Racism Down Under - Wake up Call for India

The solution to the resentment towards Indian students who can afford education abroad does not lie in diplomatic efforts. That’s a stop gap and contingent solution. But the real long term solution lies in India improving the educational infrastructure in the country.

With the type of media coverage it is getting, there is likelihood of this resentment spreading to other parts of the developed world which have been wooing Indian students both for the revenue (income from international students is a major source of revenue for Australia) they bring and their contribution to research. But racist attacks are often beyond the control of the governments. Its increase in these difficult times of financial meltdown is an indication of the rightful-heir-being-denied –the -legacy –by-the-adopted syndrome. This is the most dangerous type of resentment ‘cos at the bottom of it is the feeling of righteousness, of fighting and killing for a just cause.

In addition to this is this branding of Asians as terrorists. The Indian students in Australia have reported that they often have had to confront hostile queries about whether they are Afghans or Pakistanis, and whether their jacket conceals bombs!

It is the most undesirable situation that we have here.

Why does a country like India which exports such a huge number of techies and researchers to the world, depend on these developed countries for quality higher education for her students?

Sixty years of independence is a long time. The issue should be addressed aggressively. We have the educational infrastructure. It’s not as though we have to start from the scratch. We have to bring them up to international standards. There are a few suggestions to address this very serious issue.

· Keep Centres of learning totally free from politics. No unions, be it those of students, employees or the teaching faculty.
· Invest hugely in research infrastructure.
· Provide sufficient funding for deserving researchers in place of the shameful pittance doled out to them now. A decent package will attract to our universities the best hands that, in the present scenario, go to foreign universities for quality, state of the art education and become vulnerable to shameful racist attacks.
· Offer enviable package to the faculty. This will attract the best hands to the teaching profession. This move is already set afoot in the country under pressure from the UGC.
· Attract funds by offering very attractive tax benefits to corporates who donate to the cause of education in proportion to the profit.
· Have in place a fool proof accountability system for the universities.
· Ensure efficient administrative machinery in the universities. The red-tapism that is the bane of any university with government funding is a huge drain on the resources of the university in terms of time and performance.
· Every state should have such universities in proportion to its population.

None of these is impossible or unrealistic suggestions. WE only need the political will to do it. It is time the people of India began to clamour for it. If we let things by, the status quo will continue.

Only the crying baby gets milk.

Perhaps the wails should emanate from the blogsphere.

In the Name of God

They make me uneasy. those prayer cum threat (sometimes veiled) forwards.

I know many who just delete them without a second thought. But somehow i find it difficult, though of late i have begun to do it selectively.

You claim to be a rational creature, i tell myself. but the truth, i guess is, i am not.

Or, why do i still insist that we are not three in number when we set out from the house for an auspicious or important occasion? I remember the daily routine during my daughter's SSLC exams. My husband , i and my daughter set out from the house together. She was dropped at the school, i at the bus station and then he went to the office. Since she was going to appear for the crucial exams which were to decide her future, i would wait at the gate so that we didn't set out in three, a number which was considered ill omened! My husband who, as a rule, is dismissive about such "superstitious practices", did not protest . Guess, he too didn't want to take a chance :-) . I still do it, but make sure it is done without drawing attention .

I have this habit of branding certain clothes and accessories as 'unlucky'. I remember the silk salwar suit i was wearing when the radiologist dropped the bombshell about me being diagnosed with a dangerous disease. We had dropped in at the the Diagnostic clinic after a party. I was wearing the most expensive Salwar suit i ever bought.

I gave it away to my maid who nearly fainted on receiving the expensive gift. She knew it was a brand new outfit.

"Why pass on an unlucky object to her?", my friend asked me when i told her.

"What's unlucky for me need not be unlucky for another person", i replied. 'Anyway, i didn't give her the Dupetta. So the unlucky combination is not complete".

My friend shook her head in disbelief. I thought she even looked disgusted when i told her about the fate of my brand new Biba salwar suits that I'd worn during the visits to the docs who confirmed the disease. I gave them to my sister in law who had to tamper with their perfect cut to suit her measurements. I thought my sister in law too looked incredulous when i told her why i am giving her those clothes, and why i refused to give the complete set(to break the unlucky combination).

And i always describe myself as a rational being!

