Parayil: Kerala’s chief responsible tourism storyteller?

Parayil’s respons­ible tour­ism jour­ney began in 2003 while sub­mer­ging the ashes of his fath­er in the Bhara­ta­puzha River. He real­ised that the river was dying; that it did not have enough water to carry the remains of a depar­ted soul.

The 209-kilo­metre Bharath­ap­puzha (“River of Bhārata”), also known as the River Nila, flows through the Indi­an state of Ker­ala. It is the second-longest river in Ker­ala, after the Per­i­yar River. The word “Nila” is indic­at­ive of the cul­ture along the river more than the river itself. (Wiki­pe­dia.)

In 2003 Paray­il had acquired three post­gradu­ate degrees and had walked away from a luc­rat­ive job with an Amer­ic­an mul­tina­tion­al. And he knew that work­ing with people and com­munit­ies was closest to his heart. An earli­er stint as a volun­teer in pal­li­at­ive care at the Cali­cut Med­ic­al Col­lege was an exper­i­ence that had come to define him. It nur­tured a desire to work with people who need help. And it is where he learned some­thing about the prac­tic­al­it­ies of resource man­age­ment. He is still volun­teer­ing in pal­li­at­ive care 23 years later.

Inspired by the folk songs of the Pulav­ars who inhab­it the banks of the Nila near his home town of Tirur, Paray­il thought about how he might mobil­ise the com­munity to care more about their river. Thus in 2004 he foun­ded the Nila Found­a­tion and ral­lied people inter­ested in sav­ing the river.

“What was once the life line of Ker­ala, is today a decay­ing, dying river. It is out of con­cern for Bhara­ta­puzha (River Nila); the erosion of the river banks, the dilu­tion of its cul­ture, neg­lect and deple­tion of its resources; that the Nila Found­a­tion was formed. The found­a­tion intends to provide a com­mon plat­form for those who are con­cerned about rivers in gen­er­al and River Nila in par­tic­u­lar.” — The Nila Foundation

Paray­il also thought hard about how he might lever­age the unique cul­ture and rich her­it­age of the Nila to devel­op a new busi­ness mod­el. He developed a tour, which tool trav­el­lers to vis­it and inter­act with the stake­hold­ers of the river, includ­ing artists, craftspeople, poets, and writers. And he began offer­ing weaver and pot­tery-mak­ing work­shops, bell met­al cast­ing exper­i­ences, as well as vis­its to sac­red groves and farms. And he told stories.

Pos­it­ive change flowed. For example, illeg­al sand miners began fer­ry­ing trav­el­lers to remote des­tin­a­tions, thereby earn­ing a legit­im­ate income. And the pre­vi­ously ail­ing tra­di­tion of Pava Kath­akali (glove pup­petry) found new life through increased demand.

The Bhara­ta­puzha, (River Nila) in Ker­ala, India. Source: The Blue Yonder

The Nila exper­i­ences were the first products offered by his busi­ness, The Blue Yon­der, which is set­ting up offices in Puduch­erry and Fort Kochi. In Fort Kochi, Paray­il plans to imple­ment a stew­ard­ship mod­el by which restored her­it­age homes will open up as places to stay along the Bhara­ta­puzha. The Blue Yon­der now also sells “immers­ive & cul­tur­al travel exper­i­ences” in three oth­er South Asi­an nations – Bhutan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka — plus South Africa

Paray­il, the tour oper­at­or, says he can run a 180-day tour for trav­el­lers without repeat­ing a story but won­ders where the storytellers are: “This is what we lack; so many stor­ies and so few storytellers.”

Sources: This post is based on an art­icle in The Hindu. Please read the full story for more detail and quotes from Gop­inath Paray­il. The fea­tured image is of Gop­inath Paray­il from The Blue Yon­der.