The waves, his wings to fly

Meet Mumu, a talented surfer who is cleaning up Mamallapuram, along with his students and German wife, Anna

June 29, 2017 04:32 pm | Updated 07:54 pm IST

Waves lash the shore with a vengeance. The turbulence of the mid-tide is unnerving. However, there is a mischievous glint in the eyes of Mukesh Panjanathan, lovingly known as Mumu, as he signals his fellow surfers. Before we know it, he grabs his surf board, makes a run for the sea and dives into the waves that engulf him. He moves away from the shore, until he is reduced to a speck. The waves show no sign of mellowing down and thrash upon Mumu, now lying flat on his board. Until a giant wall of sea approaches.

This is the moment he has been waiting for. Mumu stands up, his body bending for better control on the barrel now. This lasts for 30 seconds. Another powerful wave washes over him again. In order to return, he needs to rely on another big wave, his friends tell me. As expected, one tumbles over him, and he cruises to the shore.

With a chiselled body and copper streaked locks, Mumu, the founder of Mumu Surf School in Mamallapuram, reminds you of those sea gods you read about in fables. “Hi. How are you?” he asks, in a languid Americanised drawl, an obvious result of his interaction with the Westerners who frequent Mamallapuram. “I worked with a travel agency before I started surfing. I would interact with people from different countries. I love socialising. No matter what the colour of your skin is, you have the same heart.”

He takes us to the Sandy Bottom Café, which he recently opened with his German wife Anna, where everything is made of recycled material. A discarded trash can now stands proudly as a table, benches and chairs snagged from old classrooms are used to seat diners while they wait for smoothies served with steel straws; all in an effort to reduce their carbon footprint. He has devised a cost effective strategy, “If my students can’t afford to rent a board, they can use the board if they clean the beach for 10 minutes or fill one dustbin.” Plastics are a big no, says Mumu, who along with Anna works with a group called Hand in Hand to clean the beach every Tuesday.

 

The surf school has definitely changed the cultural ambience of this stretch. Take the story of Mumu and Anna, for instance.The two met three years ago, when she landed in Mamallapuram as a part of her world trip and Mumu taught her to surf. It was something about his smile that made her fall for him. “Also surfing,” chips in Mumu, with a grin. Anna, who hails from Brekling, a village in Germany, felt right at home in Mamallapuram. “It is quiet here, but it also has people from across the globe visiting. I like that balance,” she says.

When they are not surfing or cleaning the beach, the couple zips around nearby villages in their battered two wheeler. “It’s amazing to see how different people live. At times, we have no clue where we are headed. We also pick up plants, and grow them in our café. I like to keep it green,” he says. The café walls, surf boards and wooden photo panels are decorated with paintings by Anna.

Mumu has organised the Mahabs Classics, a surf festival in Mamallapuram, in 2011 and 2015. He brings in coaches from Maldives and Sri Lanka to teach surfing for the festival, which draws about a hundred surfers from around the country. Mumu says he does not want to commercialise this. “The idea is not to bring too many people. I ask participating teams to zero in on the best three and bring them. This is also a time for local surfers to assess their growth.”

 

Over the last three years, the surfing scene in Mamallapuram has picked up, he says. “I had started off with three or four students. Now, I have 25 to 30 students training under me. It is not just about learning to surf, through that they also learn to interact with the world.”

For lunch, we share hot tomato rice, chicken fry and pancakes made by Anna. Mumu delves into the rice with a vengeance and says unapologetically, “Surfing can make you ravenous.”

Does the sea ever intimidate him? Mumu shakes his head. It is a pleasure to surf in Mamallapuram because it has one of the finest surfing bays and waves in India, he says. “You can manoeuvre these waves.”

His love for the sea harks back to when he was five years old. A fisherman’s son, the 32-year-old surfer studied till Class XII and went on to join an electrical shop before moving on to work in the tourism sector. It took him six years to establish this school with surf boards and accessories.

“I used to work out of a small garage. Surfing is still not recognised in our country as a sport. When I had started off, there was no one to guide me. That’s the gap I am trying to fill. I want to educate the children here about good and bad tides.”

We sit on the steps of the surfing school, watching the waves finally calm down, frothing in the blazing afternoon sun. Mumu is no longer the excited surfer, but looks reflective at the horizon. Our conversation meanders to hurdles in this field, his wish to see at least one Asian making it big in the field and his mother, a strong lady who still sells fish and checks on him every day to see if he is safe.

Can he ever imagine staying away from the sea? “Never,” comes the reply. “If I had to make a choice, I might settle for snow or snow-boarding. Anna and I are planning a trip to Kashmir next February.” I give him one final glance; a smiling Mumu amidst snow filled peaks, riding waves of snow is not that bad an image.

With inputs from Fiza Anand and Divya Murthy

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.