Cheapest possible South India movies
Some poorly captured and edited town and country scenes in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala. Excellent music (thankfully) accompanies.
Christmas holidays in India
An inspiration, but a month is a rush to complete our triangular course, with side trips, around the pointy southern extremity of the Indies. So different previously when (as a youth) I meandered from Calcutta to Darjeeling, Benares, Delhi, Agra, Amritsar and beyond gloriously unencumbered by schedule.
The "material"
The clips contained in these pages are unambiguously low-quality, shot with our pocket camera - generally while travelling in a riotously wandering auto-rickshaw, or a more stately Ambassador - in the streets and highways of the South. Fused by non-existent editing skills and with virtually no narrative sense they make for hypnotically banal minutes punctuated by wondrous moments - much like India itself.
A couple of these "shorts" capture some (relatively) unusual events in the politically active, nominally Socialist, and always wonderful state of Kerala. "Mysore to Calicut" features a surreal passage along empty roads (believe me - a rare daylight event in India) as if a recent nuclear exchange had concluded. In fact it is the result of a "hartal" or general strike (against high food prices) that is supported and enforced in a big way - to the point of the population barely breaking daytime curfew (until after 6.00pm). Coming across the border from Mysore in the state of Karnataka we attracted the attention of more than one indignant strike committee where we were forced at various barricades to plead ignorance and pledge financial support to the struggle (Rs.25, receipt provided).
Similarly the descent of the Western Ghats from the high tea and spice country at Kumily to sea-level Kottayam took place on the day of a "banh": a public transport strike causing all state owned buses of the K.S.R.T.C off the road and coincidentally quietening the traffic to make our winding journey that much quicker.
Otherwise other street scenes capture the bustle and sounds of city and big-town streetscapes of Chennai and Cochin (Ernakulam) as well as some quieter scenes at dreamy Kumarakom and early-morning Kanjikhuzy, our suburban home base in Kottayam.
