varkala

varkala, india

sometimes the first one is the charm. having just dropped off my bags at the guest house, i had barely made the right turn along the pathway when i came to hilal's shop. i was really just sizing up the offerings, but he suggested i go inside in the least aggressive manner i've encountered in an indian shopkeeper. he asked how much i thought a particular item was worth. i told him the highest price i could afford. he told me his price. i repeated my ceiling. he lowered his and said sweet, deferential things such as 'the customer is always right'. i told him that this mantra is what transformed my nation of pioneers and roughnecks into a babbling band of obsequious, pant-wetting apologists. i think he understood. nothing was purchased in the few minutes of negotiation or after the ten minutes of comfortable conversation that ensued.

i spent the next forty hours wandering along the varkala cliff. beautiful. thin palms hang over the 100-ft tall cliff that drops precipitously to the breaking waves below. by day it looks like a proficient students coloring book where the green rushes straight to and not beyond the edge, just to where it encounters the royal blue of the arabian sea. i came for this and a little bit of relaxation as the sunset of my trip nears ever closer. to let the jaded part of me speak: unfortunately, so have many others.

the edge of the cliff is never more than one meter from a trampled brick path, on the other side of which are restaurants, shops, hotels, restaurants, shops, hotels, restaurants...... inside these restaurants, shops, hotels are tourists, tourists, tourists, and people who make their living catering to tourists. i've enjoyed myself immensely sitting at the front of one of these restaurants, drinking ginger tea, staring out into the ocean and devouring a good book. but then i heard a neighboring table of four yorkshire-accented female college students weigh in on the important matters of the day such as wishing they could be 'one of those' who eats anything and remains rail thin and then the intricate, intimate processes of the college application process. i realized that if i stayed her any longer than a few days and heard more of this drivel, i might end up throwing myself off the cliff.

but then i returned to visit hilal yesterday morning. we reached an agreement on a few items [undisclosed as they are for a member or two of this blogs readership] and business was done in a matter of three minutes. after that little matter, he gave me a chair and he took his own behind the counter. he smoked cigarettes and i drank chai. he told me all about kashmir and he did so in the way that only people who truly love love love a place can describe their homes. we sat for a couple hours and exchanged contact information afterwards. it feels odd to say that my best memory from this paradise was when i had my back turned to its greatest attraction, listening to a shopkeeper compete with the whir of an electric fan.