I finally left the cool hills of Wayanad on the morning of the 6th, taking a bus west from Mananthavady to Kannur on the Malabar coast. I left about 9:30 on a sunny morning on the 40 mile trip, which took more than two and a half hours. The first hour or so the bus traveled through green hills covered with coffee, tea, betel nut, and much other vegetation, at an altitude of about 2500 to 3000 feet, according to my altimeter, which must have been registering too high, as it showed about 500 feet when we reached Kannur on the coast. After that hour or so we began a sharp descent through beautiful forest, making four hairpin turns (again numbered) and descending 600 feet. We had great views over the thick jungle to the lower hills below. Lots of ferns were growing along the roadside. After that descent the terrain was still hilly, with lots more coconut palms. And it was hotter. Groves of rubber trees began to appear. All was still very green.
Kannur (formerly Cannanore) has about 500,000 people and is heavily Muslim, but with lots of Hindus and Christians, too. I found a hotel in the old section of town and had a good chicken biryani lunch before spending the rest of the afternoon in my hotel room reading the newspaper and a news magazine. According to the newspapers I've seen, the highs along the coast have been about 95 to 97 degrees, with the lows about 75. The Indian general elections have been set for April 7 to May 12, in nine stages, with results to be announced on May 16, so the news has been particularly interesting. There are lots of billboards, too, here in Kerala, many featuring Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi of the BJP, favored to come first in the elections, or Rahul Gandhi, standard bearer of the incumbent Congress Party.
A little after 6 I took an auto rickshaw to a temple in the Thane section of Kannur to see a theyyam. Theyyams are spirit possession ceremonies held along the coast in northern Kerala this time of year. There are said to be about 400 different kinds of these ceremonies, with one going on somewhere almost every night. The receptionist at my hotel told me how to get to it and when it started. They last all night. Theyyam is always performed by members of the lowest castes. Over the course of the night, through dance and ritual, the man, dressed in elaborate costumes, with his face painted, is taken over by a spirit and becomes the spirit.
As I was arriving, I passed on the street a group of guys, including musicians, in dhotis (or mundus, as they are called in Malayalam, the language of Kerala). They waved at me and apparently included the guy to be possessed that night. Unfortunately, they were headed elsewhere, and nothing got going at the temple until after 9. The temple itself was a low Kerala style temple, with two roofed shrines in the middle of an excavated area with a dirt patio all around and other shrines a little higher, above the excavated area. Preparations were being made for the night's activities, and people came and went. After looking around, I found a chair to sit in and read my news magazine while talking to folks now and then.
When the guys came back shortly after 9, they led one guy, with a red bundle on his head covering a pot of toddy (I was told), around the temple precincts for about fifteen minutes. They were accompanied by two drummers and a horn player and stopped here and there at altars to do obeisance, with some of the toddy pouring out of the pot as the guy with the pot on his head bowed. He was the person to be possessed. At the end they all ran around the compound a time or two. Then they went into one of the roofed shrines and erected a colorful cloth to hide whatever they were doing within. I could hear the sound of small cymbals behind the screen. Other preparations were going on and the crowd had increased. I saw only one other foreigner. I was getting tired, and a little bored after four hours with not much happening. About an hour after they went into the shrine, I decided to leave and took an auto rickshaw back to my hotel. I had a little something to eat at a restaurant, took a welcome cold water bucket bath, and went to bed about 11:30.
I set my alarm for 5:15 the next morning to return to see the dawn climax of the theyyam, but just couldn't make myself get up. I did get up about two hours later. About an hour later I came down to the lobby and the receptionist advised heading to the theyyam site as it might still be going on. I did so about 8:30. The dancing was all over, but two spirit possessed men in elaborate costumes were still there receiving and giving blessings to lines of devotees, usually men lined up on one side and women on the other. One man was standing in front of one of the two central shrines. He wore a grass skirt, with the grass attached to a hoop around his waist. His face was painted bright red and he wore an elaborate curved headdress of cloth that must have been four feet high. Sitting in front of one of the shrines above was another man, dressed in a sort of squarish, boxy costume, with his bare chest painted with dashes and spots, and wearing a strange mask, red and white, with big flaps on the cheeks.
