An old hippy in a cake shop off the Byres Road in Glasgow once told me that you needed seven lives of seven decades to truly experience the spiritualism and profundity of India. (He did say this while trying to haggle down the price of an almond croissant, however …) I didn’t have seven lives; I didn’t have seven decades; I didn’t even have seven months. But I would make a start … ‘Kovalam. Start in Kovalam. It is the most beautiful place on the planet, son. Paradise. True paradise … ’ My dad would always talk about the beauty of southern India, a beauty I’m not sure he ever experienced firsthand while he lived in India despite his travels. He would explain the differences between us northern Indians and the southern Indians, the real Indians. ‘They are smaller, darker and more … well, more Indian looking. They are Dravidians. They are the true Indians.’ This, to a slightly overweight Sikh boy growing up in Glasgow in the seventies was more than a little perplexing.
