all the pieces precisely the same size. Mathematical genius, vindictive fiend or just a dumbass? I’ll never know..

Another famous characteristic of Shajahan is to indulge in underground bartering of our provisions with our neighbors. We supposedly know nothing about it. We only witness a kilo of our grapes disappearing mysteriously from the fridge (the bowl came back though) and sooner or later we’d have extra eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner when neither of us have bought any eggs at all. Or one half kilo of chicken we’d buy would last for a month. No matter how good he is at dividing food up, even Shajahan can’t make one chicken last that long. It’s not an openly apparent system of exchange however. Sometimes eggs borrowed today would result in an exchange (maybe) a few weeks or months later if there was any exchange at all. It remained a mystery but we trusted Shajahan. He’s not a criminal mastermind or a bootlegger..He’s…yep..you guessed it..He’s Shajahan.

I got another one. There was a time when Shajahan declared war on laundry. And as was the norm for him, it was entirely unprovoked and lacked all sense. He would just refuse to wash clothes but only on the Day we asked him to do it. On those days he would pull a long face and plead “tomorrow uh..please?”. Nonetheless, those ‘tomorrows’ would hold good enough and he’d promptly wash the whole load the next day, using an entire sachet for less than one bucket. (The clothes would be soapy but it would be washed.) It’s as if he required a whole day of mental psyching to just to tackle his evil nemesis - the plastic bucket. And then as quickly as the war had begun and we were just getting used to telling him about laundry one extra day in advance, he declared a truce and accepted whatever he had to do with as little as a shy nod of his head. It’s all we could do to keep from laughing hysterically at him.

Well..I guess Shajahan’s escapades will continue to entertain me, mystify me, haunt me and annoy me for as long as I’m here, but I am certain that when the time comes for me to leave the islands for good, I won’t just be taking memories of beautiful white sands and swaying palms, I will also be taking memories of that irrepressible enigma that is, after all, my darling ex-cook Shajahan.

This is actually a post-dated entry..a sort of journal entry I wrote last December when I'd just finished my scuba diving course...seeing as it's been one of the biggest highlights of my life in Lakshadweep so far, this blog would be incomplete without mention of it..


26th December 2006
Kavaratti Island, Lakshadweep


Today I am finally a certified PADI Open Water Scuba Diver. At the end of these 13 days, I leave the Dolphin Dive center, Kavaratti Island with a sense of satisfaction and warmth not to mention memories to last me for a long time to come..I have received training from one of the most professional dive masters in the country in one of the worlds most beautiful places. Since my training was sponsored by WII, the course didn’t cost me a cent but for the experiences I have had over the past two weeks, I would have gladly paid a fortune..I have made new friends and shared fascinating experiences on both land and underwater. I will especially never forget Chandru Uncle from the visiting ARSI Ham radio team that had come to set up a station in the Lakshadweep for the very first time...Such a wonderful old gentleman.. I’ll never forget all our lunchtime conversations under the shack at the Dive center. He told me once that normal people are prisoners of their own minds. They set their own boundaries and are forever confined by it. It’s the crazy people who really live life, grabbing it by the throat with their spirit and sense of adventure. I guess in that sense Chandru Uncle is self-admittedly as crazy as it gets..The things hes done..He's 70 years old but he’s driven his car from Bangalore to Malaysia, broken a record for operating the highest amateur radio station at 17800 feet, gone mountaineering, scuba diving, sailing ,wind surfing, visited more than 50 countries reaching as far as the Arctic Circle, and he’s still raring to go!..next stop.Manasarowar, Tibet and Beijing to watch the next Olympics..hes driving down of course..He wouldn’t have it any other way..oh and in the meantime, he's getting his pilot’s licence so he can fly down next year to get his Scuba diving certificate! He is definitely a treasure trove of knowledge, an intrepid traveler, inspirer.. but mostly..he’s just a grand old timer with a killer sense of humour..Today when we were discussing his many road trips, I asked him what he drives..and his instant reply was 'mostly himself crazy' . That’s Chandru Uncle in a nutshell..My dive instructor Shaukat Ali had a brainwave when he asked him to ‘present’ my course certificate to me. I considered it a blessing that I was truly fortunate to receive.

As for the diving itself, most people never forget their first dive and I’m no different. For my first dive at ‘The Wall of Wonder’ I did something I’ve always wanted to do (but I never imagined I’d do underwater). I stepped off a cliff and felt nothing beneath me..