I spent a couple of hours watching them receive the devotees, one after another. The guy with the red painted face looked fairly fierce. The mask on the other one looked fierce, too, but the spirit possessed guy seemed fairly jovial, often uttering a fairly jolly "heh-heh-heh" that almost, but not quite, approached Santa Claus' "ho-ho-ho." I noticed he took a swig of toddy, administered by his helpers, now and then. Those lining up to meet him often whispered in his ear, behind the big cheek flap on his mask. Both guys dabbed yellow powder on the tops of devotees' heads after talking with them. Few spectators were left, but the lines to speak with the spirit possessed guys never got too short. It was getting hot in the sun as I wandered around, noticing a pile of ashes in one corner of the compound. A guy told me that the morning before a spirit possessed man at the end of his theyyam had hurled himself into a pile of hot ashes 80 times. He said the same guy had done it 115 times a few years ago, being given a gold bracelet in commemoration. I guess he's getting soft. He advised me to come back the next morning for the conclusion of this temple's schedule of theyyams.
I came back to my hotel about 10:30 or 11, had breakfast, and spent the middle of the day in my room reading. About 3 I took an auto rickshaw to St. Angelo Fort on the coast, only a bit more than a mile away. This more or less triangular shaped fort, made of blocks of laterite stone, was constructed by the Portuguese between 1505 and 1507 on a promontory between the harbor and the Arabian Sea. The Dutch took it over in 1663, selling it to a local raja in 1772. The British captured it in 1790. It was fairly interesting, with a dry moat on the landward side, gardens inside, a few cannon (some marked "GR"), and views out to sea. I wandered around and talked to the guard for a while. When it closed at 6 I walked back to my hotel.
I was up at 5:15 the next morning and took an auto rickshaw in the dark to the temple with the theyyam. A big crowd had gathered. A man in a grass skirt, with a mask on his head, was being led around the compound by bare chested, dhoti wearing helpers. I found a good spot up above the central area and watched. Eventually, he stopped in front of the two central shrines while his helpers attached a twenty foot high, and maybe one foot wide, bamboo and palm leaf decorated staff onto him. Before being attached, little oil soaked wicks along the sides had been lit. Then five or so long poles were attached to the hoop around his waist. Each long pole had a bundle of straw covered with white cloth at each end, so that when they were all attached, he had ten or twelve bundles of cloth covered straw at the end of poles all around his body. These, too, were soaked in oil and set on fire. The overhead lights that had been illuminating the compound were turned off.
As the fires burned and to the accompaniment of seven drummers and one horn player, he was led around the two central shrines two or three times, his helpers continually pouring oil from little vessels onto the burning straw ends of the poles to keep them burning. At one point he mounted a small table in front of the two shrines. Finally, back on the ground, he began to twirl, faster and faster, making a swirl of fire. The lighted straw at the ends of the poles began to come loose and fall off, creating piles of smoking and sometimes fiery ashes on the ground that the helpers quickly dragged away with poles. After the fires went out, his helpers divested him of the poles and the twenty foot high staff, whose wicks had also burned out. He then was again led around the two central shrines by his helpers. Back in front of the shrines, he began to dance, at first slowly and then frenetically. The crowd gathered closer. Finally, his helpers guided him to a small table or seat in front of the shrines and he sat down. The devotees gathered all around him and then formed lines for the opportunity to speak to him and receive his blessing. It was all over a little before 7, and the sky was now light. Most of the crowd left as soon as it was over, but I stayed until about 8:30 to watch the spirit possessed man speak to his devotees.
After breakfast and reading the newspaper, and buying some cashews and dates from a shop (lots of shops here are named "Dubai" this and "Gulf" that because so many Keralans have worked in the Persian Gulf area), I walked to the train station before 11 in time for the 11:20 train south along the coast to Calicut. The train was more than an hour and a half late. Despite having an unreserved general ticket, I got a window seat. We left at 1 p.m., taking an hour and a half to reach Calicut, 55 miles away. The carriage was full, but I enjoyed the very green scenery as we paralleled the coast. Greenery was everywhere, and there was a lot of water, rivers and streams and canals and ponds. And thousands of palm trees. Bananas, too. And I spotted mangroves along the edge of one of the bodies of water, so the water had to be a mixture of salt and fresh water. We passed through the towns of Thalassery (formerly Tellicherry), one of Britain's first settlements, and Mahe, a former French outpost and now politically part of Pondicherry. I spotted some colonial era buildings among the trees. About ten miles before reaching Calicut we passed near where Vasco da Gama first reached India in 1498.
