Kochi (Cochin, as was)

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I begin to realize that I'm of a certain age and some things will never change for me: it's harder than I would have thought to keep name changes in mind. I can't quite bring myself to think of "Bombay" as Mumbai -- and though one of the reasons I have trouble with that particular change is because of the associations of "Mumbai-zation" with the rise of militant Hinduvta, the Shiv Sena and all that wonderfully right-wing reenervation of anti-colonial sentiment to disguise other, less positive, sentiments and behaviours. But I'm also having trouble mentally turning "Cochin" into Kochi and as for keeping in mind that "Calicut" is now Kozhikode, I barely spell that last, let alone pronounce it.

But we are in Kochi! Against the odds (for you've got to keep in mind that Superefficient Infosys Grrl, for all that she works for Infosys, one of India's best known global firms, and has just turned thirty, have never gone away anywhere without her family in tow so this trip was planned in the teeth of much familial opposition and dread), we've managed to escape the loving clutches of our familiies (well, nearly) and spent a night on a train from Bangalore to Kochi all by ourselves! I say we've only nearly escaped family since Infosys Grrl has an uncle in town and he was called on to arrange our hotel for us (in case we booked ourselves into a den of iniquity, you understand) and picked us up at the railway station (at 4:30am) and booked us a car for all day yesterday (for we might get picked up by lusty, leery men otherwise) and then insisted on taking us out for dinner with his family last night. Today, we're off on a short boat cruise (that we booked all by ourselves! gasp!) and we have strict instructions to call in every few hours so he knows we haven't been kidnapped by brigands (another term for the same lusty, leery men, I imagine).

It's hard to get properly mad at such... solicitude. Though I could do so far more easily than poor Infosys Grrl, who's caught between placating her anxious family and me. Anyway, Kochi or Cochin or whatever it calls itself, is *beautiful*. You'll get a proper report on it tonight -- right now, I have iddiappams waiting for me! And then a boat ride....