69. The Sleeping Beauty

@Thommankuthu, Kerala, India.

This is something which would keep away from the original fairy tales of Charles Perrault or the Grimm Brothers despite of the title. As the author of this blog is not dead and the possibility of editing is always there, having such a fairy tale title would hurt no soul permanently. The elements of ‘sleep’ and ‘beauty’ would still reign supreme, for those are the things which makes the title not ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Snow White’, ‘Rapunzel’ or ‘Cinderella’. Thommankuthu Falls lie asleep with all its beauty at a location around eighteen kilometres from Thodupuzha; sixty three kilometres from Aluva; seventy two kilometres from Cochin. Our path was the one which touched Muvattupuzha and Thodupuzha; for a stop at the Indian Coffee House belonging to the former, was totally necessary, something which was becoming more of a great tradition which is going to pass on to the future generations through the legends, supported by fairy tales and vampire stories with the exception of the strange, pale Twilight’s twin sisters who are set to follow the footsteps of their elder sister who made a complete nonsense out of the vampire belief.

The path to Thommankuthu itself had the force of attraction; there was just raw scenery; small waterbodies and bridges which blend into nature as if they are all the same, belonging to Gaia, the children of one force; credit to whatever Uranus and Pontus provided, or even those which are adopted. This is one closer to the absence of that need to perfect terrakinesis. It was a suitable scene for a near perfect photo right before entering through that gate. There was also the presence of tea shops to attract the people of the tea, but it was not till the end of the program, that there was the fall due to the temptation of that immortal drink. Still, considering the fact that there is the need to keep breaking the narrative as tea is more important than most of the other things in the world, here skips the flow, just to say that the tea was awesome. That procedure of drinking the elixir of life should have happened before the journey for sure – but it was the last thing we did, which meant that all the weariness of the journey would be declared void, and the tiring feeling existed only during the journey through the Thommankuthu Eco-tourism Project, as it was named. As I can’t help but reiterate in a different way, the tea which followed the journy had paradiso or parts of it.

Yeats had his vision, and its time one should have his own; but the fact remains that the extensive study had to go beyond the curriculum, for which each journey could contribute; this time of nature, next time spiritual and some other time historical. But the presence of one of them in another is not to be avoided, as mixtures are common and solutions are even more readily available. The same is the case of Thommankuthu which is more of mixture and is slowly moving towards being a solution. Here is the ecotourism destination that is Thommankuthu which has its own undisturbed beauty of nature right from the beginning, or even through the path leading there, being the best and the right alternative to standard commercial tourism of heavy modernity. But the disruption of the virigin nature and its territories is not something which is not entirely absent. The use of plastic, even if banned, would always be present in these areas. There would be pollution and disturbance to the flora and fauna, but for now, it is not at that much of a high rate which would be alarming at the first sight.

The narrator, obviously myself, was at unfamiliar territory, through a path which was beautiful was awesome until it narrowed down right after that board which titled “Danger” preventing people from jumping into the incredibly beautiful stream of water and rocks. It was a great journey through an area of fresh air until those smaller paths at some height was at sight, and it was ‘almost the road’ which was not taken till then. I was less like the foreign teams at India and more like the Indian cricket team abroad; not really being done with the spin, but with the swing provided by the breeze. To be frank, this was written at a time when India was playing England at home, being the fake cricketing giants and the team of home specialists, as three of the fabulous four, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and V.V.S. Laxman has retired and the ‘home only’ players were doing awesome enough to make sure that their team lose – and the worst of them might have still failed to score. One still has to guess they will continue to do the same; as theres always fame and fortune which guides them – let them gain the much needed enlightenment in that way for its just the matter of how long it might take for them to reach the ultimate stage of pure tube light: just saying things in a more scientific way so that the people of modernity can follow.

However one looks at the matter, it is quite strange that the blind fans would support a payback with turning pitches which their team itself can’t handle; for it proves that one still lives hidden behind those narrow domestic walls instead of going abroad and getting the job done. When there is no grass, little assistance for pace, bounce, or lateral air movement, just cracks which make it look like some area of drought, it is also an insult to the nature which has blessed man with so much plenty and beauty. A loss because of doing such a pathetic thing is pure justice and it is clearly self-inflicted. When people yell for victories of this sort, there is the emphasis on those pathetic walls, even more emphasis than what was provided by caste, creed, community, religion and language – walls are everywhere, but does humanity or even the life force create a wall? Is there a fortress which keep the ideals safe? What would be the role of customs and traditions in this world which runs on profit and victory? The global teams like Barcelona, Manchester United, Chelsea, AC Milan, Arsenal, Liverpool, Real Madrid and the plenty of beauty which is football might bring some of these bigger walls down and create smaller fences which might be a better thing – so might the awesomeness of Roger Federer and the machine that is Rafael Nadal. Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray are surely into it too. They are present as the global spirit, not as heroes of selfishness.

Getting the narrative back into track from the narrow-minded one-man, one or two nation show that is cricket to the global football and tennis, and now to where this had started, the falls were many; not just the Thommankuthu Falls, but also everything which existed far above it on the way up through the green areas of natural beauty. Here one moves to the Universal Brotherhood of Nature which is a far more advanced thought than whatever is provided by modernity. The true legends are there, hidden in a philosophy of whatever is green; and this is what preceded the legends of antiquity and the ridiculous pseudo-legends of modernity to which this land gives not much value. What is to be seen in the modern world which boasts of a multi-cultural nonsense is that lack of tolerance, and those bullies are forever, until the Doomesday – the wheel has turned too much and it is the time for it to stop and spin backwards. There is a limit to what you should provide, Prometheus; kindly don’t be Victor Frankenstein, for there are promises to keep; if not, there are tragedies awating all of us: blame fate as much as you like, but you are the pilot of your defying Embraer, the driver of your own Cadillac, Ulysses of your majestic Galley, the master and commander of your soul for now.

Diving out —>

TeNy

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