The Arabian Sea’s white beaches fringe Kerala to the west, while the Western Ghats, with their impenetrable tropical forests and eternities of grasslands, define its eastern boundary. The state of Kerala is India’s Down Under, a narrow strip of land overlooking the southern tip of the subcontinent that is monsoon driven sun drenched humid lush green full of rivers, streams, lakes, backwaters, coconut trees and teeming with people. Therein hangs a tale of the spices-pepper, cardamom, cinnamon-that made Kerala a hot spot in the ancient world, a story that helps explain how Christianity came to India not once but twice.

Of course we had no way of knowing then that the Latin rite had come to Kerala by way of the 16th-century Portuguese or that the Syriac rite had come far earlier, in the centuries just following Christ’s birth. When we attended the parish church, we risked a caning to sneak into the downhill cemetery and peer into the “well,” in which unearthed bones and skulls from old graves had been unceremoniously dumped. At the plantation church, we squatted on the mud floor brushed smooth with cow-dung paste and tormented ant lions in their tiny pits scratched into the earth. As for us children, none of this mattered in the least. The traditional-minded in our parish frowned upon this because the plantation church followed the Latin rite, not the Syrian rite, although both are Catholic. We got to know Father Lawrence because attending his ramshackle chapel near our family farm was far easier than enduring the hilly, one-hour walk to our parish church. This article is a selection from our Smithsonian Journeys Travel Quarterly India IssueĮxplore India’s vibrant history, picturesque locales and delicious eats Buy

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