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Lorre Weidlich -- Hyde Park Foreign Affairs Desk

Editor's note: Hyde Parker Lorre Weidlich is living and working in India this year. An installment of Lorre's "Highlights of Kerala" report was pulled from December's issue of Pecan Press because of space constraints. This month we have room to print the piece in its entirety.

W hen my friend Sangeeth talks about Kerala, where he grew up, his eyes glaze over slightly and his voice alters. "Kerala is beautiful", he says. Now that I've seen it, I understand. Kerala is beautiful, whether it's the lowlying tropical areas or the hill stations.
    Kerala is a distinct cultural area. Keralites joke, Sangeeth once told me, that there are the Mals (from Malayalum, the language of Kerala) and the Normals. It has a literary rate approaching 100% and the highest percentage of Christians in India. Their presence is apparent in the churches and shrines that can be seen everywhere. It also has a democratically elected communist government.

India, St. Francis Church, where the Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama had been buried after he died in Cochin on Christmas Eve, 1524. Photo by Lorre Weidlich