Kerala's Best Kept Secret

Marari beach, off the popular trail, is blessedly tranquil and lulls you into lolling on its sands, playing beach volleyball, glimpsing the pristine lifestyle of fisherfolk and gorging on their catch—cooked and served fusion-style at a luxe resort.

- Gustasp And Jeroo Irani

On a previous trip to Marari beach in Kerala, an hour’s drive from Kochi, we had spied a huge billboard en route, advertising “God’s Own Optician!” The optician obviously had a sense of humour for not only had he done a play of words with Kerala Tourism’s tag line—God’s Own Country—but the in-your-face advertisement had a photograph of a pair of huge spectacles staring into space in an omnipotent, all-seeing way. Beyond the offending advertisement rose a grove of palm trees, lush and green.

Our distress at how 21st century marketing had made inroads into this calm, rural Eden soon dissipated as the Keralan landscape swept past our car windows. Narrow country roads, lined with low-slung, red-tiled roof homes snuggling in the shade of fecund foliage and village shops strung with plump yellow and red bananas, wound and jounced onward to our destination—Xandari Pearl.

Our arrival at the resort, which unfolded over 18 acres, was reassuring. Nothing much had changed in this quiescent corner of the country, barring some homestays near St Augustine’s Church in neighbouring Mararikulam village and a few luxury resorts.

There was sensory bombardment aplenty and beachfront bliss awaited us at Marari. We were welcomed by a lissom Kerala girl in beige and gold-bordered Nasrani (Syrian Christian) attire who escorted us through her green domain to our pearl-shaped villa.