A Slice Of India In Africa

Almost four hours before sunrise in Cape Town, another coastal town, 7,000kms away, in Kerala in south India, wakes up to the sights and sounds of dawn.

- Methil Renuka

This is Kozhikode, where fishermen return ashore from the choppy waters of the Arabian Sea, bringing with them boatloads of fish, stuffed into baskets they then haul on to their bare, bony backs.

They sell the morning’s fresh catch on Kappad beach, made famous by Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama who landed here in 1498, on a voyage from Europe that included stopovers in South Africa and Mozambique before his itinerant tryst with India.

The powerful Zamorin rulers of Kozhikode welcomed the Portuguese but kept a close watch on them. The spices were enough reason for the Arabs, the Dutch, the Portuguese and the English to flock to this palm-fringed, leaf-shaped Indian state.

With a population of 35 million and regaled in global travel brochures as ‘God’s Own Country’, Kerala produces ample coffee, tea, pepper, rubber, coconut and cashew. Yet, the state’s most famous exports are its people.