The Island The bridge The Road and The Boat
I live in Kochi and the name of my village is Palliport(Pallipuram). And Palliport is located on the Vypin Island which is surrounded by the Arabian Sea on one side and by the Vembanad Lake on the other side. It is an island that formed after a flood in 1341 and is it 27 kilometres long. It is the island known to have the highest density of population in the world and one reason behind this is that it is connected to the mainland Kochi through a series of bridges called the GoShree bridges. Check out the wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vypin
Well I have been living here for more than 25 years and I
love it here for its various beaches and backwaters. Even though I had been
living on this island known for its famous fishing harbour Munambam, I got a
chance to ride a boat in the lake a few months back.
Some 50 to 70 years back, most of the people depended on
fishing(inland as well as sea) for their livelihood. But there were also people
who went to the main land Ernakulam or Fort Kochi for employment in various
stores, offices, schools etc. And during those days they depended on the boat
services.
But lot of things have changed now. There are some islands around the world which do not connect
to the main land and the people there are stranded and there is no activity.
Vypin is a very busy island and is always on the move. There are bus services
both privately owned and government owned running through the island connecting
its people to the main land. You can call the road that runs along this 27 Km
long island its blood stream and along its banks you will see Vypin’s commercial
establishments, schools, banks and even houses or residences.
My house is also by the roadside. Vypin is also
characterized for its many bridges. These bridges are constructed over the
canals that run across the island. These canals are built in order to protect
the island from floods that might occur in the future. These canals act as a
channel for the water to leave or enter the island without flooding the land.
Alongside the road my house is built near such a bridge constructed across one
of these canals. In the last two years a major renovation was carried out on
these bridges and they were widened in order to accommodate the ever widening traffic
of vehicles through the Vypin-Munambam road. So a once small bridge of ours which
only let traffic to a single side at a time now let vehicles ride past in both directions
at the same time.
So I live next to a busy road and our bridge is the widest
in the whole of Vypin.
And now about the boat. Back in 2004, tsunami hit Vypin.
There were only few causalities but many people lost their boats. Many boats were
tied near the shoreline of the lake and when the tsunami waves entered the lake
it thrashed the boats to the shore and they were damaged. Also many boats got
untied from the poles and floated away over the stream. Though some got washed
off at the coast they were damaged as they thrashed with one another or to the
coasts as the strong waves tsunami gushed through the streams.
And hence from the tsunami relief fund, many people were
granted boats and recently I got to ride one of those Brunswick http://www.brunswick.com/brands/marine-engines/index.php boats in the
supervision of The ‘Srank’ who happens to be my Dad’s friend.
The boats are meant for the sea but I rode it in the lake which
has calm waters.
