The weekends made me restless. Tired by the constant job/joblessness, we needed some break. It was a make or break situation and at last we decided to take a trip to the backwaters in Alleppey district of Kerala.

It was a beautiful Sunday morning. The cab came at the right time at 0530 hrs. Not used to such early rising, especially on a Sunday. Somehow, jumped out of the bed, dressed up and got ready. Is it drizzling?? No, wonderful !!! Some respite from the monsoon showers. One of our companions had a problem and missed the trip, later on regretted for missing it, but the team of ten was enough to have good fun on the trip.

Faces tensed up by constant work pressure, eased up and soon we were playing games in the cab. Antakshari with songs from Hindi, Tamil, and Malayalam did rounds and I thought I was the only one who knew so many songs. After a nice breakfast we continued travelling. The place of our resort was confusing and we were seen searching for the place ending up everywhere else. At last we had to depend on a guide to take us to the resort.

He took us through a place what appeared to be a footpath. Great …good natural feeling. Then came a vehicle ahead of us and we were stuck. Finally we decided to walk. After walking for fifteen minutes, we reached our destination. It was an exotic place perfectly blend with the surroundings. Initially I thought I was inside a ‘Nalu Kettu’ (a four layered ancestral house in Kerala) but the sight of a “Reception” confirmed that it was a resort indeed.

Traditional mouthwatering mango shake was the welcome drink and soon we knew we are at the right place to unwind. The ladies were more interested in photo shoots while the gents were busy playing games. Few landed in the swimming pool. After spending some ‘quality’ time in the games area we moved for lunch. Lunch was perfect. Last time I had ‘Karimeen Polichathu’ (fried fish) was about 11 years ago. Old memories fired up. Heavy lunch with traditional Keralite dishes made us feel sleepy. The best part was yet to come.

Very soon we got off to our boat trip. The hot afternoon made us go to the roof top .The cold breeze took the heat away, in fact we longed for a drizzle. Wow! Here we saw Kuttanad, the rice bowl of Kerala, alas no more. High wages and water logging has made farming non-profitable. Yet the determination in people to survive by dairy farming, small scale industries and fishing was very obvious.

We went through narrow stretches of water often crossing huge luxury boats. We saw boat stops akin to the bus stops. People were dependent on boating for all activities. Cars and bikes are foreign to them. A Church bell reminded me it was a Sunday. We took a halt in between. Tender coconut water acted as the coolant to the sumptuous lunch we had.

The return wasn’t all that exciting. We were thinking of our office duties the next day. Things eased as we stopped for a short break in between, at one of our colleague’s home for tea. The tiresome journey and the lunch made us decide against a dinner. By the time we reached home it was midnight. It was a day to remember, trying to recollect the days passed by.

Next day morning – Back to work!

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