51�Թ�

Today, Kochi, as Cochin has been renamed, is a popular cruise ship stop and layover for travelers en route to houseboats that cruise through the idyllic backwaters of nearby Alappuzha.

Some 1,500 houseboats are tied up at Alappuzha, going nowhere, with many of the owners still paying off loans taken to buy the boats.

Shijin Jose Antony, a priest at a church in state capital Thiruvananthapuram, helped organize the deployment of 130 boats and some 500 fishermen in rescue operations in Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha districts.

“My family and neighbouring families are in trouble with flood in Pandanad nakkada area in Alappuzha,” Ajo Varghese said in a viral Facebook post.

As he approached his home town of Alappuzha, the road widened and Isaac’s minivan sped past a mural of Che Guevara, the ageless hero of the Cuban revolution, and a billboard of Colonel Sanders, the ageless hawker of capitalist fried chicken.