Thus it is that i hesitate to delete those forwards which come with threats of divine retribution if i don't forward them to the specified number of people. Why take a chance with the ire of the almighty?

For a sample of the threats:

Some are blatant. They go something like this.

'If you don't sent this to 10 people, within 24 hours something terrible will happen to you". Some mails specify the nature of misfortune that will, without doubt, befall you if you break the chain- like loosing all your money, disease invading your family, losing job and the like. These mails sometimes give list of people whom disaster struck like a thunderbolt. That makes it really scary.

Some threats are subtle and use emotional blackmail as a tool.

"You have No hesitation to forward jokes, even vulgar ones. Cant you do this for God" or "Not only are you depriving yourself of a big bonanza, you are also depriving 10 others(instructions are to send to 10) of a fortune.

Some of the prayers/thoughts forwarded are truly inspiring or appropriate to your mood or the crisis which you find yourself in. But the minute i see the attempt to threaten/cajole/emotionally blackmail, i withdraw into a protective shell, and ponder over how to handle it.

Earlier, i sent them to those i knew believed in God and his bountiful as well a retributive nature.

Now, i edit them. I remove all the threats and pass them on, hoping that at least one of the recipients will forward to someone. Thus I wont have to carry the burden of the guilt of having broken the chain.

Now, i have started deleting them. I delete them without opening 'cos i know that once i read and see the samples of the disasters that will pursue me in a battalion, I'll lose the courage to delete.

I ask myself: Why am i like this? I ought to be totally unaffected by these forwards. I ought to know that whoever generate these mails are not prophets or seers or messengers of god, but - - . But who are they? Why do they do this?

Are these the efforts of well meaning souls to do their bit to establish the kingdom of God? Do they want to build up a virtual army of God to implement his laws on earth?

And who are these 'theys', these 'start' points from which these messages originate and spread all over the virtual world through the agency of even the so called rational people like me, who, for some strange reason cannot mete out the dismissive treatment these forwards deserve?

Questions and questions for which i have no answer.

Are you any wiser, dear blog visitor?

Bathroom Tamasha -1

I just read a hilarious post on European Bathrooms which brought memories of bathroom experiences rushing to my mind.

I've experienced the same sense of insecurity that Aparna describes in her post. It happened in a Pondicherry boarding school where I did my high school. The school was the Indian /English wing of the French school. French influence was heavy, what with nuns and matrons being French or francoindians (is there such a term?).

I had just returned from the summer vacation. We were told that the boarding was shifted from the magnificent Villa Maria to the English medium high school building (the high school had shifted to the suburbs). As the maids were lugging my suitcases to the dorm, I went in search of the toilet, the first destination of anyone after an overnight Kochin-Madras train journey followed by a torturous bus journey from Madras to Pondicherry.

Miss Aureli, our matron told me in her broken English that the attached bathrooms could only be used as lavs. The bathing arrangement was near the small quadrangle where the non resident students used to sit around and talk. Curious to know how they had converted that beautiful space into bathrooms, I rushed excitedly to the quadrangle. A few boarders were already there and were looking utterly dismayed.

“Where are the bathrooms?”

“There”, they pointed to the veranda that skirted the quadrangle. The veranda was partitioned into 15 bathing rooms with temporary partition material. There were no doors. Only green plastic curtains with floral prints taking over the function of doors!!

“Oh my God. How can we bathe with only the curtains as protection?” said I with all the Nazrani-upbringing-induced indignation and outrage.

“I refuse to bathe here”, said Uma Mahadevan. Her sister Latha echoed her words even more vehemently.

“Let's tell Mother Edel that we refuse to bathe if she doesn’t replace the curtains with doors” That was Gnaneswari, besides herself with r age. The little boarders shifted their gaze from one speaker to the other, their faces registering appropriate expressions.

“Come, let us go to Mother Edel”, said the brilliant Bharathi Balasubramanium.

“Here I am, girls”, said Mother Edel who had apparently been eavesdropping.

WE loved Mother Edel, the half Irish boarding mistress. Though a disciplinarian, she was the very epitome of fairness and impartiality.

"What’s your problem, girls?” asked Mother Edel gently.

Silence.

“All fine?”

“Curtains”, blurted out the valiant Bharathi Balasubramanium.

“Pretty, aren't they?” She asked with a sweet smile.

”Yes”, whimpered the boarders.

