Backwater cruise 2Quelling my misgivings

The following is an extract from the travel book A River of Life: Travels through Modern India.

The boat is moored on the palm-fringed shore of Ashtamudi Lake. There are cashew plantations on the far banks, a smudge of green a long way off. The day is still cool. The light is good. Pretty words come to mind and are sketched in my notebook as I see the sunlight shimmering on the surface of the lake: diamonds of light, emerald green water. My misgivings melt away.

Most of the passengers coming aboard settle for the open-air top deck; sun-shy, I sit below. The windows are big and there is no glass, giving almost unimpeded views on both sides. Two Japanese sit in front of me, a middle-aged woman and her teenage (I guess) daughter. We are joined below decks by a Western couple, who fuss about, smile, give curt greetings, then fill the cabin with whispered, inane conversation.

At precisely 8 o'clock a brawny Keralan slips the mooring ropes and nudges us away from the jetty. The boat arcs out into the lake and we are on our way, leaving behind the languid tumult of Kollam, heading into areas where a traffic jam means two boats in a neck of water wide enough only for one. One of the crew members - there are only three of them - comes round shortly afterwards with hunks of freshly-cut pineapple. He also has bottles of soft drinks in a bucket of ice. He also has a monopoly. Prices are steep. I make do with the bottle of mineral water I have brought with me.

The lake is broad. The spaces are wide. The waterway soon narrows, bringing the far banks close and splintering them into small islands.

I am, however, beginning to be a little miffed at my choice of vessel for the river trip. The surroundings command quiet, a surface of silence on which the ripples of small sounds can be heard, the cries of cormorants, faraway voices, the gentle slop of water as one wavelet after another raises itself up and dies on stony banks. Such subtleties, however, are smothered by the grind and throb of the engine, vibrating the floorboards and making the walls judder.

The small flat islands recede, grow hazy, layered into the distance. The farther of them are a metallic blue-green, the same shade and hue as the water and the low part of the sky. Villagers stand on the banks of the islands in the shade and watch us go by. They wave at us. Two men, standing in the water by a long, sharp-prowed boat, stop what they are doing and wave. Their friendliness is disappointing. It discomposes the scene, makes it seem unnatural. I begin to get the idea they are doing it simply to mar the shots of people on the upper deck, who are waving expensive photographic equipment at them. What had seemed friendly becomes a sly connivance and more acceptable. I like them for it.

With every island there is a gaggle of people, all of whom look up at the sound of the boat's engine, smile, wave. There are almost no unpeopled stretches of land: with over 24 million inhabitants, Kerala is one of the most densely populated states in India, having over four times the population density of other western coastal areas. Looking deceptively large on the map, which doesn't necessarily show the myriad of lagoons and waterways, Kerala comprises only 1% of the country's total area of land.

I grow accustomed to the relentless chug of the engine after an hour or so, cease to hear it. Time seems to melt in the drowsy heat. My thoughts, usually as hectic and disordered as the traffic-filled streets I find myself in, slow to match the easy pace of life about me. The islands slim down, become smaller and less numerous, slivers of land in the water with a single house on each. Goats crop the grass above the high-tide line; chickens strut about in postage-stamp gardens. Some of the islands are linked by ropy drawbridges, though most of them are connected only by ferryboat.

Sharing the waterways with the ferries and us are kettu vallam, traditional Keralan longboats, long and narrow and sharp-prowed, transporting cargoes beneath awnings of woven coconut fronds. Despite their slender, almost delicate appearance, each of the boats can take a load of up to 20 tonnes. Some of them are punted along, others are powered by sackcloth sails. The erstwhile contents of one of the sacks is still being advertised, back to front and upside down, puffed out by the light breeze: Milma Feeds.