Coast trip: Part 2 (foreign-spotting and waterfalls)

As we walk down the well groomed dirt path into the village, Sunita explains why we’re including this in our general survey of sustainable lifestyles. The island is home to 150 fishing families who remain self-sufficient by drying fish for sale using solar dryers, and growing whatever else they want to eat. Because the ocean is just a few miles away, salt is a problem and they cultivate several salt-tolerant crops, which are a valuable resource for a region (and, increasingly, a world) with such short land availability – not to mention rising ocean levels. While to a western perspective these people may appear poor, their autonomy and possession of these seeds make them rich in a non-monetary sense and could, if laws change to allow indigenous ownership of biodiversity, give them the means for material wealth as well.
Children go to school on the island through 7th grade, and then they bus to the mainland for higher grades. The community is very tight and everyone pitches in for large projects and to take turns on ferry duty. Both men and women go out in the fishing boats and share that part of the work, not a common practice in these rural areas.
We meet Sneha Kunja’s contact on the island, a woman in a bright blue sari named Ramarama. She and a couple others take us on a tour, through the village and to the paddies on the other side of the island. As we walk, I notice that the island is not as littered as most other places I’ve been here, and the people seem jollier than usual. One house seems to be hosting a party, with men leaning out every window and blaring loud music.
We reach the edge of the village and cross the paddy. On the far side, you can see basically the whole island, which is only a couple of miles long and probably less than a mile wide. We stop to admire the new mangroves that have just been planted. When they’ve grown, they’ll help to stop erosion, control flooding and provide fish habitat. On the way to look at some salt-tolerant rice, the women show us their fresh water well. It’s the only one on the island, and when it occasionally runs out, they’ve had to pipe and haul water from the mainland.
As we walk down yet more narrow paths between paddies, we’re passed by men and women carrying bushels of grass on their heads to feed the cows. I can see two men dredging sand out in the estuary, digging it up by hand and pouring it into their canoe. This is the uglier, less sustainable side of the islanders’ activities – but it’s highly profitable to sell the sand to India’s booming construction industry.
Finally, we arrive at the paddy of interest, containing the salt-growing rice known as Kagga. The paddies we just crossed were slightly raised above sea level but this one is right down in the salty estuary. Of course, these plants are not as productive as other varieties, but land is at a premium here and some rice is better than no rice.

After the island, we have lunch at yet another woman’s house. Her name is Shanti Naik: chef; author of over 20 books on traditional knowledge; and unofficial museum curator. An entire room of her large house is filled with brass pots, original wood carvings, butter churners, stone grinders, and traditional basketry and paintings. The state doesn’t have it together enough to create indigenous history museums so items such as these are stashed in private collections across the region, passed along through generations. Of course, one person’s historical item is another person’s kitchen tool – I’ve seen women grind flour on stone and carry loads on their heads in cane baskets just about everywhere I’ve been.
When we finish eating, it’s only 3 pm and there’s still a lot more ground to cover. Mushtak is unceremoniously roused and we all pile in the van to hit the town – Honnavar. It’s one of the major coastal cities, located on another river estuary, the Sharavathy. Shanti wants us to see a temple housed in the center of town. The narrow market street we end up on doesn’t seem very religious, but she leads us to an ornately carved wooden door hidden between a tailor’s and one of the innumerable vegetable stands. She bangs twice on the door, and a man cracks it open, recognizes her, and begrudgingly lets us in. Apparently she’s a regular.
The temple is unique in that it is one of the few remaining examples of a Portugese-influenced art style known as Kaavi. The temple itself is around 400 years old. The outside is entirely covered with a red clay that was mixed with sugarcane to enhance its color and staying power. The red is intricately painted over with white lime made from seashells, and the images depict a variety of Hindu gods and goddesses and scenes from ancient epics.
Amazingly, when Honnavar sprung up here, an ugly concrete building was constructed around the temple. The building isn’t roofed, however, so it only serves the purpose of obscuring the temple from outside eyes. There are no more known Kaavi practitioners alive, and Honnavar is not exactly a thriving art center so few here even know the value of this temple.
After my weekend introduction to traditional art (next post!) it’s exciting to see a different style and one that will probably disappear with so many other aspects of India’s history. In a country so swiftly moving toward the future, few care to document its past, especially that tinged by colonialism or associated with indigenous peoples.

But we’re not done yet! Next it’s the Sneha Kunja hospital, where they’ll try anything to get you well. Actually, Sunita says, they’ve managed to blend Western and Eastern healing methods gracefully and have a state-of-the-art surgical facility with a medicinal garden out back. Just as we’re leaving, I catch my first sighting of a fellow “foreign” – an overweight, pasty woman who marches right past us down the path looking like she is on a mission. I felt a little hurt that she didn’t feel our inherent bond as outsiders and stop to chat (maybe I’m just Englihs-starved), but then gave her a pass since she’s staying at a hospital that often hosts mentally troubled patients. Still, it was odd seeing a non-Indian for the first time in nearly a month, thinking immediately of how strange it was, and then realizing that I must seem just as strange to everyone else.
Now we’ve spent an entire day at the coast and it’s time for another first: the beach! As Mushtak bravely dives through the potholes leading right up to the ocean I get unreasonably excited. I restrain myself from running to put my feet into the cold water, and then am surprised at how warm the Arabian sea is. Still, the beach is nice, surprisingly clean, and barely populated. Apparently, as we discuss in the van later, Indians are afraid of the ocean and the fact that I got close to the water made them all a little edgy. The beach is not as popular a destination as the mountains.
When we turn back, drive up the Sharavathy river and start winding through the hills again, I can plainly see where the weekend crowds have been by the garbage they left behind. Suddenly, I feel a little selfish happiness over the Indians’ ocean phobia. We pull over at a viewpoint and, when I stop shaking my head over the food wrappers, plastic bags, empty bottles and newspapers on the ground, I look up to see miles and miles of pristine river valley, with the Sharavathy flowing placidly far below. This part of the forest is reserved by the state and contains no villages or settlements. That protected status, however, did not prevent it from being flooded a few years ago by a hydroelectric dam built just a few miles below. Now the valley is half as deep as it once was and the river barely moves. But it’s still beautiful in the late-afternoon mist.
Unbelievably, Sunita has one more stop on the agenda, and it’s a surprise. I’ve done my tourist homework, though, and as soon as I see a sign for “Jog” I know exactly where we’re going. Half an hour later, we pull into the parking lot at Jog Falls, India’s highest waterfall. (“Jog” actually means “falls” in Kannada, and they pronounce it “Joeg”.) It’s another stunning sight – four narrow falls cascading down hundreds of feet of granite cliffs and meeting at the bottom to begin the Sharavathy. The only thing taking away from the beauty is my knowledge that it’s another victim of dams – before the hydro project further upstream was built, this place was Niagra-scale.
Finally, we begin the two hour trip home. I had no idea it was possible to pack so many activities into one day and I’m exhausted. Sunita and Manorama, somehow still going strong, chat it up in Kannada as I work on perfecting the bumpy-road doze.