"Freshen up, girls. I have lovely snacks waiting for you. Be in the dining hall in half an hour?” she said looking at her watch.

All of us nodded meekly.

She flashed another sweet smile and vanished.

Mother Edel was a stickler for punctuality. Half an hour to wash off all that dirt from the coal powered trains. We ran to the dorm, picked up the change of clothes and met in the quadrangle.

WE strategized quickly on how to indicate the occupancy of each bathroom.

“Put the pre- shower clothes on the curtain rod’, declared Gnaneswari.

Then we charged into the cubicular bathrooms. WE started out bath, each shouting out to the other, updating each other on the stage that each was in. Somehow, that gave us a sense of security.

And then nature played truant. A huge wind came from some where and up went the curtains!

WE screamed in unison.

Uma Mahadevan was always the one with great presence of mind.

“GRAB THE CURTAIN AND WRAP YOURSELF IN THEM”, she ordered thunderously.

We did as instructed and ended up with nothing but green floral plastic curtains wrapped around us and our head sticking out above the curtains and looking at each other, some laughing, some crying, some raising socialist slogans.

“Ennaamma?” said a male voice.

A young worker who’d been whitewashing the adjacent building, stood there, at the entrance of the quadrangle. Apparently, he had come to find out what the screams were about.

In rapid, hysterical Tamil, Uma Mahadevan and Lath Mahadevan and Bharathi Balasubramaium and Gnaneswari, and little Jayanthi, and the still more little Azhakarazi screamed at the boy, asking him to go away. I joined in with my Malayalam ‘poda, poda’.

By then the matron Aureli reached the quadrangle, all panting from transporting her heavy mass from the first floor.

She saw the boy looking bewildered at the sight of girls of all sizes wrapped in green floral plastic curtains, hurling abuses at him.

Miss Aureli shooed him away, and with the green floral plastic curtains wrapped around us, we poured all our woes to her. She nodded her wise head and assured us that she’ll arrange to have the tin doors of Villa Maria bathing rooms relocated to these bathrooms.

Till I completed my high school at Cluny, the plastic curtains remained. But, by then, we had learned to deal with eventualities of bathing with the protection of only a green, plastic curtain with floral prints.

Shopping With Husband

I have yet to hear a woman say that her husband enjoys shopping. I perhaps am the lone person on this planet whose worse half (if I am the 'better', he must be the antonym) takes immense pleasure in shopping.

Of course, shopping means two different things to us. To me it means going to the shop to buy something. To him it means - -it can’t be packaged in a sentence. It calls for an entire blog to explain what shopping means to him.

The minute we enter the shop, our behaviour acquires totally different patterns. I usually walk up to an employee and ask him where I can find what I want, and then I make a bee line for that section. My husband, on the other hand - - - No. Description may not do justice to reality. Shall present it.

WE, residing in a small town in Kerala, walk into a Nalli Textiles in a big metro.

Husband (From now on H): Ask that man what you want.
ME: I know! I am about to ask him.
Having found out the section I want, I walk towards it. I look back to see my husband, his hands stuffed in the pockets, looking around – to get an overall idea of what, I really don’t know-or have cared to find out. But he sure appears as though he had come to buy up the Nalli chain!

Then he starts his inspection. Of the details.

In no time I find what I want. Since it runs into a few thousands, I want his opinion. I am ashamed to admit that I haven’t evolved enough as an independent woman to dump his likes and dislikes regarding my clothes into the trash bin.

We start walking back towards the Kanchhevaram silk section where I have kept aside a saree for his approval.

Me: I think I have found what I wanted.
H: You know Molly, can you think of a single shop in Kerala where they have such variety?
Me: It’s a pretty piece, you know, a peacock blue with magenta border.
H: And the sales men! Their body language. So professional.
Me: But it is a little expensive.
H: They know their job.
We reach the section and the sales man places the selected saree on the counter.
Me: This is the saree.
Usually our tastes converge.
H: Check it for damage.
Irritated, I ask the salesman who has already begun doing it.
Salesman: No damage, sir.
Husband: But what is that?

To date, I have never been able to find out how his eyes fall on some defect or how every piece I choose happens to have some defect. There are times when I have thought that he can create damage on fabric just by looking at it.

