Kerala and Cochin, India

By Jeff C | Published April 13, 2020

The elaborate theyyams and the fun elephant festival were highlights from the Kerala, India. But even ordinary, day-to-day life there is worth a look.

Kerala is a tropical Indian state that stretches along the coast of the Laccadive Sea (in the Indian Ocean) in southwest India. It’s smaller than West Virginia, with a population almost as big as California. Almost everyone speaks Malayalam as their primary language, but as in most of India, the most common second language is English. Only about half of Keralans are Hindu; a quarter are Muslim and about 18% are Christian. More than half the population works in agriculture and fishing, but the biggest single source of income may be sending millions of educated Keralans to work in other countries and send money back to their families.

A banana merchant in Cochin.
This Cochin produce merchant’s whole operation is about 10 feet wide. He said he took over the business from his dad, whose portrait is hanging on the wall behind him. His own son was working a few feet away.
(Above and below): Chinese fishing nets in the harbor at Cochin. The nets stay mostly horizontally flat under the water until those big levered poles lift it all up. It’s an unusual way to catch fish.
We got a special private Kathakali performance in Cochin. Lots of elaborate face-paint, sort of like the Hindu temple “theyyams” I’d seen a few days earlier, but this is theater, and the theyyams are more like church.
A fish market in rural Kannur.