Kerala, India. Land of lush, green abundance and cool winding backwaters. Land of the prawn tali and fish molee. The least corrupt state in all of India, Kerala also boast a 93% literacy rate. As my friend Abi says, “There are many Indias.” 

I think Kerala might be my favorite one.

I traveled here during my first trip to India in 2008 and painted an auto Rickshaw in Fort Kochi, inspired by all of the painted Goods Carrier trucks and decked out taxis. Now, seven years later I return to Fort Kochi and this time, we are painting the Hearts of the World mobile.

Painting in Fort Kochi, 2008 and now.

We park the car under the largest tree I have ever seen and work under its shade. next to a cricket field, painting in the Hearts of the World text on the side of our rig.

A group of boys gathers around us as we paint, asking us questions and watching us curiously. They return the next day and so we invite them to join us.

They jump right in, excited for something new to do.

“We are the OK Boys” their leader, “Moosi” informs me. He’s the tallest boy and a few years older than the rest; the secret of his power. I tell him the parts we need to paint he orders the other boys to do this and that and they eagerly fulfill his wishes.

“Moosi” … very focused.

They are a lot of them, really too much to handle, and they are “OK” at painting… but we do our best, trying to discern who makes the least drips, and give them the more important tasks.

They are loving it and the painting becomes a kind of friendly competition between all of them.

Orien gives the “Ok boys” a painting demo.

At one point we hear scuffling and look up to see two of the boys fighting, they wrestle each other to the ground, ripping each others shirt buttons off, which go rolling down the street. The fight is short lived and soon after they are friends again. It’s hard to find good help. You get what you pay for. We “paid” them with bananas and knock-off “Masala Munch.” But they managed to mostly help us out by giving the entire roof-rack a base coat of white. In the end it was fun for all of us and the “Ok Boys” learned a bit about painting.

The “OK Boys”