The Dinner Party

The family we rent our place from have been so warm, kind-hearted and welcoming to us since our arrival that despite the separation of language we feel like their adopted children. Every time we pass their side-door to leave or come back one or more of the family is there to greet us, like returning war heroes. Meena, the hard working plump mother greets us each time with a waggle of the head and a wide candid smile from her round jovial face. She’s taken to grabbing Sofie for a hug sometimes and giving her a parting pat on the bum. The man of the house, Sugathan, between morning, lunchtime and afternoon naps, greets us phlegmatically with a raised hand and an inquisitive gaze, often popping up to give us freshly laid eggs, and un-identifiable fruits from the garden. The two teenage daughters, Susmi and Sumi are the antithesis of western petulance. Susmi, the younger of the two has an impish quality, yet she is ever helpful and loving to her parents and Sumi, after studying Animation in Trivandrum each day teaches an after-school class for local children before helping mum cook dinner. Her wide, heartfelt smile is irresistably uplifting. When I took Sofie to the station to go to the Yoga Ashram the two daughters, distraught at their loss, waved us, tears in their eyes, all the way down the street.

However, our exchanges are limited to the moments spent passing back and forth by their door. They are poignant yet fleeting. We wanted the chance to dig deeper, to understand them, to exchange thoughts and ideas, for us all to learn a little more about our respective lives. So we invited them for dinner at ours.

The week spent preceding the dinner was one of discussion, indecision, guidance seeking and receiving conflicting opinions.
“Cook them a western meal as a cultural exchange.” “Make them local food or they won’t eat it.” “Make it vegetarian to play safe.” “Give them meat as a rare treat.” :They won’t trust meat or fish unless it’s highly spiced….”
The more we discussed the more confused we became, the more people we consulted the more bewildered. What began as a simple dinner invitation was snowballing into something much bigger in our minds. We didn’t want to under or overwhelm. We didn’t want them to feel uncomfortable and we certainly didn’t want to offend them with an insensitive choice.

The limitations of our kitchen equipped with only a two-ring hob, no oven or grill, reduced our choices somewhat. We realised how much we rely on grilling and roasting for our indigenous British food.

Still dithering up to the day of the dinner we plumped for the safe, traditional British menu of:
Tandoori Rotisserie chicken (from a bakery in town)
Garlic Sauce
Dhal
Doughy Naan Bread
Chappatis
Coleslaw
Garlic and Cumin fried potatoes

followed by
Banofee Pie

What were we thinking? I’ve never eaten a meal like that in my life!
Still, it’s the thought that counts isn’t it?

The day of the dinner was spent shopping, chopping and scrubbing. Boiling, mixing and blending. Opening, unwrapping and cutting.
I agonised for hours over the playlist for dinner. Not obtrusive, yet not melancholy, not alienating, yet not patronising…. So, bizarrely, I went for the thirty-something dinner party staple of Buena Vista Social Club. Even writing this now makes me cringe.

Where were these bizarre food and music choices coming from? What cultural insights were they going to gain from us with our Indo-America-Cuba-Mediterranean-Sussex blend of stimuli. We were both feeling nervous, and our food and music choices were testament. Nervous of some nice people coming to eat some food.

8 o’clock came and the family tentatively came to the top of our steps.
The candles were lit, the music was on and the low table on the terrace was covered and surrounded by cushions and mattresses. I invited the family to take their seats, but they didn’t. Sofie invited them to sit, still they loitered at the top of the steps. I sat down and beckoned them over but still the didn’t come. Sofie led Sugathan by the arm over to the cushions and motioned for him to sit and somewhat reluctantly the rest of them followed. We brought out the dishes piled high with the fruits of our labour and invited them to help themselves, which they didn’t. We took their plates and served them a little of everything to taste and encouraged them to eat which they did without relish. Coversation flowed like treacle. Awkward smiles. Stilted sentences. Averted eyes. To fill the Cuban tinged silence Sofie and I ate… with gusto! We offered seconds yet none were accepted except for the coleslaw which the girls seemed to enjoy briefly before they stood, leaving us eating and attempted to make for the stairs, to the safety of their domain. Sofie leapt up and headed them off at the top of the stairs.
“We have dessert,” she pleaded.
I kept them talking whilst Sofie nipped to the fridge to the lure them back with the sight of the Banofee Pie. Sugathan pointed out that the cream hadn’t set and that it would be better tomorrow, but we weren’t going to let them off that lightly. We frantically chopped the sloppy pie into slices and shoved plates into the family’s hands. We couldn’t convince them to take their places round the table, so we settled for them perching on the wall, whilst we hovered uneasily around them. Their appetite ignited momentarily and they wolfed the slices down before making a run for the stairs, Sugathan parted with a conciliatory pat of the belly and the girls tossed “Goodnight!”’s over their shoulders as they fled.

