The Backwaters
Photo: Karan Madhok
Photo Gallery: Traversing across a labyrinth of water from Alappuzha to Kochi, the canals, lakes, and lagoons that form the serene backwaters of Kerala.
My memory of the famous Kerala ‘backwaters’ is of its silences. For someone born and raised in the fertile, over-populated Gangetic plains of eastern Uttar Pradesh, the ‘waterworld’ in Kerala—worlds flirting close to India’s southernmost tip—were a starkly alien ecosystem. It was an introduction to fishing communities that lived much of their lives off-land, often separated by long stretches of the water, often in the aforementioned silence.
The backwaters in Kerala are not one thing, but a combination of natural and manmade systems that come together to form this watery labyrinth. They are a larger collection of ‘brackish lagoons’: intermingling canals, rivers, lakes, and the union of freshwater and seawater near the Arabian Sea. The backwaters extend nearly half of length of the state, swimming to and fro across towns and villages like a complex water-road system. Palm trees dot much of the scenic length of the way, fishermen splash the oars of their boats, and tourists travel on larger cruises and houseboats that often spend days or weeks on the water.
The photos here are from a trip I took on the backwaters from Alappuzha to Kochi nearly a decade ago. Nowadays, in a time when any form of travel is a privilege; those like us confined to the urbanscape thirst for a way closer to nature, and those closer to nature struggle with the economic roadblock presented by the pandemic. This photo gallery is a short glimpse of nostalgia, and an appreciation of one of the most striking experiences from “god’s own country”.
Photo: Karan Madhok
Photo: Karan Madhok
Photo: Karan Madhok
Photo: Karan Madhok
Photo: Karan Madhok
Photo: Karan Madhok
Photo: Karan Madhok
Photo: Karan Madhok
Photo: Karan Madhok
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Karan Madhok is a writer, journalist, and editor of The Chakkar, whose creative work has appeared in Gargoyle, The Literary Review, The Bombay Review, The Lantern Review, F(r)iction, and more. He is the founder of the Indian basketball blog Hoopistani and has contributed to NBA India, SLAM Magazine, FirstPost, and more. His debut novel is forthcoming on the Aleph Book Company. You can find him on Twitter: @karanmadhok1 and Instagram: @karanmadhok.
