A trip to Calicut...

All my life, I've lived in north India. And I daresay, I'm well travelled in this region. The only city that I found worthwhile in all my years (although they aren't too much!) is Delhi, and Chandigarh/Dehradun to some extent. At every other place, I've wondered how could anyone live there?

I had the opportunity to visit Calicut as I had to arrange the tickets for my weekend visit to Bangalore. Calicut, I presumed like all other mid-sized cities that I have seen, would be a nondescript, smelly and backward town on Malabar coast. My presumption was based primarily upon its low profile (Has anyone heard of Calicut in news?).

And as it happens all the time, my presumption was off the mark. And by some distance. Calicut, in contrast to what I had imagined, looked like a prosperous town. The roads were well laid, their drainage system works well (It has to work being in Kerala!), plenty of supermarkets, stores selling all kinds of branded goods (even imported furniture). There was an odd mercedes as well. And some of the jewellery shops in Calicut could put a few on Bank Street to shame. Even the people in the countryside looked to be fairly well off. The folks were polite and helpful. Probably, what I forgot to take into account was the money from the middle-east with which this place is flushed with.

The countryside is very beautiful, the kind of place where one would like to spend their time of leisure. Its unimaginably green all around and along some of the vistas, one could see enough green to make one wonder if there were this many trees in all of Delhi? Calicut is some distance away from the campus (Kunnamanglam). I did this journey on a bike, the breeze was nice and mildly-cold. At some places, it was almost rejuvenating.

Probably two years spent in this environment here would add five more to my lifespan!

Really nice...