8.25pm and it was all over, bar the washing up.
Hands across the sea, and all that….

Ed's wave pictures

Ed’s Wave

I haven’t written this blog for weeks now, caught up in a variety of projects, articles, plots and schemes, whilst also becoming snagged on the snaggle-toothed edge of a writer’s block. I just couldn’t get motivated to sit down and write, to write the Sunday Telegraph article, to write the commissioned piece for a surf magazine, to write some business plans and to write this bloody blog. So what happened? What dragged me from the mire? What hauled me from my stupour? What prised me from my lethargy? Waves. Pure and simple, the waves returned. It’s woken me up, filled me with vigour, charged me with positivity, put some lead into this jaded writer’s pencil. Since NYE the swell dropped. It’s been waist high at best for over three weeks — January is the smallest season — and although it’s been rideable everyday the waves have been breaking shallow and fast, too fast for me to beat the curl as section after section after section dumps tantalisingly just ahead on most waves. It’s been fun on my fish, it’s always good to be in the water and it’s still great to be the only one out… but I needed something more.

Then it came.
A 3.5-4ft south-westerly swell with a 14 second period, which on this coastline produces a 6-8ft face on the sets. Much of the main beach here closes out, but I hadn’t been idle. Time spent on GoogleEarth and scouting missions on my scooter threw up some spots with potential. A potential now converted into head high reeling lefts from some rocky point headlands. I’ve been fizzing with excitement to be surfing these powerful lefts on my own, an excitement ready to burst out of me in a squeal as I arrived at a small muslim fishing hamlet on my scooter, my board shabbily strapped with frayed coconut-rope to the side. Walking down past the mosque to the beach I could see that the potential I had noted from one of my scouting trips had been realised as beautiful, rumbling lefts broke just ahead of the rocky outcrop, peeling into the scimitar shaped bay. There was a gaggle of local boys playing in the shallows on the inside, and fisherman snoozing in the shade of their boats after a night at sea, but not another single tourist for miles and miles. No resorts, no hotels, no foreigners. As I paddled out the boys became interested, and as I picked off wave after wave my backhand surfing momentously and significantly came of age, whilst the boys clapped and cheered my every ride. Some of the boys moved to stand on the rocky prominentary and whistled as sets approached. One team calling me in to waves, another team onshore applauding those rides. Team Surf. No, Team Ed. Surfing lefts had until this day been ungainly, like writing with my left hand, yet today it became almost fluid, almost dextrous, natural and joyful. Yet above and beyond even this rapture was the germination of a thought, a quiet voice from within. ‘Has anyone ever surfed here before?’ it whispered. Of course there’s every chance that a wandering surfer has snagged a few here, but this is the first time that I have ever gone completely off-piste. The Surfing Swami’s and their guide to surf in India didn’t mention this spot, the Stormrider Guide’s new India section doesn’t refer to it. None of the websites, forums, books or guides I consulted before surfing here name this place. The thought crept over my mind that there was a possibility, however slight, that I might just have made a discovery. My very own surf spot discovery.

Hmmmmm…. Deep in thought between sets, knowing that my lookouts would warn me of approaching waves I set my mind to the task in hand. What will I call this break?

Could I just call it “Ed’s Wave”? Probably not, there must be some convention to this break naming business. “Ed’s Left”? Still too egocentric for an awakened being like me. Perhaps “Templeton’s”? It gives it a certain respectability don’t you think? Does anybody know what the rules are for this kind of thing? Does it have to relate to the surrounding environment? I could call it Poop Point after the squatting, smoking fishermen amidst the rocky outcrops that I initially mistook for spectators, or is humour not allowed? Seriously, does anyone know about spot naming? In fact if anyone has any good ideas, message me on this blog and I’ll decide which is the best before I have the brass plaque engraved.


