A Cochin holiday with Mohanlal

Trains are too tedious, airports are no better than railway stations, and even the lowest fare on the cheapest airline doesn’t beat the economy of packing the family in the fuel-efficient Wagon R and setting off for the 3500km driving holiday along the coast, all the way to Kovalam.

Of course, the official reason given to the resigned wife and the rebellious son was that we will get a feel of the real Kerala and its people only if we drive through God’s own country.

When you stay in Navi Mumbai and Kovalam is your destination, Goa seems like Panvel. So we step on the gas, bypass Goa, stay the night at Murudeshwar, wake up to the amazing view of the sea, gorge on the Rs8 per plate idli-wadas in a real Udupi hotel in, well, Udupi, zip through the coastline of Karnataka, take in the lavish lunch buffet at Mangalore’s Taj Manjarun (just Rs300 per person) and there we are, at the border of Kerala.

But where are the beautiful coconut palms and the magnificent beaches? Wife couldn’t resist a dig, thanking me for driving her up and down the real Malabar hills, with only small shops selling bananas and big showrooms selling gold to break the monotony.
Yes, gold showrooms are huge in Kerala — the majestic, multi-storeyed showrooms of Malabars, Alukkas and Bhimas dot every small township of the state loaded with dinars and dirhams. And no less than a larger-than-life Mohanlal endorsing the purity of the gold every five km on NH-17.

Of course, Mohanlal graced hoardings of practically everything else on offer in Kerala — from dhotis and ayurvedic products to cell phone services and housing projects. Beauties like Sridevi, Hema Malini and Mandira Bedi were definitely a distraction, but the real star of the masses was clearly Mr Mohanlal. We spent the night in Kannur, woke up to a different view of the same sea, and set off for the 310km drive to Cochin.
Are we going to only drive throughout this holiday or will we do something else also, asks the tired son.

As luck would have it, the hotel that we stayed at in Cochin — Travancore Court — was also owned by Mr Mohanlal. Sir comes once a month, says the polite Ms Caroline, an Anglo-Indian who stays in Fort Cochin.

It’s a five-star hotel with three-star prices, the suite is super spacious, and for the first time in days, I see a genuine smile on the faces of wife and son. It only helped that an outlet of Ceylon Bake House, which served the most authentic appams, stews and biryanis, was just a stone’s throw away, and the cost of the food was a fraction of the five-stars, even by Kerala standards. It was no coincidence that we stayed parked in the hotel for three full nights, taking day trips to Fort Cochin, the bustling city of
Ernakulam, and a kettuvalam cruise in the village canals.

Mr Nair, the humble dhoti-clad Malayali gentleman, was waiting to steer us and the narrow stitched boat. These guys work really hard for a living I thought, before Nair shared during the course of the two-hour cruise that his wife was an executive with an MNC in Cochin, and his brother-in-law was a senior official at the World Bank, and how they chat with him through the broadband-enabled webcam at home and yes, how his son has a house worth Rs2 crore in Silicon Valley. And Mr Nair still worked hard for a living, I consoled myself, heading back for the city in our MH-04-CB-5444.

It was time to say goodbye to Cochin and we took off for the last lap to Kovalam, saving the best for the last. Two nights of luxury at another posh hotel and the journey back seemed like a Herculean task. Guess we should have flown by the cheap airline. But we managed to get back, not before stopping at Alleppey to buy gold for the wife. So much for saving money.