Author: Gopi Chandroth

I have a policy: not to expand the list of of marine animals I consume. I am a vegetarian at heart, but I do eat fish and a couple of crustaceans. I have no desire to taste new things. So when I asked the fishmonger at the Luçon market, in broken French and mime, whether one must cook the oyster before consuming it, he cracked open one with his pen knife and offered me the real thing. He obviously thought I was asking to taste one. That put me in a difficult situation. The last thing I wanted to do was offend the man by refusing it.

I received the half with the slimy mass – like raw egg white mixed in with some black stringy stuff and brown translucent blobs. I looked for an exit. I asked weakly if he wanted me to swallow the lot hoping he would say that it was up to me. He just said ‘oui oui’ and I knew the game was up for me.

I transferred the contents into my mouth. Disgusting doesn’t come anywhere near expressing what it felt like. Fortunately, the overwhelming taste was that of sea water. I can’t remember anything else in the taste department except that I knew I had a live creature in my mouth. But it couldn’t stay there. I had to spit it out or swallow it. As I said, my intention was not to offend. So I swallowed the lot.

I summoned a fake ‘so tasty’ expression on my face if only to please the man. But then a strange aftertaste lingered. I retched. My face twisted, and grimacing, I pushed out my tongue – all in one smooth involuntary movement. That probably saved me from throwing up on his large oyster collection. He got the message.

How much? I asked.

He pointed to the price on a piece of board: €6.90 for a kilogram.

No no! Just for the bit I ate. I mimed.

Oh! Nothing.

For the next hour, I watched for internal reactions. Did i feel something moving inside me? Or was it just my imagination? Did my stomach hurt a bit? No. Just imagination.

Never again to oysters. Octopus, eels, turtles and everyone else – you will remain strictly outside my menu. The next time I am curious about something, I’ll just go to YouTube.

I stepped out for a café au lait yesterday morning. Even a simple act like that can lead to some complicated situations when one doesn’t speak the local language. I wanted oat milk in my coffee because that’s how I drink my coffee at home. I looked up the word for oat milk – lait d’avoine, pronounced leh dav-wen. The woman at the café didn’t understand my rendition of the word and so I asked her if she spoke any English.

“Yes, yes. Left, right, up, down. Thank you. Bye-bye,”
she replied proudly. That was the limit of her English – comparable to my French, perhaps. Anyway, I managed to establish that she only had regular milk. The coffee hit the spot. I was ready for La Rochelle, our destination for the day.

La Rochelle, literally translating to ‘The Little Rock’, is around 42 km south of Luçon. The town has an interesting but turbulent history. Set up in the 10th century, it grew into a stronghold for the Huguenots (Protestants) by the 16th century, declaring independence from Catholic France. The subsequent siege by the army of King Louis XIII starved and reduced a population of 28,000 to 5,000. Although England sent a contingent to help their Protestant brethren, they were badly defeated.

Protestant political power was thereby broken and La Rochelle became an integral part of France. But enough of history!

Our visit started with lunch at Café de la Paix. I had a large bowl of Moules Marinières (mool mah-ree-nyair), a classic French dish of mussels cooked in white wine, cream, garlic, shallots, parsley, and butter. It was not the easiest dish to tackle. Any semblance of elegance was quickly jettisoned and I tackled the delicious dish with both hands. I’d checked in advance that it’s highly unlikely mussels experience pain, so I enjoyed my lunch without guilt and washed it down with a generous helping of white wine.

After lunch, we visited the old port protected by twin towers, across which in the olden days chains were stretched to prevent enemy ships from entering. La Rochelle is a bustling city and somehow the old medieval gates and towers lent it an air of authenticity and living history. Squawks of seagulls mingled with the sound of church bells.

Then I saw signs for Hôtel de ville. I had seen the same sign in Luçon and you can’t blame me for thinking it was a chain of hotels – like Premier Inn! Fortunately, I was informed by my erudite hosts that a hôtel is a large mansion and Hôtel de ville is actually the Town Hall. One lives and learns. La Rochelle’s town hall was established back in the 13th century and the Gothic towers and walls remind one of the town’s fiercely independent past.

We walked into the Saint-Louis Cathedral. A small funeral service was going on. The incantations of the officiating priest rendered the atmosphere sombre. For a brief moment, I partook in the grief of the people gathered near the coffin. The thought that death is the final destination for everyone had a sobering effect. I quickened my pace a bit, almost as if to gain more time to live, until my time is called.

Walking around La Rochelle, I thought of the centuries of trials and tribulations the old town has lived through. In some strange way, I too felt a trace of that history.

William Christie, an American art historian and musician, moved to France in 1971 in protest against the Vietnam War. William – or Bill, as he’s known to his friends – set up Les Arts Florissants in 1979. The foundation runs a Baroque music festival each year in Thiré (Vendée prefecture), near Luçon, where we are visiting my brother-in-law and his friend, also reputed art historians.

The forty-minute drive to Thiré gave us an intimate view of the countryside. The spectacular view of sprawling fields of hundreds of thousands of sunflowers had a mesmerising effect. The flowers, in full bloom, stared up at the sun like some classical danseuses paying obeisance to the Sun God.

Little did I foresee then that I would soon be witnessing the makeover of a village acquired by the foundation. Many of the properties in the village were purchased by the foundation to board musicians participating in the week-long festival, Dans les Jardins de William Christie, which is held in late August each year.

