Scenes of Life in Tripunitura & Kochi: coconuts make a fine beverage and snack
Arriving in India via Cochin (Kochi), Kerala, bound for an extended stay in an Ayurvedic clinic in Tripunitura, i snapped impressions along the way, capturing the washes of colours and shapes of everyday life. Also a trek into Fort Kochi on Remembrance Day to pay respects at a cenotaph (documented in a B&W photo essay and a Remembrance day podcast and a peace ramble video)
Snapped with a Lomo La Sardina (sardine can) camera with expired 35mm film, presented “as-is” with no edits and limited context, for your amusement and my memory.
Scenes of Life in Tripunitura & Kochi: the church was built by Portuguese, renovated by Dutch, utilized by Brits and now… mostly a museum (Vasco da Gama’s bones were interred there for period)
On a hardwood slab I witnessed
My very own autopsy
Carved by Portuguese explorers
In the 16th century
Chipped out my draft obituary
On a petroglyph red canyon wall
Will be covered up soon enough
By flooding rivers and reservoirs
Guilt, grief, cold and sorrow
Ride in the seats beside me
Loss settles in, ticket punched
Ready for the full night ride
In which sunrise last forever
Evidence of absence of time
Roll past all the caskets
Rotting for eternity
There is “really nothing inside“ But exhume just to see
Vasco’s bones are dug up
And carried to his home
I’ll leave yours in the ground
And sit beside alone
I’ll read you endless poems
By Whitman, Baudelaire and Keats
Bring flowers black like coffee
Open like the Chinese fishing nets
Disappearing, invisibility, loneliness, depression, anxiety, being lost, trying to not be found, trying to find white space to invigorate… Sometimes these weave together, other times (perhaps) each remain exclusive.
Gord Downie, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and me all try to figure out the nuance in different ways atop Turkish street music, trains from Kerala and Moncton, and various ephemeral music snippets.
From an olden church and (otherwise vacant) cenotaph at Fort Cochin, Kerala, India, Dave O – acknowledging an extended medical and death related hiatus – discusses the local history of colonization by Portuguese explorers, Dutch traders, then British Raj in the context of the colonization leading to exploitation, conscription and war with no meaning to local populace. Plus the meaning of reparations and the conflict of peaceful resistance – evidenced my Mahatma Gandhi beach a stone’s throw away – contrasted with continued wars throughout the world, shadowed by disposable tourism, economic and racial caste systems.
Recorded Nov. 11, 2016, Released 11:11 Nov. 11, 2017
Also of note: Vasco da Gama’s bones, black knee-high socks, French generational losses, siege of Leningrad, Churchill’s mishaps, lost human potential of engineers, poets and lovers, MacArthur’s folly, Australia’s vulnerability, the emergence of regions over nation-states, Brexit for British Columbia + Cascadia, Catalonia and Scottish successions, work of raising a child, trappings of hubris, death by disease and guns, aggressive use of intelligence, forethought and diplomacy, and unfiltered view of sacrifice and life.
Cover art photo: By Dave Olson at Fort Cochin, taken by Lomo Sardine can camera with expired B&W film.
At 11:11, 11/11, in Cochin, India, Dave – wearing a handmade poppy on Mahatma Gandhi beach by Chinese fishing nets – riffs about sacrifices of soldiers, sailors, flyers, resistance fighters, parents. Plus discusses the importance of avoiding jingoism which leads to war and death and name-checks Henry David Thoreau, condemns greed, and encourages peace and diplomacy and compassion.
A classic train rolls through a rather insignificant (generally speaking as it is important to the community of course) train station called Tripunithura in the state of Kerala, India. That’s all. I do like trains. I made a painting of this station as well.
Bicycle and tree at park foreshore of Mahatma Gandhi beach
Visual observations on Remembrance Day in Fort Kochi / Cochin, Kerala, including: St. Francis Church (India’s first European church built in the 15th century by Catholic Portuguese and later re-consecrated by Protestant Dutch); a Cenoptah commemorating Armistice of “Great War” in 1918; and, an historic Dutch cemetery. Inside church is where remains of Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gamma were interred for several years before being repatriated by his son. Also captured are a nearby former armoury and parade ground, as well as Mahatma Gandhi Beach with myriad fishing boats and Chinese fishing nets. All of which i found to be contemplative metaphors for Remembrance Day.
Note: Snapped Lomo cork-covered, “sardine can” camera with expired b&w film (posted with very minor corrections).
