Never thought I’d write one.
I’ve had the best pizza of my entire life at The Raviz, Mavoor Road. Don’t care how inauthentic it was — it just always made me happy. Thank you to the chemist uncle downstairs who stopped asking for my Tretinoin prescription after the first time. He used to always slip me two free Strepsils because he knew how much the rain affected my throat.
Shoutout to the Starbucks employees at South Beach. Hope you’re finally married, Tarun, and I hope you moved back home, Sameera. I’m sorry I never said goodbye. A fun little challenge I set myself in Calicut was trying every beverage on the menu, and when I got to the Green Tea Frappuccino, I couldn’t stomach more than two sips. These lovely people didn’t let me pay for the Venti I wasted.
Thanks to Calicut, I will never, ever think about trying meat in my life. I’ve seen too many skinned cows hanging and too many dead fish staring at me through glass counters in restaurants. Sorry for painting such a disgusting picture — at least you didn’t have to smell it.
Genuinely, though, I can no longer start my day without filter coffee, and I’ve started liking — like actually liking — good South Indian food. Nothing beats a ghee idli with sambar at the breakfast buffet. It’s truly soul food.
I’ve got to hand it to Kerala- I’ve never witnessed such religious harmony anywhere. I’m not a very political person, and I’m sure people will draw their own connections, but it truly stuck with me how close-knit the community is there. At the risk of sounding preachy, I’ve never seen more churches, mosques, and temples coexisting on the same street with zero dissent. It’s remarkable. Coming from a city where religious riots are day-to-day, the bond there was unmatched.
Oh, and for everyone wondering — I still love the rain. I never bought a raincoat, and I’ve now lived through one Kerala and two Bombay monsoons. I still think about those green coffee fields speckled with coconut trees, tucked somewhere in the back of my mind. Over the literal kilos of banana chips I ate, I have to admit — I kind of get the charm of the laid-back rural life now. Thanks, Calicut. You’ll be missed.
