Dispatches from Kochi is a collection of stories from Kochi in Kerala, India. Collected and written by R D Wood they bring to light the texture and tone of everyday life in this small port town. There will be ten dispatches focusing on a particular individual and what they think to be the important story of their life.   

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For many years, Kochi has been a place for trade and travellers. The Assyrians, Babylonians and Egyptians shipped spices from here when their civilisations were at the height of their power before the common era began; St. Thomas brought new ideas, practices and rituals to Kerala well before Christianity was established in Europe; the Dutch, the Portugese and the English ruled Kochi at various stages of colonial domination exporting pepper, timber and coir through the port; and, since independence in 1947, the state has consistently returned governments to the left of centre while being economically enmeshed with the Middle East and the rest of India.   

Today, Kochi is at once a cosmopolitan and parochial town, a place with a burgeoning tourist trade that welcomes visitors from Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia, while maintaining a firm sense of identity rooted in the rural sensibility of local Malayalee people. Visitors are attracted to its colonial architecture including churches constructed in Gothic, Victorian and Georgian styles as well as its pace of life, which is relaxed compared to the rest of the subcontinent. Locals defend their home against the modernising impulses found in contemporary Bombay, Delhi and Bangalore, with more than one person I spoke to arguing that ‘the Malayalee guy is a relaxed guy so those kinds of changes just won’t happen here.’ That duality, of openness and rootedness finds expression in the religion and the politics.  

In Kochi, one consistently notices that the mosque sits peacefully next to temple, synagogue and church, the ‘steeple’ in this story, and, that there is a heavy presence of Communist flags, murals and billboards, the ‘hammer’ here. The former connects Kochi to world history and contemporary practices that can be found on all the continents while the latter places it in conversation with Cuba and China in an increasingly rare axis of ideology and governance. Religion and politics are the two poles of life here, anchoring people in beliefs and habits that are everyday and important as well as providing a structuring way of thinking and acting that matters for identity. It is that story of identity that Dispatches from Kochi hopes to share.  

As for my identity, I have a family connection to Kochi, with one cousin living here and my mother’s family coming from a village further south. I first came to Kerala in 1994 and last came to Kochi in 2010. This time I have come for the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, where my partner is working. Being here for six months offered an opportunity not only to engage with my family history but also to discover more about religion, politics and people in an altogether unique place, a place where the intersection of diverse ideas meets a fixed history and sense of place.  

In writing Dispatches from Kochi, in collecting these stories, I have tried to encourage various voices to speak through me, to articulate what it is to be an individual in Kochi today. A lot of these stories come from people I have met serendipitously, which will be evident in my introductions, but some of them I have also met to through contacts here on the ground, sought out because they seem of interest. What I hope you, dear reader, gain from these stories is an idea of what life in Kochi is like now, a possibility of travelling to this place without leaving home and through that process you can discover what it is like to experience a side of contemporary India that might otherwise be hidden from popular view.  

Dispatches from Kochi is an example of the kind of storytelling that the Centre for Stories shares. It is at once engaged and local, but diverse and rich, expressing what we may come to believe is a way of living good lives in a complex and sometimes bewildering world. I hope you enjoy them and come to an understanding of people who you may have never encountered before and as a way to knowing a little more about your self and your place in the world.