Cotton Hill Heights

I was chug-chugging along on the evening Express from Cochin to Trivandrum, rather lost in the building brochures strewn all around me. After an hour or so, bleary eyed, I looked up to notice a rather lean mean looking bird…I mean a thin wiry lady who looked rather important…at least, it was pretty obvious that’s what she thought of herself. She was one of those arty sorts, in a stiff white starched cotton saree, a huge bindi and chunky ethnic jewelry in black metal. I don’t know what inspired her to talk to me (I don’t think it had anything to do with me; it must’ve been the absolute boredom of a 5 hour long journey in silence), but soon she condescended to have a conversation with me.

Once I had revealed my credentials, she cocked her head regally to one side, and said, “I stay at Cotton Hill Heights” with a rather expectant air, as though expecting my jaw to drop down in awestruck wonder and amazement. It didn’t. The air was thick with awkward embarrassment. I had no clue where this grand stately “Cotton Hill Heights” was. But it was obvious she was expecting a jaw dropping show. So with all the politeness I could muster, I sputtered, “Yes, yes of course…Cotton Hill Heights! Great! Amazing, yes…good job...ahem!”

It didn’t work. The expectant look was slowly turning into a disgusted scorn at this ignorant peasant from the backwaters who had never heard of “Cotton Hill Heights!” That’s when I tried to recoup the situation as well as I could, by muttering what a long time it had been since I had been to Trivandrum. I am sure many new fabulous apartments must’ve spring up during the last few years when I was away in the US. The star spangled part of my red-faced ramblings kind of softened her piqued countenance. Ok, that’s why. Otherwise, no soul in the state of Kerala could’ve been ignorant of “Cotton Hill Heights!”

I was returning from Cochin after shopping around …for what else, but an apartment…the favourite hobby of NRIs these days. I had been bombarded with the glossy brochures of builders who seemed to have sprouted overnight in this otherwise typically laidback and charming port town of Kerala. Windsor Castle, Park Manor, Belvedere, La Casa, Venetian Heights…the builders threw grand English and European names left, right and centre. The list was endless. I went peeking around the streets, half expecting to see dukes and duchesses popping out of these ‘castles’ and ‘manors.’ But to my slight dismay, I could see only good ol’ Mallus happily yapping away within the iron grilled walls of Windsor Castle and Venetian Heights.

What’s with us and the names of our homes? The new housing complexes, that are literally mushrooming where there’s an inch to put down a shovel and a rake, have been fascinated with all names ‘forgin.’ The Queen of the Arabian Sea has been no exception. Tudor manors and castles jostle for space on the shores of her scenic, mosquito ridden backwaters, making bird like women on trains snap at ignorant home-shopping NRIs.