Our journey began in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) to the South, where we day-tripped to Kovalam, Kollam and who-knows-where-else, after a few days we drove for ten hours up the coast to Kozhikode (Calicut) and then our journey ended up a steep-winding road in the mountains at Wayanad.
Even though it was essential for movement of all goods and peoples, route 212 was also often closed due to protests or landslides or traffic pile-ups (we saw a truck blast through the retaining wall and hang over the cliff-edge - AH!...and an exploded what's-left of a car mid-road another day - AH!). This fact made traveling to, fro and within this area really tricky - when heading up, we had to jump in our van a few hours earlier than planned in order to make it through the mountain climb before protests took over. Another day, we had hoped to rise early and trek to a famed tiger preserve, but protests kept us at home.
The protests that I understood involved an interesting controversy - the Wayanad region is a main tea producing region of India - we saw many lush, green terraces coated with a mosaic of trimmed tea bushes. This biologically diverse region is also home to myriad rainforest-loving flora and fauna that are undermined by the constant downing of forests for agriculture.
We've all heard this story a million times and yet still don't know how to resolve it! Right now, the government hopes to save an essential parcel of rainforest by putting stricter regulations on it's use. However, enacting this will also evict many families who have lived and worked in the area for centuries. It's a morally complex decision - I hope they can come up with a sensitive and thoughtful solution for that one...because I'm not remotely local and I'm still very torn by the problem!
But it's causes obvious challenges when the whole mountain becomes so frequently cut-off from resource distribution below. In this way, I often felt like I was on an island when in India. A tiny island that was my hotel in every town we visited. So much assistance was required to visit anyplace outside of it. Whether due to outside factors like traffic or protests or festivals or accidents or due to perceptions like 'what' I am (white, young, blonde, tall, American female...) so much help and planning and flexibility was required to get going anywhere that I often felt a little stranded without this web of supporting chaperones/drivers/organizers. Feeling trapped like this is a hard feeling to deal with when I'm so used to wandering about, independently all the time. When I get that support it's so worth the organizational feats, but still a challenge to my patience!
But I have gained so much respect for the people I've seen here - being constantly without goods and services makes them quite resourceful and resilient. Even though trash is always burning in the streets, the piles are always tiny. There may be many issues at hand here, but wastefulness is not one of them. And that is a very refreshing thing to witness.