Enveloped by the blue coolness of the ocean..watching the shimmering sunlit waves from beneath the surface..it was so surreal..Behind me was a wall exploding in a vibrancy of colour and form..with corals, sea fans and fishes of every imaginable shape and size..even an occasional green turtle swimming by..And beneath me, the seemingly bottomless depths disappearing in a haze of deep purple..Suffice to say..It took my breath away..I could hear Oasis’ ‘Wonderwall’ playing in my head…Without a doubt the dive was an adrenaline rush but it was also so much more..It felt like what I can best describe as a glimpse of “the other side”, clichéd as it may seem..but it seemed like like I had entered into an almost parallel dimension for the first time, one that not too many people have seen and the experience was in a sense transcendental if not spiritual..

My last dive was also one that I’m not likely to forget too soon..it was a Drift dive which means we were diving in a strong current. We were visiting ‘Turtle’s Nest’ where a hundred turtles both green turtles and hawksbills congregate to rest, and perhaps breed..Carried by the current, I literally felt like I was flying underwater watching interesting creatures seldom seen, pass me by..As if the hundred turtles, the steely-eyed barracudas and strange-looking bat fish weren’t enough, a rare pod of playful spinner dolphins raced by just as we were surfacing..Something tells me (and its not just my instructor) that it’ll be a snowy day in the Sahara before I get to have a dive like that again..

At the end of this course, I guess I can say with every certainty that there is no singular experience on this planet even remotely as unique as scuba diving. To me, it’s been incredibly gratifying not just because it’s what I’ve always wanted to do, but the feeling of entering into another world and catching a glimpse of the spectacular beauty of Lakshadweep’s underwater life is something that I am truly grateful to have not missed in this lifetime..

The wind howled fiercely as she walked amidst the raging sands, unmindful of the sharp stings that bit at her ankles. Her scarf was blown back over her face and she suddenly smelt the salty sea air that was now tinged with the chill of the monsoon trades. She walked on, determined to succeed in her quest that night. Focusing her attention on the thin beam of light that emanated from the battered torch she held in her hand, she searched the sands for traces of markings that her quarry had left behind. She knew that they had been there just hours before and she had to keep her eyes from straying to her destination that was dimly marked by a row of lights on the horizon in front of her.

She had walked many miles that night and had as yet found nothing. Disappointed, she had allowed her thoughts to wander along the last half mile and she smiled as she remembered pleasant memories of a conversation she had had two years ago over coffee in one of the popular coffee chains overlooking the Miramar beach in Goa. She remembered his smile as he told her of the one he loved before and laughed as she thought of the subtle twinkle in his eye. She would never forget those eyes and she silently dreamt of the time they had spent together that week. A coarse male voice bellowing behind her suddenly brought her back to her senses and she realized the voice belonged to her field assistant, Najmudheen. He had begun to chatter incessantly to her in his native tongue as was his habit during these long nocturnal jaunts and she listened half amused at his opinions on fellow islanders, local events, and more serious warnings of demons and ghosts that he feared haunted the beaches they were tramping on. Her mind was only half attentive to his admonitions as she thought instead of her quest at hand.

She thought of her elusive quarry which was known to frequent these shores in the dead of the night while the rest of the world slept ignorant of their visits. The beasts came with a purpose. And she of all people knew how difficult each trip was to them. Battling swirling currents and jagged rocks on the outer reef, the giants spent a great deal of effort to reach the glistening white sands of the island. Once they heaved themselves on the wet sands, their task, only just beginning, was to get to a discreet spot beneath the vegetation that grew wildly beyond the sand dunes. Each had their own spot in the dense brush and it was a mystery how they located it each year like a beacon. Once deep inside the bush, they would proceed to scoop great mounds of sand from around them and fashion gigantic pits from which they would go on to scoop out a further smaller pit. In this they would then lay over a hundred small white eggs loosely bound by a thin layer of colourless mucilage, each glistening sphere withholding a priceless treasure of life unborn. Once their secret nests were laid, the animals would then cover the hole with such remarkable skill that even to an observer who had witnessed the whole event, it would be impossible to pinpoint the exact location of the precious eggs. The whole process usually took over three quarters an hour and remembering the fact, she hurried incase some of the beasts had remained, struggling to dig holes in the billowing sands that blew wildly that night.

