ON THE WAY TO Marari Beach in the district of Alappuzha in Kerala, an hour’s drive from Kochi, we spied a huge billboard advertising ‘God’s Own Optician!’ The optician obviously had a sense of humour. Not only had he employed a clever play on words based on Kerala’s moniker, God’s Own Country, but the advertisement also portrayed a huge pair of spectacles staring into space in an all-seeing way. Beyond the advertisement rose a grove of palm trees, lush and green.
Our chagrin at 21st-century marketing making inroads into this idyllic rural kingdom soon dissipated as the landscape swept past our car windows. Narrow country roads lined with red-tiled roof homes snuggling in the shade of fecund foliage, and village shops strung with plump yellow and red bananas wound onward to our destination, Xandari Pearl.
Our arrival at the resort, which spread over 18 acres, was reassuring. Not much had changed in the quiescent region, barring the cropping up of some homestays near St Augustine’s Church in the neighbouring Mararikulam village and a few luxury resorts.
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