Daydreams by the Backwaters

A Daydreamer’s Paradise: A Story of Kerala’s Magic.

My hometown is where the water sings - in Alappuzha, where morning light drips gold over a thousand winding canals.🩷 This poem didn’t just come from my imagination; it grew from the scent of salt and fresh toddy palms, from the rhythmic slap of waves against wooden jetty, from houseboats gliding past like floating castles at dusk.✨

Every summer afternoon, when the heat made the air wobble like jelly, I’d perch on our verandah watching the backwaters breathe. The houseboats kettuvallams(in malayalam) with their curved coconut-thatch roofs,carried laughing families and clicking cameras, but to me, they were pirate ships and royal barges.😁 I’d count them like counting stars, inventing stories for each: that one with the blue trim was definitely smuggling mangoes to a secret island, the green one with flower pots must be a floating library…..;)

The poem’s “woven cot” is real it’s the charpai in Grandmother’s courtyard where I’d nap after school, lulled by the creak of rope against wood. Hmmm i really miss those days now🥹 .The “spice-laden breeze”? That’s the cardamom from dad’s tea mixing with the sharp tang of prawns drying on the neighbor’s dock. Even the fireflies in my poem are memories💫, chasing them through our banana grove with Ammuma’s laughter trailing behind me, their light catching in the monsoon puddles like scattered glitter.😇

I wrote this because Alappuzha taught me how to dream💝. When monsoon rains drummed on the tin roof, I’d press my nose to the window and watch the backwaters turn into a rippling mirror, doubling the coconut trees, the sky, my own reflection ; as if the world couldn’t decide which version was more beautiful. That’s what my poem is our town’s double, where real memories and daydreams blur together like watercolors on wet paper.❣️

So when you read about “sunset painting the skies,” know I’m picturing the exact curve of the canal behind Church, where the orange sun melts into the water every evening without fail. And the “lull of waves”? Well,that’s the sound that rocked me to sleep every night of my childhood Alappuzha’s endless, gentle lullaby.🥰

This poem isn’t just words. It’s me scooping handfuls of my hometown’s magic and offering it to you, cupped between my ink stained palms like a firefly that’s decided to stay.😄

(P.S. If you ever visit, skip the big houseboats ,I’ll show you the secret canals where the water still remembers how to whisper) 🌊🌴

Thank you for reading. Your presence here makes the story matter. 💛