It's been a bonanza for God's Own Country -- the fact that the prime minister has chosen to spend his vacation here. It will give Kerala's already flourishing tourism industry a fillip and bring in some much-needed income to the beleaguered state. For Kerala's economy has received a severe battering, thanks to the slump in the price of coconut oil. This, though, is not the first time an Indian prime minister has chosen to holiday in Kerala. In 1957, India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru jumped into the Vembanad backwaters while watching a boat race. It seems he was so fascinated by the palm-fringed backwater lakes, lush green paddy fields and snake boats that he could not restrain himself. In 1985, then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, who spent five days at the Thekkadi wildlife resort, was thrilled when he saw wild elephants at a hailing distance. Thereafter, he gifted real life elephants to foreign dignitaries. And what is Atal Bihari Vajpayee discovering in the lake resort of Kumarakom? It is neither the snake boats nor the elephants. Or the daily Ayurvedic massages. Or the palm-fringed waterways. Vajpayee the prime minister is rediscovering Vajpayee the literary figure. For, away from the hustle and bustle of politics and governance, Vajpayee catching up on his reading. The damp, rainy weather has helped matters by confining him to the colonial-style cottage on the edge of the Vembanad lake for the last three days. The official sponsors of his holiday -- the Kerala tourism department -- had other plans, which included serenading him through the backwaters in a houseboat every day. Instead, the rain gods have ensured that he has enough time to pen a few more poems. It should not surprise anyone if the prime minister soon publishes a small volume on the lush green paddy fields, the emerald coconut palms, the amazing waterways and lagoons, the thatched roofs, the fishermen and the karimeen of Kerala. What we do know for sure, though, is that the prime minister is reading. Some books that have caught his eye are Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things and O V Vijayan's Selected Fiction, which includes his celebrated novels, The Legends Of Khasak and The Saga Of Dharmapuri. "We have arranged heaps of great books for the prime minister," says a tourism department official. "He spends most of his days going through the books," which have been arranged in the two cottages adjacent to his temporary home. Other books in the nearly 150-strong exclusive library include fiction by famed Malayalam novelists like Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai, S K Pottekat and Vaikom Mohammed Basheer, besides books like Performing Arts Of Kerala, Kathakali Complex, Temple Arts Of Kerala, The Green Miracle, Tropical Beaches And Backwater Villages, etc. But if I have to hazard a guess about the one book that would interest Vajpayee, I would opt for the Booker Award-winning GOST. Particularly since Ayamenem, the setting of the hugely successful novel, is a short distance away from Kumarakom. It is the village where Roy, her mother Mary Roy and her brother lived in the 1960s; the house they lived in is still there. In fact, Baker's Bungalow, the century-old mansion that is temporarily the prime minister's home, features prominently in Roy's novel as History House. It is here that the low caste youth, Velutha, one of the novel's lead characters, is cruelly tortured by six policemen in front of the twins, Estha and Rahel. This is how Roy describes Baker's Bungalow in the novel: 'It was a beautiful house. White-walled once. Red-roofed. But painted in weather colours now. With brushes dipped in Nature's palette... Whose doors were locked and windows open. With cold stone floors and billowing, ship-shaped shadows on the walls. Where waxy ancestors with tough toe-nails and breath that smelled of yellow maps whispered papery whispers. Where translucent lizards lived behind old paintings. Where dreams were captured and re-dreamed...' Baker's Bungalow was built by an English missionary more than a century ago. Though it was renamed the Taj Garden Retreat by the famed hotel group when it bought and refurbished the place, Baker's Bungalow retains the old-world ambience described in Roy's novel. Many people in Kerala believe the atmosphere at Kumarakom is just perfect for Vajpayee to catch up with GOST. "It should be lovely to read the novel sitting in its settings. I read the book in a small lodge on the banks of the Meenachil river. I felt so thrilled and possessed by the narrative," says S Chandrashekaran, a retired English professor in Kottayam. Tourist guides point out that it was after GOST appeared on the literary roadmap that Kumarakom and the surrounding areas became famous travel spots. "Many American and European tourists have been coming to Kumarakom to see Ayemenem after reading the novel. I have seen tourists reading the novel sitting on the backwater and river sides," says Eappen Thomas, a tourist guide. While Roy's fiction made Ayamenem and Kumarakom famous, Vajpayee's year-end vacation should make the sites -- surrounded by a maze of waterways and lagoons -- a must on any tourist's itinerary. Senior Associate Editor George Iype has forgiven the prime minister for ruining his Christmas vacation. Do tell us what you think of this diary
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