History Lesson

I was very proud of my last post. I considered the spontaneous connection I was able to draw between my upcoming travels through south India and the Russian culture I was curiously dissecting wise beyond my years. Turns out it wasn't even wise beyond my days.

To be fair, I did suggest that all evidence cited was purely anecdotal. And I still stand by the first half of the sentiment, where I stated, "In south India, one finds it to be the most uninfluenced of Indian culture..."

Not an inaccurate generalization.

A mere three days later I was in Kerala, in the southwestern corner of the subcontinent. The epitome of "south India."

It's the second half of the above sentence where I'd like to re-draw your attention as I strayed from 'andecdotal' and clearly attempted the vein of 'historical'. I concluded, "...predominantly untouched and unconquered throughout it's history."

As we toured Kerala's largest city of Cochin, our guide rattled off a few statistics:

• The Dutch conquered Cochin in 1663
• The Portuguese conquered Cochin in 1502
• Pre-1502 Cochin was influenced by the Arabs and the Chinese whose fishing nets still line the coast.

The area of Cochin is a relatively small one in the vastness that is southern India, and the history of one city does not completely disprove a general argument. Still. I may have screwed up just a little. And I am sorry.

Stay tuned for my next blog, when I detail how the Brahmins of Tamil Nadu teamed up with the Klingons to save Christmas.