Calicut, another heavily Muslim area, has about 900,000 people and is now officially named Kozhikode, though I saw "Calicut" on most signs. After getting a hotel, I had an omelet and coffee at the Indian Coffee House down the street and then walked around town. In a park near the town center is a tank of water, all that remains of the palace grounds of the Zamorin, the local ruler who long fought against the Portuguese. Nearby is a large white church, founded by a Swiss missionary named Fritz in 1842 and now belonging to the Church of South India. From there I walked towards the beach, passing spice shops, some in old buildings, on Court Street. A promenade runs along the sandy and none too clean beach, and lots of folks were out and about at the end of the afternoon. I paused to look around the Beach Hotel, housed in the old Malabar British Club. I walked up and down the promenade and watched the sun disappear behind the clouds on the horizon about 6, half an hour or so before sunset. I walked back to my hotel, reaching it just after dark. My room was hot that night, 84 to 86 degrees inside the room.
The next morning was cloudy as I walked to the Indian Coffee House for breakfast. Afterwards, I wandered through the alleyways of the fruit and vegetable market near my hotel, not very crowded early on a Sunday morning. Off to one side were several streets of little shops or mini-warehouses chock full of bananas, mostly green ones. The bananas were stuffed into the small rooms and hanging outside them. Porters were bringing more bananas in on little carts while others were taking them to and fro in big bunches on their shoulders. I've never seen so many bananas. It was fascinating to see all the activity and the people were all very friendly. I wandered around for quite a while on a humid morning. In the market it seemed all the sellers were men, and at first all the buyers were men. Later, women started showing up.
About 10 I bordered a bus to make a day trip back up into the hills of Wayanad, mainly to see the scenery en route. The two hour trip headed northeast to the town of Kalpetta, about 45 miles from Calicut. The first part of the journey passed through hilly lowlands with lots of coconut palms, betel nut trees, banana trees, and much other greenery. We also passed several groves of rubber trees. There were lots of people en route, too, with many new houses apparently built with Gulf money. Kerala is largely rural, but very crowded, with the densest population of any Indian state.
Eventually, we reached higher hills, with an impressively volcano shaped hill in the distance, and began a steep climb up nine hairpin turns, rising almost 2000 feet into the cool, green forest. The sky was cloudy and the views hazy, but still good. According to my altimeter, we reached about 2650 feet elevation before dropping slightly into Kalpetta. I spent only a half hour in Kalpetta before catching a bus back to Calicut. There was some sun on the way back, but it was mostly cloudy once back in Calicut.
About 4:30 I took an auto rickshaw to a Muslim neighborhood in Calicut full of old mosques. I was dropped off at the Kuttichira or Mithqalpalli Mosque, built about 700 years ago by a Yemeni trader. It is four stories high, all of wood except for the stone walls of the first two stories. I wasn't allowed inside, but I could look through the doors into the interior, where 24 wooden pillars stand. An old man named Muhammad Ali took me in hand and guided me around. Usually, I do my best to avoid these "guides," but I liked this guy. As we walked around the mosque we were given tea by a group of men gathered in preparation for a wedding to be held that evening elsewhere.
Muhammad Ali led me south past the Kuttichiri Tank to another mosque, the Jama Masjid, a thousand years old. It is quite a big one, and two stories high. Its entry hall has a carved and painted wooden ceiling, which I had to look at from the outside. We walked a little further south, down narrow, uncrowded lanes past large, old houses, with wooden shutters and wooden bars in the windows. Muhammad told me a family of 50 might live in such a house, the mother and father plus all their daughters and their husbands and families. Kerala traditionally had a matrilineal system of property ownership. He also pointed out an ayurvedic garden, with all sorts of different plants and two men working in it. Ayurveda is the traditional system of Indian medicine. We reached the Macchandipalli Mosque, more than a thousand years old, with another carved and painted wooden ceiling. Next door is a madrassa, and inside young women all in black were reciting he Koran. We circled through the narrow lanes back to the tank, passing friendly people on the narrow streets and in their homes. By now it was nearing 6. Men were sitting in the late afternoon cool around the tank. Again, they were all very friendly, and curious about where I was from. We sat for a while at the edge of the tank in the cool and cloudy late afternoon. Egrets, cormorants, and a duck came nearby, while a hundred or more kites or some sort of raptor flew above. Muhammad called them eagles. Dark clouds filled the sky.
