Kerala Diary Excerpt Pt. 4

Here's the fourth and final instalment of a diary I wrote while I visited Kerala, India, this August with my family.

"14/8/09

Our second and final day in Munnar. No one seems too happy about our accommodation. A rat was running through my parents tree house last night and my brothers are similarly unimpressed by their night time visitors.
First today we head to Erivakulam National Park, which is home to a rare species of goat, the Nilgiri Tahr. Initial impressions are less than hopeful as the drive to the park is eclipsed by mist. The park itself is not like any national park I have ever visited, seeming more like a large hill with a man-made road acting as a walk-way. Although we are told that the goats are not out today, my older brother and I spot two when we reach the top. They look like healthier, cuddlier versions of the common goat we’ve been seeing all over Kerala. Not incredible, but not a disappointment.
We head for an excellent lunch in a pretty plush hotel in Munnar. For some reason they are playing dance music from the 90s here. I identify Underworld amongst others. The hotel is nice and sparks my parent on to ask if there are rooms available. There aren’t, but it sends Saji on a quest to find an alternative to “Nature Zone”. Eventually we find one in Munnar that seems perfectly fine. I am pleased as there is internet and so I will be able to finally email A., a task I have been unable to do for eight days.
Today I have been mainly listening to “I <3 CAMPING”. I’m in much more of a compilation style mood today. I start to think about how itunes may have revived that old wonderful tradition of making mixtapes. They are so easy to make using it, I wonder if purists would argue that something has been lost in the lack of having to sit down and physically transfer every song to tape. Still, I love mixtapes and like how accessible they have become. Making people mixtapes is a lot of fun.
The dinner at the new hotel is excellent, I have a beer and settle down to listen to “Wind’s Poem”, the new Mt. Eerie album, and play some Kirby on the DS.
I was recently joking with a friend that there appears to be no appropriate time to listen to this record, so dark and elemental are its sounds. But listening to the rain falling in the mountains and I think I may have found the perfect occasion. I think this record is a big step up from Phil Elverum’s last Mt Eerie album proper. Although I enjoyed “Lost Wisdom”, I was dying something more akin to his Microphones releases, which I love so much. I think much ink will be spilled discussing the alleged “black metal” influences in this album, but it sounds very much, to me, as a maturer Elverum at work here. It’s dark, sure, but there are some epic moments of emotion and sustained cavernous melody found in the droning keyboards and Twin Peaks references. As a songwriter, Elverum appears to have overcome what has recently been holding him back, a morbid self-referentiality that bordered on outright boredom at points, and replaced it with a rediscovered awe at the elements, in this case, the wind. The wind is all over this album, in the lyrics, in the heavily spacious production, in the liberal use of the ride cymbal, and the aforementioned keyboard motifs. This renewed focus makes “Wind’s Poem” a truly fascinating and, most importantly, a rewarding listen; it’s an album you can spend hours with discovering new things. It’s so nice to see Elverum regain his sense of wonder again, even if it is a dark one.

16/8/09

Today we leave Munnar and head to Madurai, the “city of temples”, in neighbouring state, Tamil Nadu. Madurai is roughly 5 hours south east of Munnar. To get there, we have to drive out of the mountains. While we drive down, I check my ipod. I don’t have much charge left. I elect to listen to two Neil Young albums, “Harvest” and “Living With War”, “The Body, The Blood, The Machine” by The Thermals, and “Wind’s Poem” again by Mt Eerie.
Neil Young is someone I got into relatively late, “After the Gold Rush” being the first of his albums I purchased (from Fopp for £5) at roughly 22. Despite this, I keep wanting to get more and more of his material, and I am slowly building up a small collection. “Harvest”, from 1972, is not as easy an album to listen to as “After…”, using more, and harsher orchestration. I am enjoying it though. “Living With War”, one of Young’s more recent records is, in my opinion, vastly underrated. Sure, the production and politics are a little thrown in the listener’s face, but there’s something powerfully sad and angry about this music and the time it was written was certainly a time for a call to arms. The Thermals album is similarly inspired by the Bush era and is likewise angry, although heading more towards a pop punk aesthetic. Still, this music kills when it’s done well (see “Pinkerton”), and this is definitely done well.
The change from Kerala to Tamil Nadu is more intense than any of us expected and catches us all a little off guard. The land is flatter, sparser, and almost dessert-like. There are more people here and the poverty is more intense, much like the north.
We arrive at Madurai and check into the hotel. To my delight, there is internet here which I will later use to email A. again quickly. We meet out temple guide, Meena, who is named after the famous Meenashki temple, which we will be visiting. “Meenashki” means “fish eyes” and seems an unfortunate name on this basis. Meena takes us to a palace and the temple, which is one of the most impressive temples I’ve seen in India, containing numerous towers covered in statues and painted various bright colours, of which, blue and purple are used most often: the colours of Vishnu, whose wife Parvatti this temple is dedicated to. After the temple we return to the hotel and have an excellent, but late, dinner (9pm) and depart to our rooms."