William Christie purchased and converted a once-dreary farmland in Thiré into an exquisite garden – lakes with families of swans, oak and elm woods, and a river that meanders through the 25-acre property. The swans floated about in the lakes as if they, and not Christie, owned the property.

I imagined the concerts of 17th-century music performed on the premises: by the lake, within the woods, inside the charming cloisters with intricate, labyrinthine formal French gardens, in the village church. I saw, in my mind’s eye, the proliferation of roses in full bloom – their fragrance embellished my reverie.

In the solitude, only softened by the rustle of the leaves in the trees, gentle murmur of the river, trill of songbirds, I almost heard the captivating music of Purcell, the sparkling soprano arias of Bach and Handel. The music that played in my head somehow reinforced the solitude – didn’t disturb it. I saw the faces of aficionados listening with rapt attention – some with their eyes closed, some leaning forward as if to catch all the notes that twirled and floated in the cool evening breeze. An opalescent sky formed the backdrop.

Did I worry about the locals of the village – that their ancestral land had been bought up by an American foundation? Yes, I did.

“It’s better than converting it to a golf course,” I answered the trouble-maker, my inner socialist.

I was made aware that the foundation is only purchasing properties coming up for sale and restoring them. Otherwise these buildings might have fallen to ruins or made way for new construction.

I must return to Thiré one year during the festival, if only to validate my imagination against reality. It can only be more vivid, for what I picture is limited by shades of what I experience. I can but glimpse a small part of what truly might be.

Studying the colour of smoke from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel has an interesting marine parallel. For a very different reason, marine engineers too are keen observers of the colour of smoke from the funnel of their ship. It is their chimney; the engine room, their chapel.

The engine room is a complex, compact space packed to the brim with a vast array of machinery systems. A ship is a floating hotel — but with exceptions: no access to shore-based services.

Giant propulsion engines as tall as double-storied buildings; power plants and boilers sufficient to meet the needs of a small township; air-conditioning systems; sewage treatment units; and desalination plants — the ship has got it all.

The marine engineer is the jack and master of all machinery. They need an intimate understanding not only of the functioning of equipment, but also the thermodynamics of the processes within, the hydraulic flows, and the mechanical stresses involved. They must know, like the back of their hands, the labyrinthine pipework and electrical circuits that service the equipment.

Being a marine engineer is no easy task. A single mistake can lead to multiple — and often catastrophic — failures.

The last thing a marine engineer wants is a breakdown of critical machinery in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles from help. I was once a serving marine engineer on large merchant ships. As chief engineer, one begins to lose the gut instinct developed by spending most of the working day in proximity to machinery. The chief is usually buried in paperwork.

This is why they watch smoke — which has an uncanny knack of revealing the health of the engines and boilers.

Every evening after dinner, I walked the length of the main deck, frequently looking up at the funnel to study the colour of smoke.

Black means poor combustion, indicating engine problems; white, water ingress into the combustion space; and blue implies excessive consumption of lubricating oil.

Sparks from the funnel? Time to don the boiler suit.

Near-colourless smoke was the holy grail — rarely seen, but always aspired to.

On one occasion, I observed thick black smoke and hoped we could deal with the problem in port. Sadly, it culminated in the immobilisation of our ship for nearly 24 hours, while we replaced a piston weighing over a tonne — in the middle of a raging Atlantic storm. Our fully loaded 50,000-tonne vessel was flung about like a piece of flotsam. We could barely stand without holding on to something. I’ll never forget how helpless we felt that night.

And so, just as the colour of smoke is interpreted by the faithful gathered in St Peter’s Square as a sign to humanity, the colour of smoke at the funnel is also a portent of what lies ahead for the marine engineer.

Whether generated from the holy precincts of the Sistine Chapel, or from the internal combustion engines of a ship, the smoke is not just exhaust — but something weighed in hope, peace of mind, and certitude.

England is full of signboards, yet where there should be one, there are none. We set off one summer morning, to spend the day on the banks of Abbey Brook near Sheffield. I loved the gentle murmur of the brook as we ambled along its banks. Its meandering nature lulled me into a sense of dilated time. By noon, we began looking for a picnic spot.

“Looks greener over there,” I said, pointing out to my wife and son.

We moved about 100 feet further away from the brook, and spread our blanket on grass softer than the carpets in our student accommodation. For the next hour, we luxuriated in the sun, nibbling sandwiches, sipping chilled Chablis, and enjoying the manicured grass.

“They do look after their fields, don’t they?” I addressed the blue sky and its cuddly clouds.

A group of middle-aged men loitered nearby—not too close, but not far either. They appeared to be waiting for something. Strange, I thought. Bird-watchers? Gardeners? Land surveyors? Eventually, after a good hour, we finished our picnic, packed up our blanket and other accessories, and walked toward the bus stop. The men who had seemed aimless suddenly moved swiftly, with clear purpose. Out came their golf clubs…

Is that an incredulous gasp I hear? I am narrating it as it happened—upon the god of smallpox — as we used to swear to the truth in my childhood back in Kerala.

Forgive me, gentle golfers — you didn’t ask us to shove off or even politely suggest that we move away from the putting green. No, you just stood there and waited for us to finish. You see, I didn’t have a clue. In the India I left behind, golf carried a poor reputation. It was seen as the game of the brown sahib—the Indian avatar of the British colonialist. Politically speaking, it was out of bounds for me. But I will hand it to you with a coconut and a blessing. No one can match the Yorkshireman’s quiet civility.