She was right as she found one such exhausted female a little distance away, slowly returning to the sea, her clutch of eggs still nestled within her humongous frame. She ran to the female and urged her assistant to hurry and give her the instruments she would need. She glanced at the Government warden who had accompanied them and for a second contemplated his role in the affair. She was not entirely satisfied by his presence but he was obliged to be there and she had no alternative but to shrug and ask him to hold the torch for her. As the field assistant frantically turned his ragged bag inside out for the tools, she took a moment to gaze at the creature before her. Covered with sand and misshapen scales, the giant was the beauty of nature expressed in its most ancient and primeval form. She stared as the large animal took another heave towards the waves. She knew she had to stop it from proceeding any further. She had work to do and could not do it if the female got into the water. As she was about to yell to her assistant, she caught a glimpse of the creature’s tired eye and for a moment hesitated. Thoughts swam in her head on tagging principles, pain that was equated to only that of ear-piercing and the usefulness of tagging data to conservation of sea turtles. But it seemed to fade into obscurity as she watched the nesting turtle make its steady way back to its domain under the turquoise sea, its purpose of being unfulfilled that night. She knew it would certainly return another night making the same journey across the perilous sea and she suddenly thought of her own life and the ‘breakers’ she had faced over the last two years. The giant reptile’s resilience, in a way, mirrored her own. She stood still for a moment and made up her mind. She walked over to the frantic Najmudheen and reached into the bag to help him find the two metal tags. As her fingers felt their way between the objects in the darkness, she could see out of the corner of her eye, the turtle inching its way back into the surf. She smiled as she thought of the two tags safe in her pocket and turned resignedly to the Warden who stood meekly on her right. “Oh well” she said, “There’s always next time”…


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This was a semi-fictional story I wrote in my head when I was once on a really boring survey. The only part that was true was the strong wind and the billowing sands. We didn’t see any tracks nor did we see any turtles. Oh and if I HAD seen a turtle that night, I would have definitely tagged it. I’m not that sentimental. Besides my boss would have kicked my ass if I’d let it go. :)
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Since I haven’t yet mentioned anything about my work here, I guess this is a good time to give you a taste of my nocturnal “adventures” on the beaches of Agatti..Part of my project involves regular surveys at night to track, measure and tag nesting sea turtles that come ashore to lay their eggs..Now walking on tropical beaches on moonlit nights is sure romantic as hell but there are times when I get a whole lot more than I bargained for…

One of the more memorable surveys I’ve had was one in the middle of June at the start of the southwest monsoon. I’d been surveying with both Najmudheen and Lateef and we had almost finished the isolated south side of the island and we were just nearing the resort on the western side when the wind suddenly picked up speed to about 60 km/h in less than a minute. This wasn’t surprising, given that it was monsoon so we just started walking faster but almost instantaneously, before we could prepare for it, the rains broke. I say “rain” but that is possibly the grossest understatement to describe the fury that descended on us that night. Within seconds we were drenched from head to foot. But there’s nothing extraordinary about getting wet in the rain. What really blew my mind that night was watching the downpour. It felt like we were in the front row seats of an Imax theatre screening a documentary on “Worlds Most Dramatic Storms”, only there was no giant plexiglass screen separating us from the scene itself. With no shelter in sight, we had made a dash for the nearest coconut tree on the beach. The scraggly tree offered as much protection as a doughnut but it was an excellent vantage point to view up-close the stunning visual effects of a furious monsoon shower lashing a tiny island in the middle of an incredibly violent sea. Witnessing thunder, lightning and torrents of rain hit 3 measly square kms of land was quite a sight. The wind was so strong that the trees lining the shore were practically bending at right angles. It was almost like watching a wildly primitive dance to the rhythm of 5-foot tall waves crashing on the sands nearby…While I was busy appreciating this spectacle of nature, my intrepid assistant Latheef had been busy appreciating his own restlessness and had decided to explore our options. He set off armed with one torch to find us a safe route to escape to the bike shed and he came back after a couple of minutes to report that we should make a break for it. So we did. Tumbling, tripping and scrambling over fallen bits of trees, we fled along in a mad dash to the road until we abruptly ran into a wire fence that blocked our path. Having no other choice, we started to run along it and luckily after about 50 meters we found a gap which we squeezed through and made it to the road. Getting wetter and wetter by the second, we ran as fast as we could toward the bikes, blinded by the wind and rain. I think Latheef even lost a slipper on the way. Anyway just about 10 yards before we reached the bikes, the rain suddenly stopped and the wind just died down in an instant. Just like that, it was all over. I couldn’t stand the irony. It was as if Mother Nature just turned off the machine and sat around inspecting her nails as if she’d done nothing spectacular just minutes before.. Looking back I know we didn’t see any nesting turtles on that survey…but I’ll be damned if I call that night disappointing….

