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| Looking north from the end of the lane |
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| My room at Asinmomo |
I planned a week in Edava, 5km north of Varkala. without any
specific agenda. I wasn’t interested in mixing with the international
back-packer crowd, and I certainly didn’t want to mingle in with the
middle-class European families looking for a different Christmas climate.
I just
wanted a cheap, clean room, WiFi and some simple food. Asinmomo “homestay” was
just what I was looking for.
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| Tropical workspace |
The “homestay” idea is all over India.
People have an annex
they rent out to guests, or a spare bedroom. At Asinmomo, the family lives in
accommodation on the flat roof, while the ground floor comprises four bedrooms,
each with a simple, en-suite bathroom.
The kitchen is a separate building a few
yards away, there’s a wide “sit-out” verandah and, with the addition of
broadband access and WiFi, the whole creates a simple, money-generating operation.
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| St Augustine of Hippo |
I know there’s lots of good stuff in there, but it still lacks structure
and I have discovered that some of what I thought were my new and revolutionary
ideas, were voiced by St Augustine in the
4th century.
I wonder if Augustine had the same sense of deflation
if he discovered some earlier writer had written something rather similar,
centuries earlier.
When I haven’t been researching and writing, I have been
extremely lazy.
I have taken breaks to play some infernal version of Solitaire
on the laptop, I have looked up train and bus timetables and I have booked
accommodation for my final few days in January.
I designed a Christmas card and
emailed it to friends and family, and I have enjoyed the unfamiliar luxury of an
afternoon nap.
Mattindia gave me a physical detox; Edava has given me a
mental detox. I should be just about right to start at the monastery / ashram
on Monday.
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| A mild evening, looking out to sea |
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