I start searching for another sari while he wanders about, deeply engrossed in his assessment of the shop, its business, its systems, its efficiency, its clientele, its stock, its floor management, its method of handling the crowd at the payment counter, parcel counter, and and and and - - - - . Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!

************

If it is a lifestyle type of mall, he moves from section to section, picks up items, turns them upside down, finds something to read on every item and then puts it back. When I see him picking up delicate crystals, I walk up and tell him not to touch or break. For all the attention he pays me, I need not have existed.

In a mall, he seems to be eternally disappearing – something I find most annoying. There are times when I have had to call him on the cell phone, after he performs his vanishing trick.

Yesterday, we went to the Bed Bath and Beyond in Chicago. I picked up some stuff, put them in the trolley and started off on that husband hunting expedition. Sure enough, I found him after three rounds of walking up and down that gigantic shop. Needless to say, he was scrutinizing the underside of an exotic crockery item. For the life of me, I cannot understand why he cannot just look at that piece of art with its right side up and drink in its beauty.

As we walked back to the billing counter, I said: I have taken these items. Think we can carry them?
H: All the items in this shop are Chinese.
Me: I know these pans are heavy but I haven’t seen such quality stuff in India
H; These Chinese seem to have taken over manufacture completely.
Me: All three are stainless steel
H: And the finish of each product! These Chinese!! We really should salute them.
I try again: Do you think these will be too heavy?
H: And Molly, see how cordial and helpful these employees are?

By now, I was trying to keep in check that terrible impulse to pick the heavies steel frying pan and bring it crashing down on his head!

Instead, I looked at him, taking care that my expression didn't betray my feelings.

H: Really, we have a lot to learn from the Americans.
Me: Listen, (my voice become slightly hysterical). Do you think we should buy these items? Will they be overweight?
Husband, gesturing with his head at the friendly conversation between the sales boy and a customer at the billing counter, openened his mouth to say something.
My patience snapped.
Me: I don’t care a s--- how cordial these guys are, how earnest they are or whatever. All I want to know is whether we will be able to take these items to India if I buy them.

At last, he looked at the trolley. Took up the frying pan, turned it over.

Chinese again, declared the husband triumphantly!!!!!!!

GRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!

Racism in the Skies.

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Air+France+denies+ill-treatment+of+passengers&artid=OzoEHgO2ww=&SectionID=b7ziAYMenjw=&MainSectionID=b7ziAYMenjw=&SEO=Air+France,&SectionName=pWehHe7IsSU=

A woman claimed that barring Indians, all the other passengers were given good hotel accommodation since their flight was delayed.
The airline allegedly did not give any reason for the delay and dumped all Indians in a small room, she told reporters.
Another passenger accused Air France of not providing Indians with proper food or water during the ordeal.(An extract from the above link)

If this is true, what a shame!

Air France has denied doling out discriminatory treatment, but I’d rather give more credence to the passengers’version. Why should they make such a false claim? The airlines has every reason to deny the allegation.

Leave alone the ethical aspect of the issue, it is the absence of commercial wisdom which causes many international airlines not to make an all out effort to neutralize the racially discriminative approach/ attitude of its employees.

I have heard many Indian frequent travelers complaining about subtle racist slur in the treatment meted out to them.

International aviation industry should realise that non-European customers contribute hugely to their income. Guess it’ll do good to have the following quote put up in places frequented by all airlines employees.

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises.
He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him.
He is not an interruption in our work - he is the purpose of it.
We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to serve him.- Mahatma Gandhi

Just imagine what will happen if, the allegation of the passengers being found true, the Government of India issues a fatwa to Indians to boycott Air France!

The Silence of the Ashes

The blog visitor (to http://brokenmuse.blogspot.com/ ): Why no update?


My muse goes into hibernation
I do not know why.

When it stirs
and struggles in the cocoon
and finally breaks free
into the light of the day

It gets singed.
No colourful wings.

Only ashes.

The struggle to be born
to fly about
to exist
the pain of death

lost in silence.

Arrival at Chicago

"Move on, move on. Dont stand there", said the black security official as we walked down the corridor leading to the immigration counter at Chicago airport. He was talking to a 70+ well suited and booted Gujarathi passenger who, like us, had alighted from the Air India Flight.

The passenger stood his ground, looking back towards the aerobridge, and refused to move. Then security personnel walked towards him and repeated the command.

"I'm waiting for my wife", replied the irritated passenger.