Sometime after 6 Muhammad led me alongside the tank, past the offices of the Communist Party and an Islamic party, to more narrow lanes leading past a big Jain house and temple to the railroad station. Drops of rain began to fall on the way. From the train station I could find my way back to my hotel. It began to rain harder once Muhammad left me. I got wet and ducked into shops here and there for cover before reaching the Indian Coffee House for dinner. Inside I dried off quickly. There were only sprinkles after dinner on my way back to my hotel.
Kannur (formerly Cannanore) has about 500,000 people and is heavily Muslim, but with lots of Hindus and Christians, too. I found a hotel in the old section of town and had a good chicken biryani lunch before spending the rest of the afternoon in my hotel room reading the newspaper and a news magazine. According to the newspapers I've seen, the highs along the coast have been about 95 to 97 degrees, with the lows about 75. The Indian general elections have been set for April 7 to May 12, in nine stages, with results to be announced on May 16, so the news has been particularly interesting. There are lots of billboards, too, here in Kerala, many featuring Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi of the BJP, favored to come first in the elections, or Rahul Gandhi, standard bearer of the incumbent Congress Party.
A little after 6 I took an auto rickshaw to a temple in the Thane section of Kannur to see a theyyam. Theyyams are spirit possession ceremonies held along the coast in northern Kerala this time of year. There are said to be about 400 different kinds of these ceremonies, with one going on somewhere almost every night. The receptionist at my hotel told me how to get to it and when it started. They last all night. Theyyam is always performed by members of the lowest castes. Over the course of the night, through dance and ritual, the man, dressed in elaborate costumes, with his face painted, is taken over by a spirit and becomes the spirit.
As I was arriving, I passed on the street a group of guys, including musicians, in dhotis (or mundus, as they are called in Malayalam, the language of Kerala). They waved at me and apparently included the guy to be possessed that night. Unfortunately, they were headed elsewhere, and nothing got going at the temple until after 9. The temple itself was a low Kerala style temple, with two roofed shrines in the middle of an excavated area with a dirt patio all around and other shrines a little higher, above the excavated area. Preparations were being made for the night's activities, and people came and went. After looking around, I found a chair to sit in and read my news magazine while talking to folks now and then.
When the guys came back shortly after 9, they led one guy, with a red bundle on his head covering a pot of toddy (I was told), around the temple precincts for about fifteen minutes. They were accompanied by two drummers and a horn player and stopped here and there at altars to do obeisance, with some of the toddy pouring out of the pot as the guy with the pot on his head bowed. He was the person to be possessed. At the end they all ran around the compound a time or two. Then they went into one of the roofed shrines and erected a colorful cloth to hide whatever they were doing within. I could hear the sound of small cymbals behind the screen. Other preparations were going on and the crowd had increased. I saw only one other foreigner. I was getting tired, and a little bored after four hours with not much happening. About an hour after they went into the shrine, I decided to leave and took an auto rickshaw back to my hotel. I had a little something to eat at a restaurant, took a welcome cold water bucket bath, and went to bed about 11:30.
I set my alarm for 5:15 the next morning to return to see the dawn climax of the theyyam, but just couldn't make myself get up. I did get up about two hours later. About an hour later I came down to the lobby and the receptionist advised heading to the theyyam site as it might still be going on. I did so about 8:30. The dancing was all over, but two spirit possessed men in elaborate costumes were still there receiving and giving blessings to lines of devotees, usually men lined up on one side and women on the other. One man was standing in front of one of the two central shrines. He wore a grass skirt, with the grass attached to a hoop around his waist. His face was painted bright red and he wore an elaborate curved headdress of cloth that must have been four feet high. Sitting in front of one of the shrines above was another man, dressed in a sort of squarish, boxy costume, with his bare chest painted with dashes and spots, and wearing a strange mask, red and white, with big flaps on the cheeks.
I spent a couple of hours watching them receive the devotees, one after another. The guy with the red painted face looked fairly fierce. The mask on the other one looked fierce, too, but the spirit possessed guy seemed fairly jovial, often uttering a fairly jolly "heh-heh-heh" that almost, but not quite, approached Santa Claus' "ho-ho-ho." I noticed he took a swig of toddy, administered by his helpers, now and then. Those lining up to meet him often whispered in his ear, behind the big cheek flap on his mask. Both guys dabbed yellow powder on the tops of devotees' heads after talking with them. Few spectators were left, but the lines to speak with the spirit possessed guys never got too short. It was getting hot in the sun as I wandered around, noticing a pile of ashes in one corner of the compound. A guy told me that the morning before a spirit possessed man at the end of his theyyam had hurled himself into a pile of hot ashes 80 times. He said the same guy had done it 115 times a few years ago, being given a gold bracelet in commemoration. I guess he's getting soft. He advised me to come back the next morning for the conclusion of this temple's schedule of theyyams.
