Henna for the Broken Hearted

by Sharell Cook

  Many locals in Kerala are involved in the seafood industry. Fish is still caught by hand using nets, cast into the water by fishermen who go out into the water in rickety wooden canoes.

  Aryan had no trouble finding work as a DJ in the beach shacks. There were many hot and sweaty nights, dancing under the stars. In the evenings, we often headed to the beach at the bottom of the Cliff to relax.

  Our dog, named Scooby, kept away the intruders. He came to us as a small puppy but grew very big in the end. I still loved to pick him up though. Thankfully, the guest house owner was happy to keep him after we left.

  When the season was over, Aryan and I took another long distance train from Varkala to Delhi. We'd accumulated an extra bag and now had eleven bags to transport with us. So much for travelling light!

  Manali was very soothing to the soul. The small family-run guesthouse that we stayed in when we arrived, in the tiny village of Old Manali, was surrounded by blossoming cherry and apple trees. The snow had just cleared, but could still be seen on the nearby hills.

  New Manali was every bit as commercialised as Old Manali was quaint. The main street was always filled with Indian holiday-makers, honeymooners, and snack vendors.

  I couldn't handle the local meat market, with its cages of doomed chickens and carcasses of various animals hanging and lying everywhere.

  Strangely enough, probably due to my country upbringing, live snakes didn't bother me. I wore them draped around my neck like fashion accessories, courtesy of the snake charmers that came to Manali from Rajasthan every year to make money from tourists.

  The view from our apartment in Old Manali, which overlooked the Beas River, was magnificent. It was blissful to wake up to snow-capped peaks every morning.

  After arriving in Mumbai from Manali, Aryan and I ate fresh pav bhaji from the snack stalls on Juhu beach. It was my first introduction to Mumbai street food, and it was yummy!

  Different to Kolkata, in Mumbai generations of families are all crammed together in towering apartment buildings due to the lack of space. Our apartment building, in the middle-class suburb of Kandivali West, was less than five years old but like most buildings, its exterior wasn't well maintained. (Our apartment was the bottom left hand one.)

  Inside, our apartment was decorated in bright but modest Indian style, with traditional low-to-the-floor seating. The grills on the windows, a feature of most Mumbai apartments, made it feel a little like being in a prison though.

  Black and yellow auto rickshaws, which looked and sounded like giant bees, ruled the roads in the Mumbai suburbs. They could often be found bumper to bumper in the unyielding traffic. Going out in it, especially on the back of Aryan's motorbike, usually gave me a headache within half an hour.

  The Mumbai local train can be impossibly crowded, reducing people to uncivilised behaviour in a bid to get on and off, as there's no room for movement.

  I loved the Sunday Sundown Session at Aurus, a bar and restaurant on Juhu beach. Aryan loved the step there, which dramatically reversed our height difference much to the amusement of our friends.

  At our Hindu wedding, my mum welcomed Aryan and put a red tilak (auspicious mark made out of kumkum powder) on his forehead.

  I chose an Arabic design for the henna (mehendi) on my hands and arms, consisting of swirls and floral patterns.

  Aryan looked very handsome in a turban. It was the first time I'd seen him wear traditional Indian dress.

  I never imagined that on my wedding day, I'd look like Lord Jagannath during the Rath Yatra festival in Orissa, with a huge ornamental gold crown on my head.

  As part of the wedding ceremony, Aryan dabbed red sindoor on my forehead as a mark of me being a married woman.

  After the ceremony had finished, people threw flowers at us. It was a jubilant moment where we felt so relieved and happy.

  Right: A complete change of clothes was required for the reception that followed straight after the wedding ceremony. I put on the traditional red sari that I was so looking forward to wearing. Jewellery hung off almost every body part, and a packet of sparkling bindis had been stuck onto my hair. Less is definitely not more in an Indian wedding!

  Below: One of my favourite wedding photos.

  Below: The Taj Palace Hotel in Mumbai was one of the buildings under siege during the 26 November 2008 terrorist attack. Most of the heritage wing, including the dome, was destroyed by fire. It took two years to rebuild it. The incident left me, like many others, feeling tense and traumatised.

  High altitude Spiti Valley, in northern Himachal Pradesh, was like a world within a world. The arid and barren landscape was scattered with small villages and monasteries.

  The highlight of my trip to Spiti was a yak safari from village to village. A stocky, shaggy beast, the yak must be respected for its strength and temperamental nature. (Just ask my safari partner who was thrown off one, lost his turban in the mud, and damaged his ankle so badly he had to be transported back to a Delhi hospital!)

  Hitting the road on the rickshaw challenge - driving an auto rickshaw from Chennai to Mumbai over two weeks - revealed some unexpected highway traffic. Overburdened bullock carts were a common enough sight.

  However, the real surprise was two sadhus (Hindu holy men) and their elephant, on a pilgrimage by foot from south India to the holy town of Haridwar in the north.

  Out of all places I'd been to in India, it was Udaipur, city of famed lakes and palaces that really captured my heart. The City Palace Complex, which the royal family still occupies, looks over Lake Pichola.

  My room at the Shiv Niwas Palace hotel, which is part of the City Palace Complex, faced Lake Pichola. The view of the Lake Palace Hotel, a former summer palace of the royal family, was like out of a regal fairytale.

  Ganesh Chaturthi is my favourite festival in Mumbai. All over the city, canopied roadside tents house immaculately and uniquely crafted displays of Lord Ganesh. The energy inside is tangibly powerful and calming. Devotees place piles of coconuts, fruit, and sweets at the Lord's feet to gain his blessings. On the last day of the festival, the statues of Lord Ganesh are carried from their podiums and given an exuberant send-off before being immersed into the ocean. There's music and dancing in the streets all night.

  Buddhism is the dominant religion in many areas of far north India close to the Tibetan border, and Tibetan prayer flags are a common sight. Prayers and sacred mantras are written on the flags and when blown in the wind, it's believed that the energy will bring happiness and good health to everyone who sees them.

  In Kerala, temple festivals are held all over the state from February to May. The feature of these festivals is the elephants, and some festivals have thirty or more on display.