"That's fine. But move on. Dont stand there. She'll find you'

The passenger was angry now. "How can she find me? She is not educated!".(I could have punched him on the nose for that loud declaration! Surely he owed something to his wife's image!)

The security personal laughed and told him:" Dont worry man. She doesn't need education to find you. Guess she's been you wife for a long time now?"

"I tell you she is not educated and - - -". He stopped when he heard some one call him from the front. All of us looked ahead towards the shrill, irritated voice and found an elderly woman, saree worn the Gujarati style, saying something rapidly and gesticulating to the husband.

"There she is" said the man, with Archmedean excitement and joy.

The security man laughed explosively and said to me who was watching this short exchange: "I told you. you dont need education to find your husband. And look, no education and she is way ahead of him!!"

Guess basic instincts are stronger when not diluted by education!

The Lankan Tamil Crisis - Reconstructed from Memory & Hearsay

I gained first hand information of the Sri Lankan Tamil crisis in the early 70s. The college in Chennai where I did my PG had Sri Lankan Tamils who told stories about how essential items in the Tamil dominated North east region cost four times more than they did in the rest of Sri Lanka. Items like sanitary pads were available only in the black market - at a ridiculously exorbitant prize. These students used to carry home dried chillies, essential spices from the then Madras when they went home.

So a problem was there. It was genuine, I realized. The political murders that Sri Lanka was infamous for had a background that could not be dismissed. There was some sort of an economic embargo in the Tamil areas which made life difficult for them.

I do not know when exactly LTTE and its supremo caught my attention. But I do remember thinking that a separatist movement was ineveitable. That view was based on my interaction with my Sri Lankan Tamil friends a few years earlier.

Velupally Prabhakaran caught my attention – don’t know when - ‘cos of the name. My father had a friend called Velupilla. You know for some reasons certain names stick in your mind on account of quite insignificant associations. Gradually Prabhakaran began to haunt my imagination. The media took care of it.

The stories of his personality, his ruthlessness crept into my consciousness from the magazines and newspapers of which I was once an avid reader. I could empathize with the cause – the end- for which he fought. My friends from college and their tales never really deserted me. But I grew angry with his methods – the means.

I love Christ.
I love Gandhi.
And Prabhakaran did not fit in this company.

Imagine killing people by garlanding them with burning tyres! No cause justifies such brutality.

And then Rajiv Gandhi happened.

In fact, the people with whom I shared my views on current issues had all expressed anxiety about Rajiv Gandhi playing with fire when he invited Prabhakaran to Delhi and messed around with him. One does not turn a traitor on a person like Prabhakaran and get away with it. We became more anxious when the IPKF became the foe of both LTTE and The Sri Lankan government. with it.

Our anxieties soon translated into reality. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated.

LTTE was messing around with our leaders, our sovreignity. Of course we were all angry.

Stories about LTTE reached us from our friends working in the Gulf and Saudi. They told us how Sri Lankan Tamils there - from house maids to top executives – had to contribute to LTTE funds under threat of harm to their loved ones back home!

Whatever little sympathy I had with for this terror outfit and their cause faded away without my knowing it.

And then of course there was the issue brewing trouble on our doorstep. Tamilnadu politicians were making hay while the sun shone. They continue to do it – espousing the Sri Lankan Tamil cause- now that elections are in the offing. The flip-flops by the leaders of the DMK and its variations, the filmy fast unto death drama by Karunanidhi, no doubt after getting unofficial information that qualitative ceasefire is about to happen, and the dramatic break of the fast on the Marina beach like a well scripted film – it’s sick. Absolutely sick.

A gigantic humanitarian crisis exists. The Lankan army cannot be blamed. No nation can tolerate separatist movement. No Indian political group should support separatist movement. But Tamilnadu has always done it (especially when the atmosphere gets charged with electioneering) and got away with it.

The LTTE cannot be justified. It’s cowardly to use human shields comprising even children and the aged. The honourable thing for the militants to do is to lay down arms, and for Prabhakaran, to surrender.

