UNDISCOVERED LANDS IN WELL DISCOVERED COUNTRIES

Kerala – Getting away from the hustle and bustle and stepping into the serenity of God's own country

- CHRIS PARRY

AS A CRICKET LOVING AUSSIE, my life growing up longed for the long, hot summers where I’d hopefully spend hours in the middle making lots of runs for my team.

If I wasn’t playing I’d be watching the test matches on television or listening on the radio. That was what my summer was about.

During the rest of the year it was a bit more difficult to follow the cricket. Remember, I was a child before pay television and the internet. The only way to follow overseas cricket in the 1980’s was by listening to the radio.

The natural instinct of most cricketers is to be in awe of cricket in England and English cricket grounds because of the history of both cricket and Empire. While an English summer of cricket seems magical it was another country that I wanted to play cricket in. I didn’t want little villages with white picket fences, I wanted cricket in the streets and cricket in the fields. I was drawn to another land. India.

Every story that comes from Australian cricketers, in their interviews and autobiographies, always talks about the crushing congestion of busy streets wherever you go.

Even travel documentaries about India focus on the blocked streets and alleyways and noise of the cities, tumbling with the weight of humanity moving around all day and all night.

I arrive in Kochi in the Indian southern state of Kerala on a balmy, pre-monsoon evening and it is quiet, there’s very little traffic and while there is humidity it is gently pushed aside by a cool breeze and I can’t work out if it’s coming from the hills of Munnar to the east or from the sea to the west.