Life in Kerala is beautiful — like a February sunset over Lake Vellayani — but sooner or later, anyone who stays here longer than the 90-day tourist limit (which is, frankly, enough time to morph into a relaxed expat in a lungi — or, at the very least, elephant-print harem pants — with a giant tilaka on the forehead and a vague hope of someday understanding Malayalam) begins to feel a deep, irrepressible urge… to feel human. Not a saint, not a yogi, not a Kathakali dancer (th

For almost two years now, we — Lena, Andrey, and our fluffy lady, the Norwich Terrier Shanya (a.k.a. Shining Diamond Lekato Venus) — have been settled in the Indian state of Kerala, not far from its capital city whose very name provokes a mild sense of panic in anyone attempting to pronounce it: Thiruvananthapuram. Even the locals themselves prefer to call it Trivandrum. Or simply TRV. If you dig just a few centimeters deeper, you’ll discover that even the state’s name is sup