Thirty-Three

Postcards from Alleppey, Kerala. (January 2025.)

Hi, I turned thirty-three last month and took an eight-day solo trip to Kerala. All I wanted to do was to put myself in front of beauty that I do, and don’t understand. So, I went to Kochi and Alleppey. You can find a recap of the the art that made me pause, and the non-art things that made me chuckle in Kochi here. Spoiler alert: the city might have captivated me more than the art, sorry. This, below, are postcard(s) of my days in Alleppey.

I decide to walk to the beach to see the sunset. Behind me, a car deliberately stops. Inside, a smirk. As he drives off, making me aware for the first time in a week of who I am, I feel just one overwhelming, bubbling, emotion.

I want to bash his head in.

If he had stopped for one more second, I would have, I wager, showed him exactly who I was.

---

Waves; calming waves. But the sun, still up. I walk to the only shack I see. Behind a makeshift counter, a husband-wife couple. I ask for black tea but something is lost in translation. I am rescued by three women who are sitting near the counter, on bright red low stools, wearing brighter not-red sarees.

Tea! they gesticulate.

Tea! it’s understood.

I am told to grab the fourth stool and sit and wait. I plonk my heavyweight bag, and turn to the still-not-auburn sea. My ears turn to the conversation next to me.

From the little Malayalam I now know, I understand that the two older women, perhaps sisters, are talking to the younger woman about marriage. Kalyanam. I am especially attuned to ages, since this is a trip that I’ve taken to celebrate being thirty-three. So I try and guess the girl’s age. She keeps laughing at the mentions of the aforementioned kalyanam.

A familiar laugh. Early twenties, I guess. I see the glint of her gold earrings, think of the sparkle of my beloved-laugh-partner’s wedding lehenga, and conclude that translation is not just about language.

The sun eventually sets, but it’s a cheeky sunset. I get the auburn waves and the wind on my face. But no purple-streaked sky.

I start walking back home.

---

Sunset, again.

This time, I am on a boat. I clutch to my lifejacket like it’s the only thing between me and a watery death. The girl sitting in front of me asks me to remove the orange-white lifejacket that’s dwarfing me. “I will click a photo for your Instagram,” she says. I have never felt more seen through.

Half an hour more of the whirr of the motor on the narrowest boat I have seen, the lifejacket firmly on, we are now in a village that depends entirely on waterways.

Houses, with a boat tied to its porch. Young kids, splashing around post-school. Women, getting ready to fish for dinner. I pass a temple on water — and then, in a final, compelling argument — an ice cream shop on a boat.

It’s a two-and-a-half-hour boat ride. I spend the next one-and-a-half-hour, lifejacket-less, leaning over to catch the sun through the palm trees, get gossip from the wedding that my boatmate has come to Kerala to attend, and make conversation in broken Malayalam with the boatman.

The lifejacket, is discarded aside.

Just, only, exactly one centimeter away from my hand.

After all, I know who I am.

Thank you as always for reading. I can’t believe I last wrote here in August 2025, but if you, dear reader, are responsible for the occasional email I get about a new subscriber, I wish you like someone did to me this month, “non-stop joy.” I’ll write again soon.