wutheringheights

It was an April evening in the early 1990s. We — a group of ‘‘aspiring’’ young poets — were discussing Kafka and Sartre at the India Coffee House near University College, Thiruvananthapuram. An old man with long grey hair growing around a bald patch, wearing a white mundu and shirt, walked into the hall. He sat on a chair in the middle, and placed a lighter and a packet of India Kings on the table. We became quiet and nervous. If he overheard anything ‘‘funny’’, it could very well become the subject of the next Sahityavarabhalam, his controversial literary column in the Kalakaumudi, a popular Malayalam weekly. Krishnan Nair, the veteran Malayalam columnist who passed away last week at 84, could be the embodiment of love and affection. But he was disliked by most in literary circles. At the time of our seeing him in the coffee house, he was having a war of words with a Malayalam poet, a professor at University College. The poet claimed that Krishnan Nair had insulted him. Newspapers and

From the verandah of the Bungalow on the Beach in Tranquebar, I alternately focus my eyes on the partly-destroyed Masillamani Nathar temple and the remains of the fort wall, where waves from the Bay of Bengal hit. As I turn my head, I see the 17th-century Dansborg Fort; further away, there is the ruins of the Governor’s Bungalow and the post office building built by the Danes. Wherever I look, I see ruins. Built by the British in 1845, this erstwhile collector’s bungalow has recently been restored by the Neemrana Group, the Delhi-based heritage hotel experts. Because of its proximity to the sea, it has been renamed Bungalow on the Beach. To restore an ancient building and turn it into a living monument, one has to take a passionate journey into the soul of the place, which Neemrana has successfully done here. You see the same pillars and wooden ceilings that existed hundreds of years ago. Barring a couple of electronic items (sorry, no TV), everything in your room is antique. When you