Evidently there was a fancy-dress competition on somewhere as Mr Magoo turned up to breakfast dressed as a red Indian (American Native Indian) frog. Above his huge, magnified eyes he sported a yellow bandana and his soft white limbs dangled from a baggy embroidered waistcoat and some outsized shorts. Luckily, he left shortly after we arrived, so we were spared further renditions of his amazing exploits.
We walked to Kovalum Post Office so that George could post his cards and extended the walk to cover a circuit. We passed some nice but simple houses that formed part of the “Fisheries Project”, which I presume was some sort of fisherfolk cooperative scheme.
Research today reveals that Fisheries development started in the 1980s when fisheries co-operative societies were formed by the State Department of Fisheries (DoF). Society members belonging to scheduled castes (SC) and scheduled tribes (ST) living around the reservoir area were primarily agricultural labourers and minor forest produce collectors. They were drawn into the fisheries sector, especially reservoir fisheries, with the intention to channel and utilise special government funds, such as special component plan and tribal sub-plan funds, through SC/ST fishermen co-operatives.
There are 32 reservoirs of various sizes in Kerala, which were designed and constructed primarily for irrigation, power generation, drinking water supply, and flood control. The total water spread area is about 30,000 hectares. The hectare is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm²), or 10,000 m², and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. An acre is about 0.405 hectare and one hectare contains about 2.47 acres.
We had some hot cow’s milk in a bar by the lighthouse and moseyed back following a swim in the sea and drying out in the blazing sun. I wrote an aerogramme home and a light-hearted one to my old BP Research colleague Rob Rowe. I wrote in our room with the shutters open for a change to drive out the humidity and the smell, as well as to let in the light.
At about 16:00 hrs. we hit the surf again and were joined by a deaf German youth. We splashed about with him and playfully attacked each other under water. At dusk, thoroughly cheered up and with a vague feeling of excitement, we showered off the sea salt and got dressed in our room to the sound of the music of The Stranglers and The Jam from the room next door. Here a group of Aussies were getting steadily drunker.
George bought a couple of bananas and we went off to feed the monkey that was chained to a tree by the beach. It gorged them down and we looked on, amazed as a massive bulge appeared below it’s chin. This slowly dissipated as he digested the banana and he scampered on to our shoulders, grooming our hair.
Back at the Shangri-La Chitran did us proud with a prawn masala curry, which we drowned in tomato sauce and polished off in a trice. We got chatting to two Dutch medical students but were interrupted by a useless Japanese girl, who was always doing things wrong, when she came in to announce that she had just been bitten by a dog.
The Dutch girls snickered, and we weren’t forthcoming with the sympathy either. Mr Magoo took the initiative and steered her through the darkness and barking dogs to his medical kit. We chatted and got steadily drunker despite losing our precious rum reserves to the Dutch girls and the Sergeant, who came in to tell us an unintelligible yarn about Diwali.
Rum gone, the Dutch girls then gave us the brush off and headed for the beach. I overheard Mr Magoo whispering to the hapless Japanese girl that beer was available in the Black Cat café bar, so we headed hot foot for there.
This was not the case, but by chance, we found another bar that was selling beer at 16 Indian Rupees per bottle. We joined the groups of Western travellers squatting on the beach and a drunken lad from Durham in England tottered over.
Groups of Indians wandered along the beach being “hip”, wishing us Happy New Year and shaking our hands. We inadvertently “did a runner” (left without paying) after eating cheese on toast at one beach bar, but we were caught as we walked up the beach and had to pay our bill.
We found a bar playing the latest David Bowie LP and settled down at a bench outside. On the way back, 3 bottles of Sun Lager heavier, we tried to release the chained monkey, but our drunken fumbling and a lack of tools was to no avail and the monkey remained a prisoner (the owner would say pet).
Sometime during this debauch, the New Year 1984 had slipped in unnoticed as nobody had a watch and all the local Indian’s watches showed wildly differing times. We staggered back to our room in a drunken stupor.
We were yet to discover whether George Orwell’s predictions for 1984 and Big Brother would come true. Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, often published as 1984, is a dystopian novel by English novelist George Orwell. It was published on 8th June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and final book completed in his lifetime. Thematically, Nineteen Eighty-Four centres on the consequences of totalitarianism, mass surveillance, and repressive regimentation of all persons and behaviours within society.
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