Team Ed soon got bored of my gaudy display, or had to go to school or watch a freshly painted wall or something but nevertheless I soldiered on alone. I surfed it all morning until the on-shores began for four days on the trot until the swell dropped and my shoulders ached. And in the afternoons I started writing again. And at night I slept a deep contented sleep.

“Where is Ed’s Wave?” I hear you cry. That would be telling now wouldn’t it… but perhaps I’ll take you to it if you come to my surf and yoga retreat here next season….

Surf India

Real India / Tourist India

Life here in our jungle fringed pink house between Varkala town and Varkala beach drifts gently by and feels more like home as each day passes. Our location between real India (town) and tourist India (beach) affords us the best of both worlds. Last night we ate Butterfish Tikka and Tibetan Momos whilst I watched Arsenal play Villa in a clifftop restaurant yet the evening before we nipped into town on the scooter and ate delicious Masala Dosas and Vegetable Subji for 30p in a locals joint. The large three day Hindu festival being assembled in town promises to be a riot of noise, colour and spectacular ritual yet we’ve slipped easily into the evening ritual of meeting friends at the beach as the sun heads for the horizon for a swim as the scorching heat subsides and the reddening sun seeps into the sea, it’s pigment bleeding into the sky.

Our two nearest neighbours maintain the homogeneous polarity. Below us live our landlords, the most wonderfully warm and welcoming local family. We share little common language yet through gestures, smiles, head waggles and regular gifts of coconuts, eggs and bananas we are made to feel welcome and completely at ease here. Behind us, across cobra and funnel-web infested scrubland and shouting distance from our terrace, is a household of assorted europeans who have been equally welcoming and accommodating helping us with the myriad idiosyncrasies of Indian living and extending invites to us whenever they ‘make party on the roof!’. With each friendship, Sadji at the local shop, Umesh and his son Abhi at the Juice Shack, Zoe and her twin boys Jem & Jelly, we feel less like holiday-makers and more like residents which was always our intention before setting off on this expedition. We would much rather get a taste of real-life in a handful of places across the globe than have ticked-off a hundred ‘sights’ before our return.

Mornings begin early with a solitary surf session in the silky smooth Arabian sea. I’ve picked the smallest surf season (December/January) to be here, but there’s been waves every day ranging from waist to head high and looking south from Varkala cliff the mass of sand-banks and small coves creates break after break — almost reminiscent of the view south down the western Bukkit peninsular — producing small almond-eyed curls up to proper lip-pitching barrels depending on swell size and direction. These super-fast lefts are exposing my backhand weakness as I struggle to race ahead of the crashing lip. When a bank produces a rare right the dissonant capability of my left and right side becomes jarringly obvious as I have the speed, balance and technique to make a quick bottom turn and to snake, for speed, up and down the sinuous mirrored walls before pitching back off the brink as it finally breaks down in knee deep water. As our next destination is Indonesia, the land of lefts, the next few weeks practice in the forgiving sand-bottomed waves of India will I’m sure pay dividends as the sand becomes knife-edged coral and the power, size and speed of the waves intensifies.

We breakfast on porridge laced with coconut shavings, bananas and doused in wild mountain honey from our friend Sadji washed down with a spicy aromatic herbal masala tea, and either begin work on one of our many plots and schemes in the offing or just laze on the terrace with a good book and contemplate lunch, or a swim or a pootle down-coast on the scooter. The heat of the day produces a languid tropical malaise by about 2pm yet my northern-european trained body-clock doesn’t usually allow me the orthodox afternoon doze but I tend to slow to crawl and wait for the relief of the receding sun and for the onshore breeze to dissipate before heading beach-ward once more.

There’s interest amongst some locals in this surfing game, but none here can actually do it. I’ve promised to give lessons to a couple lifeguards and our friend Abhi before I go, but the scarcity of decent learner-boards is a problem as is my inexperience in teaching! I’ve begun practicing for my new-found role with Jake and Lisa, our friends from Brighton who, to our delight, leapt upon the offer of our spare room and a tropical festive sojourn, yet the bruises on Lisa’s head and thigh and my egocentric tendency to nip off to catch waves leaving my pupils floundering in the impact zone exposes my early shortcomings as a wannabe surf guru.