“Chance or coincidence is just heaven’s way of reminding us that we are walking through a script fashioned by higher forces. Every traveller knows that it is only when you get lost that you can be found.”
— Pico Iyer
As the saying goes, some of our most scenic routes are the detours we never planned to take. And this applies as much to the journey of life as it does to travel. When Thiruvananthapuram happened to me, it felt strange, even unfair, and certainly unexpected. Yet from the moment I landed in this quaint little temple town in 2023, the place began revealing itself slowly and gently, almost as if it was waiting to be discovered rather than announced.
It was a warmth that did not overwhelm, but stayed. It lived in home-cooked meals offered with affection, in the easy smiles of strangers on the road, in a shopkeeper’s patience as I stumbled through a language barrier, and in colleagues who suggested places not as tourists do, but as people who truly belong. What began as a posting gradually unfolded into an experience that felt intimate and deeply personal.
Sometimes, it helps to be an outsider in a place. It gives you fresh eyes, eyes that notice what familiarity often dulls. I found myself pausing at the most ordinary scenes. The tea shop owner at a roadside chaikada, rhythmically pouring tea from one steel tumbler to another, creating a frothy arc that felt almost like a performance. The wild almond trees inside the Napier Museum complex turning a startling red, as though the season had briefly set them aflame. Outside the Padmanabhaswamy Temple, little girls in half sarees moved with a grace that seemed older than memory. These were not grand spectacles, but they stayed longer than any monument.
The city delighted both me and my camera in its festivals and its ordinary afternoons, in its enchanting monsoon skies, in those endless rains that seemed to wash the world clean, and in clear full-moon nights when the sky felt close enough to speak. From my morning companions, kingfishers, oriels and egrets, to fields blazing with the yellow of sunflowers and the green of paddy, from the endless blue of the sea to the soft gold of dawn, it was always a spectrum of colour all around.
Most of all, it was the people, kind, generous, and remarkably balanced. Progressive, argumentative, rational in one moment and dreamy and emotional in another. They amused me and engaged me in equal measure, especially at work.
The love this city has for literature, music, art and debate never ceased to amaze me. At classical dance and music concerts, the audience is often made up of simple and modest people, deeply attentive and respectful. There is no performative appreciation, no need to be seen appreciating culture. Artists, writers and thinkers are valued for their substance. It is no wonder that my favourite haunt, Modern Book Shop at Pulimoodu, always drew such a wide range of readers, from students to retirees, all bound by a shared love for books.
This morning, I made a mental list of places I want to revisit before I finally say goodbye. Later I found myself smiling at the range it held. It had a temple and a museum, a library and a bookshop, a walkway by a waterbody and a beach, a specific tree and even a wetland. I added my rooftop terrace, where many evenings dissolved into reflection, and my heritage office building, whose every evening glimpses were my parting ritual from the work. It felt less like a list and more like a map of memory.
When I had first started writing about my Kerala journey in this blog, I had recalled the words of John Lennon, “Life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.” And now, almost three years later, life has once again lived up to that truth. Just when I had begun to belong, to settle into a rhythm, to make plans rooted in this soil, it decided it was time to move on.
There is a belief in Thiruvananthapuram that you do not truly leave the city unless the reigning deity, Padmanabha Swamy, permits it. Perhaps there is comfort in that thought, in surrendering one’s departures to something larger than choice or circumstance. I suppose my permission has come now.And yet, in the corners of my prayers, I find myself asking for something more, not to stay, but to return again and again. If not for long stretches, then for visits just long enough to relive the magic, to walk once more along familiar roads, to sit by the sea as if no time has passed, to rediscover those small moments that first made this city feel like home.
Kerala, though unlike any place I had lived before, came to feel, look, and sound like home.
The first time I landed here in October 2023, I looked out of the airplane window with uncertainty. In the years that followed, after many landings at one of the most scenically placed airports I have seen, each time I caught sight of Shangumugham Beach from above, my heart whispered that I was home.
I am old enough now to not grudge the twists and turns life takes. And yet I know this. Somewhere in the chaos of Delhi, in its traffic, its urgency and its noise, when I catch a glimpse of a dim sun struggling through layers of smog, my mind will travel back to the luminous evenings at St. Andrews Beach, where the sun did not just set, it performed with a kind of grace that stays with you.
And some places, like this one, you never truly leave at all.