Another survey that I can never forget was the one on which I tagged my first green turtle. This was also during the monsoon. Accompanied by Latheef and the very reluctant environment warden Thaha, we were just getting to the end of the airport circuit when we came across a bunch of fresh tracks that by the looks of it had been made by turtles that we had just missed. But we were lucky. As we walked further, we saw one turtle at the end which was just inching into the surf. Thaha and I saw it at the same time. We ran towards it and I must say. I have never been more surprised at the oddities of human nature than when I saw Thaha himself manhandle the turtle onto its back! Let me mention at this point that this man is 5’7” and weighs no more than 53 kilos. Such enthusiasm I could only later attribute towards his resolution on tagging a turtle at any cost that night given the effort he had spent in coming for the survey in the first place. It had been a particularly windy night but I can’t cancel surveys in the monsoon because of wind and rain (duh!) and his only problem as far as I could see was his lungi tending to fly off. But that certainly didn’t warrant the amount of cribbing I had to put up with all through the survey. Plus since I was short one field assistant I had counted on Thaha even if it meant a lot of coaxing on my part. I guess seeing that one turtle was reward enough in the end. Anyway, back to our turtle…Amidst much chaos and confusion and flipperfuls of wet sand and seawater being thrown in our general direction by the rather indignant turtle, we finally managed to get it on its back after which tagging the huge thing was almost anti-climactically, a piece of cake. Overturning turtles doesn’t really harm the turtle but it does make a ruckus trying to right itself. So after I was done, I was once again amazed and spellbound as Thaha singlehandedly overturned the turtle back onto its stomach. That man displays the fastest personality changes I’ve ever seen not to mention mysterious sources of superhuman strength. Anyway once we had managed to get its size measurements and track width, we let the turtle go and collapsed on the sands after it disappeared, laughing at our state and the craziness that we had just been a part of. We did look comical with wet sand and sea water plastered all over us. We eventually got around to collecting the various odds and ends that we had thrown about in our excitement, like the torch that we found rolling in the waves nearby but surprisingly still worked (it still does to this day), the tag record book, the applicator, all scattered in every direction. Finally, just as we were ready to leave, I realized that my jacket was open and my shirt was visibly wet inside. But it wasn’t my modesty I was worried about. I was worried that my expensive new cellphone which I’d kept in my shirt pocket, was also, inevitably wet. I got so panicky that I didn’t even notice the steady droplets of water that were starting to fall around me. The almost instantaneous downpour that followed however did catch my attention and I started to run like a hare or more precisely, like a bat outta hell, madly, wildly, and blindly towards some semblance of shelter. The rain was so thick I couldn’t see one foot away from my face and I ran in what I hoped was a straight line to the hut owned by the Bangaram Resort that was about 200 metres away. Unfortunately for me, I did not in fact keep to a straight line and found myself 3 minutes later rather unpleasantly in the middle of a carpet of Spinifex bushes, which as the name suggests, refers to a plant with viciously sharp needles. I think that alarmed me more psychologically than physically because I was still thinking of my 12-grand cell phone quietly absorbing water in my shirt pocket. Almost berserk with panic by then, I ran to a nearby building belonging to the airport instead of the aforementioned hut that now evilly stood on the other side of the Spinifex patch (ahh the cruel illusions of blind panic). Anyway I ran to this airport building and clung to its northern wall as there was no way of getting inside. I was partly protected from the rain there anyhow and removed my cellphone from my pocket. Then I realized that I hadn’t one square inch of dry surface on me to wipe away the water so I finally had to resort to rubbing my palms on the cement wall to get them dry. But my relief was only short-lived. I noticed that in my mad haste I had dropped almost everything else that I had been carrying – my rainpants, record book, hands-free and wotnot..After a while, Lateef came by and since it had stopped raining for a bit we went to look for the hands-free. I actually dint know at the time what exactly I had been carrying but the missing hands-free I distinctly remembered dropping. But it was like looking for a needle in a sand dune and we gave up soon enough. When we finally went back to the Bangaram hut we found Thaha there. And the man managed to surprise me a third time by handing me one by one all the objects I had dropped – even the rain pants! The sudden downpour had caught him and Latheef too but they hadn’t run and Thaha had even picked up after me! It was all I could do to keep from hugging the man. Needless to say, I didn’t. I am, however, not ungrateful and I now remain ever so slightly inclined to restrain myself from making fun of him when he offers me lame excuses for not coming on further surveys. I guess he needs all the time he can get to recover from ‘the excitement of tagging turtles’.
:)

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”!