I came back to my hotel about 10:30 or 11, had breakfast, and spent the middle of the day in my room reading. About 3 I took an auto rickshaw to St. Angelo Fort on the coast, only a bit more than a mile away. This more or less triangular shaped fort, made of blocks of laterite stone, was constructed by the Portuguese between 1505 and 1507 on a promontory between the harbor and the Arabian Sea. The Dutch took it over in 1663, selling it to a local raja in 1772. The British captured it in 1790. It was fairly interesting, with a dry moat on the landward side, gardens inside, a few cannon (some marked "GR"), and views out to sea. I wandered around and talked to the guard for a while. When it closed at 6 I walked back to my hotel.
I was up at 5:15 the next morning and took an auto rickshaw in the dark to the temple with the theyyam. A big crowd had gathered. A man in a grass skirt, with a mask on his head, was being led around the compound by bare chested, dhoti wearing helpers. I found a good spot up above the central area and watched. Eventually, he stopped in front of the two central shrines while his helpers attached a twenty foot high, and maybe one foot wide, bamboo and palm leaf decorated staff onto him. Before being attached, little oil soaked wicks along the sides had been lit. Then five or so long poles were attached to the hoop around his waist. Each long pole had a bundle of straw covered with white cloth at each end, so that when they were all attached, he had ten or twelve bundles of cloth covered straw at the end of poles all around his body. These, too, were soaked in oil and set on fire. The overhead lights that had been illuminating the compound were turned off.
As the fires burned and to the accompaniment of seven drummers and one horn player, he was led around the two central shrines two or three times, his helpers continually pouring oil from little vessels onto the burning straw ends of the poles to keep them burning. At one point he mounted a small table in front of the two shrines. Finally, back on the ground, he began to twirl, faster and faster, making a swirl of fire. The lighted straw at the ends of the poles began to come loose and fall off, creating piles of smoking and sometimes fiery ashes on the ground that the helpers quickly dragged away with poles. After the fires went out, his helpers divested him of the poles and the twenty foot high staff, whose wicks had also burned out. He then was again led around the two central shrines by his helpers. Back in front of the shrines, he began to dance, at first slowly and then frenetically. The crowd gathered closer. Finally, his helpers guided him to a small table or seat in front of the shrines and he sat down. The devotees gathered all around him and then formed lines for the opportunity to speak to him and receive his blessing. It was all over a little before 7, and the sky was now light. Most of the crowd left as soon as it was over, but I stayed until about 8:30 to watch the spirit possessed man speak to his devotees.
After breakfast and reading the newspaper, and buying some cashews and dates from a shop (lots of shops here are named "Dubai" this and "Gulf" that because so many Keralans have worked in the Persian Gulf area), I walked to the train station before 11 in time for the 11:20 train south along the coast to Calicut. The train was more than an hour and a half late. Despite having an unreserved general ticket, I got a window seat. We left at 1 p.m., taking an hour and a half to reach Calicut, 55 miles away. The carriage was full, but I enjoyed the very green scenery as we paralleled the coast. Greenery was everywhere, and there was a lot of water, rivers and streams and canals and ponds. And thousands of palm trees. Bananas, too. And I spotted mangroves along the edge of one of the bodies of water, so the water had to be a mixture of salt and fresh water. We passed through the towns of Thalassery (formerly Tellicherry), one of Britain's first settlements, and Mahe, a former French outpost and now politically part of Pondicherry. I spotted some colonial era buildings among the trees. About ten miles before reaching Calicut we passed near where Vasco da Gama first reached India in 1498.
