That bottom tip of India--In Daily Post

That bottom tip of India

By RAJBIR DESWAL

Now if you think it’s just the tip of India—the size of a pin-head—at the southern-most miles-spread of the sea-line at Kanya Kumari, you will be taken in for a big surprise on being there, for what you’ve been visualizing as a  tip was only less than a dot on the map of India. I happened to visit the place when the sea was the roughest during monsoons and the seawall was being as if, thumped, pounded and crashed against, by mammoth waves that roared and soared the highest.

We were then staying in the Dak Bungalow which is the last building on land in Kanya Kumari and if you plot it on the map, this one is the last built up dot where there is the lands-end too. Vivekanand Memorial is close by but you need a ferry to take you there. Be prepared to stay bundled in that boat to the Rock Memorial. They have recently seated a Kanya Kumari—Goddess idol at the rock temple.

A view from the lounge on the first floor of the Dak Bangalow allows you marveling at the expanse of the confluence of the Indian Ocean with Arabian Sea on the West and Bay of Bengal on the East. You are filled with a real patriotic feeling when you look at a mixed crowd of tourists—local, national and international. Skyline on all sides is dotted by temples, mosques and churches. Local men and women in their traditional lungis and skirts dominated the crowd. Women are fond of putting lot of oil on their hair with a flower or two to deck the parting or the plaits. They also have a style of letting the tresses drop loose but clutched near the nape, again with a flower or two to adorn it.

The lane that leads up to the ferry dock has eateries galore. You mostly get south-Indian food here but if you ask for an Aloo-Parantha it comes only with a pungently smelling coconut oil. Curd or milk—out of question. I was amazed at the size, variety and colour of bananas here. The market has sea-shell sellers display their stuff on small vending platforms. From a small cowrey to a huge coral or a conch—everything is here, mostly in white. Beads, rosaries, earrings, bangles and all ethnic cosmetic stuff for women is available at a very cheap price.

On the way to Kanya Kumari from Thiruvannathapuram in Kerala, you enter Tamil Nadu near Nagarcoil which has the famous Shiva temple having an 18-feet tall idol of Hanuman. You are allowed entry only if you are wearing a dhoti or a lungi. The temple is surrounded by a beautiful sacred water pond. The evening lights dancing on, and dipping deep in the pond water, make the visual a perfect blend of spirituality serenity and ethereal inquisitiveness. The Kanya Kumari temple is said to be a thousand years old. All temples in South India have huge boundary walls with white and burgundy strips.

Being afflicted with playing typically rustic gimmicks as Haryanvi officers, we committed a blunder, infact a silly and weird thing to say the least, while retiring of the day in the Dak Bungalow. We ordered out beds to be put in the open space to let us have a feel of sleeping on the sea-shore, hearing thunderous sound of the mighty waves. I don’t know when did we sleep but the sudden torrent drenched us head to toe when leaving the beds behind we sprinted to the verandah—not to save ourselves from the innocuous water—but to seek shelter against the pounding of those heavy and hurting watery missiles.

Only the keeper of the Bungalow had the last laugh.