After the snakeboat races we decided to drive on to Cape Comorin to see the sunset. It was as if the Cape was just around the corner, and not at the southernmost tip of India! Both of us dozed off from the beer and sheer exhaustion of shouting for our favourite teams. After, what must have been an hour’s drive the car stopped and we heard voices. We had arrived at the Kollam – Trivandrum border.

In the sixties the prohibition policy defied logic. Trivandrum District was a Dry State, where alcohol was forbidden, while Alleppey, and Kollam were not. We heard a stern voice asking Latif to open the boot of the car. The cops came across the the bottles of Brandy and Ice Box with a few bottles of Beer left over from the boat ride. They asked us to step out of the car and follow them to their make-shift office by the side of the road. The policemen accused us of attempting to smuggle alcohol into a prohibited area and confiscated our precious cargo.

Fortunately, we had sobered up somewhat and GKJ and I were at our diplomatic best, trying to placate the police officer, saying things like “Please Sir, we beg you to let us go” – words that come out when one is desperate. I thought to myself – how our words change when we are in a dire situation!
I recalled my father’s remark to me one day, “You do not lose your temper with people you cannot afford to!” 

The police officer paid no heed to our pleas and in fact he seemed to get angrier by the minute – he could afford to! He ordered us to sit on a bench outside his ‘office’, while he decided what to do with us.  Whenever, he came out we expressed words of remorse and repentance but the police officer remained stone hearted.

After a while I asked the officer whether I could use the telephone. We needed to inform our families and let them know that ‘we would be late for supper’! Momentarily his heart thawed and he allowed me to use his phone. Instead of calling ‘family’ I called a friend’s father in Trivandrum, a man of high influence, and requested him to bail us out. In less than an hour the police officer got a call from someone in Trivandrum, the State capital. After a brief conversation he came out and, through clenched teeth, said that we were free to go!
If we had mobile phones those days this could have been done in minutes!
Anyway, that’s what is great about India. Who you know, matters!

Govind and I were immensely relieved and decided to ‘celebrate’ by continuing  with our original plan, but it had to be the sunrise instead of the sunset! We asked Latif to drive on to the tip of India, stopping in Trivandrum for a quick bite. It was past midnight when we got to Cape Comorin. I remember having once stayed at Kerala House, a hostel for senior officials of the government. If the rooms were free they let them out to non government travellers.  Fortunately for us they could give us a room and we crashed into our beds after making arrangements for Latif.

We set our alarm for 5 am, showered and got ready quickly to rush to the terrace to watch the sunrise. The Kerala House commanded an amazing view of the Indian Ocean.
We were happy to see that the hostel had arranged Coffee and Tea on the terrace. With steaming mugs of coffee in our hands we made ourselves comfortable in the deck chairs provided. The hostel had only a few rooms and so there were not more than about 7 or 8 people on the terrace. I became aware of two ladies sitting next to us and so introduced ourselves. The older lady with flecks of silver in her hair was Ammu Swaminadhan, a Member of Parliament. She was accompanied by her pretty granddaughter, Subhashini Sahgal. They had come to watch the sunrise from Madras, where Ammu Swaminadhan lived.
I had heard of this lady as she was a freedom fighter and political activist. There were stories about how the Travancore Maharaja, struck by her beauty, had proposed marriage but she chose an eminent lawyer instead! She married S. Swaminadhan from Shekharipuram village, in Palghat district in Kerala. He was a Brahmin while Ammu was from an aristocratic Nair family from the neighbouring village.

They had four children of whom three were on the national stage. Govind Swaminadhan, became an eminent lawyer, having practiced at the Inner Temple in London, and later became the Advocate General of Tamil Nadu. His sister Lakshmi Sahgal, received acclaim as a close associate of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, the famed Indian revolutionary. Netaji had founded the Indian Revolutionary Army, and Lakshmi was head of the Women’s wing, frequently referred to as Jhansi Ki Rani.
Subhashini Sahgal was Lakshmi’s daughter who was later to marry Muzzafar Ali, a princeling and well-known film maker from Lucknow.  Subhasini Ali joined politics and is currently a Politburo Member of the Marxist Party of India.

Ammu Swaminadhan’s youngest daughter Mrinalini became a well known Bharatnatyam dancer and married Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s Space research. Their daughter Mallika Sarabhai won acclaim as a classical dancer. She was taught by her mother.

I am writing at length about the Swaminadhans as I was to become very close to the Govind Swaminadhan branch of the family, especially his son Vijay and wife Preethi, the eldest daughter of General Rajaratnam. Unfortunately, my friend Vijay passed away a couple of years ago.

Back to the sunrise! This was spectacular no doubt, but so are sunrises in many parts of the world. Sunrises and more so sunsets, are the gorgeous creation of God! But the sunrise at Cape Comorin becomes extra-ordinary, when it dawns on you (pun intended) that you are seeing the Sun rise over the confluence of the Indian Ocean, with the Bay of Bengal on your left, and the Arabian Sea on your right! And you are standing at the very tip of India with the next stop being Antarctica!

Sunrise at Cape Comorin!

We left after Breakfast. Our trip to Cape Comorin was eventful to say the least, but our return went without a blip.

On our way back we passed Suchindram which housed one of the most venerated Hindu places of worship – the Thanumalayan Temple

Govind was keen to stop by and have a Darshan. South Indian temples are conservative and do not allow foreigners and menstruating women into their places of worship. We had to each buy a white cotton Vesti (a wraparound cloth in place of trousers) and go in bare chested. At the entrance to the temple Govind was stopped while I was allowed in! It took some convincing that Govind was NOT a foreigner before he was admitted.

We returned home to Fort Cochin after a whole day of driving. It took a few days to get over the excitement of the Boat Race, the trauma of our incarceration, and the visual splendour of the sunrise at Cape Comorin! There was many days of storytelling at the Cochin Club bar.

It was an experience that was hard to forget!