Calicut, another heavily Muslim area, has about 900,000 people and is now officially named Kozhikode, though I saw "Calicut" on most signs. After getting a hotel, I had an omelet and coffee at the Indian Coffee House down the street and then walked around town. In a park near the town center is a tank of water, all that remains of the palace grounds of the Zamorin, the local ruler who long fought against the Portuguese. Nearby is a large white church, founded by a Swiss missionary named Fritz in 1842 and now belonging to the Church of South India. From there I walked towards the beach, passing spice shops, some in old buildings, on Court Street. A promenade runs along the sandy and none too clean beach, and lots of folks were out and about at the end of the afternoon. I paused to look around the Beach Hotel, housed in the old Malabar British Club. I walked up and down the promenade and watched the sun disappear behind the clouds on the horizon about 6, half an hour or so before sunset. I walked back to my hotel, reaching it just after dark. My room was hot that night, 84 to 86 degrees inside the room.
The next morning was cloudy as I walked to the Indian Coffee House for breakfast. Afterwards, I wandered through the alleyways of the fruit and vegetable market near my hotel, not very crowded early on a Sunday morning. Off to one side were several streets of little shops or mini-warehouses chock full of bananas, mostly green ones. The bananas were stuffed into the small rooms and hanging outside them. Porters were bringing more bananas in on little carts while others were taking them to and fro in big bunches on their shoulders. I've never seen so many bananas. It was fascinating to see all the activity and the people were all very friendly. I wandered around for quite a while on a humid morning. In the market it seemed all the sellers were men, and at first all the buyers were men. Later, women started showing up.
About 10 I bordered a bus to make a day trip back up into the hills of Wayanad, mainly to see the scenery en route. The two hour trip headed northeast to the town of Kalpetta, about 45 miles from Calicut. The first part of the journey passed through hilly lowlands with lots of coconut palms, betel nut trees, banana trees, and much other greenery. We also passed several groves of rubber trees. There were lots of people en route, too, with many new houses apparently built with Gulf money. Kerala is largely rural, but very crowded, with the densest population of any Indian state.
Eventually, we reached higher hills, with an impressively volcano shaped hill in the distance, and began a steep climb up nine hairpin turns, rising almost 2000 feet into the cool, green forest. The sky was cloudy and the views hazy, but still good. According to my altimeter, we reached about 2650 feet elevation before dropping slightly into Kalpetta. I spent only a half hour in Kalpetta before catching a bus back to Calicut. There was some sun on the way back, but it was mostly cloudy once back in Calicut.
About 4:30 I took an auto rickshaw to a Muslim neighborhood in Calicut full of old mosques. I was dropped off at the Kuttichira or Mithqalpalli Mosque, built about 700 years ago by a Yemeni trader. It is four stories high, all of wood except for the stone walls of the first two stories. I wasn't allowed inside, but I could look through the doors into the interior, where 24 wooden pillars stand. An old man named Muhammad Ali took me in hand and guided me around. Usually, I do my best to avoid these "guides," but I liked this guy. As we walked around the mosque we were given tea by a group of men gathered in preparation for a wedding to be held that evening elsewhere.
Muhammad Ali led me south past the Kuttichiri Tank to another mosque, the Jama Masjid, a thousand years old. It is quite a big one, and two stories high. Its entry hall has a carved and painted wooden ceiling, which I had to look at from the outside. We walked a little further south, down narrow, uncrowded lanes past large, old houses, with wooden shutters and wooden bars in the windows. Muhammad told me a family of 50 might live in such a house, the mother and father plus all their daughters and their husbands and families. Kerala traditionally had a matrilineal system of property ownership. He also pointed out an ayurvedic garden, with all sorts of different plants and two men working in it. Ayurveda is the traditional system of Indian medicine. We reached the Macchandipalli Mosque, more than a thousand years old, with another carved and painted wooden ceiling. Next door is a madrassa, and inside young women all in black were reciting he Koran. We circled through the narrow lanes back to the tank, passing friendly people on the narrow streets and in their homes. By now it was nearing 6. Men were sitting in the late afternoon cool around the tank. Again, they were all very friendly, and curious about where I was from. We sat for a while at the edge of the tank in the cool and cloudy late afternoon. Egrets, cormorants, and a duck came nearby, while a hundred or more kites or some sort of raptor flew above. Muhammad called them eagles. Dark clouds filled the sky.
Sometime after 6 Muhammad led me alongside the tank, past the offices of the Communist Party and an Islamic party, to more narrow lanes leading past a big Jain house and temple to the railroad station. Drops of rain began to fall on the way. From the train station I could find my way back to my hotel. It began to rain harder once Muhammad left me. I got wet and ducked into shops here and there for cover before reaching the Indian Coffee House for dinner. Inside I dried off quickly. There were only sprinkles after dinner on my way back to my hotel.
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