This is my take There could be inaccuracies as it is reconstructed from memory and my understanding of the situation. However, I can safely claim that this is the take of the average apolitical Indian citizen of my generation on this issue.

a jumbled but honest confession

Dhanya picked me or picked on me for the HONEST SCRAP award. tank you dhanya. am flattered. but i wish the award came without a prize tag. nevertheless, here i go fulfilling the first condition - to list 10 honest things about myself

i always think the creator made a mistake
while allotting me my gender.

while learning needlework in the Nazareth convent
i have yearned to be out there
climbing trees like my brothers
or playing cricket
or scream from the galleries during santosh trophy.


i have wished i could jump into the periyar river
like my brothers
with only swimming trunks on
and not that horrendous five metre swimming dress
my mother designed for me.

i now wish i had listened to my father
and taken economics instead of literature.
my encounter with literature would then have been
much more pleasurable.
And i'd have been able to talk intelligently on the recession.
tho' must confess i secretly fear i'd not have graduated
had i listened to my father.
My cerebral capacity has its limits.

I'm glad i had the guts to allow my children
to follow their passion for economics and chemistry
tho i'll make that confession only in the blogsphere.
sour grapes, the world would say
'cos they are not doctors or engineers.

i always wonder what people with truckloads of money
do with it.
and why they need so much money.
all those stars and sports stars with the millions.
maybe i'll stop wondering if i make that kind of money.

between twelve and twenty five
i've asked my maker
why he didn't add another two inches to my stature.
I wouldnt have had to hobble around on high heels.

i love blogging.
tho i wish i could write a novel
and have the felicity of expression
and honesty
of arundathi roy and kamala das.

there was a time when i wished
i were beautiful
and brilliant
and talented
and admired
and envied.

today, i am glad to be just alive and kicking.
it's nice to be around still
in this beautiful world.

now for the next condition:
Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.

Arun, Aswadhy, Chandy, Jina, Sujatha, Silverine, Mathew

my seven blogger friends - do forgive for harassing you.

The Idle Mind

I am an idler. I love doing nothing. When I travel by train, I’m in a hurry to finish reading whatever reading material I have with me so that I can spend the rest of the journey looking out of the window and allowing thoughts to wander wherever they wish.

I love looking at the landscape that flies past and allow it to play on my thoughts which, in turn, take me to regions inaccessible to man.

As a kid, I have traveled to the world of stars on wings which I got on request from my fairy godmother. I have seen my self as Heidi wandering up the hill and down the dale tending my sheep. I have seen myself as Jill, wearing outlandish British clothes and going up and down with Jack, carrying water in the pail.

As I grew older, I loved to dream of shocking my Malayalam teacher by answering all the questions she put to me, and reading like Chitra who was the teacher’s pet. I have, with glee, seen myself punching that boy on the nose when he complained I was copying from him the multiplication table for three fourth.What I actually did was to hit him on the head with my slate and then was made to kneel down for two periods till I apologized to him. The forced apology made me want to see his nose bleed like my brother told me it happens when boxers punch each other on the nose.

Around this time, I’d have delightful visions of my music teacher Sr. R (who used to shake me up as though I were a rag doll) going up in the air (like I saw in some Tintin comic), as the dynamite on which she sat went off. Of course, I would have had a hand in the dynamite finding itself on her chair.

In high school, I saw myself topping the class and being the envy of Bharathi Balasubramianam who always topped the class. I would also see myself surprising the PT teacher who always admired my never-say-die spirit, by beating Vandana by one metre in the 100 metres race from which, in reality, I always got chucked out in the very first heat.

Still older, I saw myself as a tall and slim airhostess (in reality my stature has always reminded me of the teapot of the nursery rhyme fame), going around serving in the flight, with a charming smile on my face, impervious to the envious admiration of all the female passengers. Around this time. I’ve also seen myself acting in Hindi films. Of course, I’d be stunning, wearing a midnight blue chiffon saree with sequins work on it and dance around the trees with the hero who would keep a minimum distance of six feet from me (so much for my puritanical Nazrane upbringing).

As I grew older, I saw myself - - well. I think I’ll skip that or my near and dear ones who read this will say ambadi kalli. ivulu kollamalloo –

And then there was a time when I saw myself as a globe trotting professor, sporting a dark horn rimmed specks, delivering lectures is the most prestigious universities in the world, the talk of the town, the pride of my community and family. Of course this vision presented itself mostly during my commuting days as I sat (if I managed to find a seat) in the Madras Mail looking out of the window (if I got a window seat and not a space into which I squeezed my seat and did the a magnificent balancing act to prevent myself from falling off), after the superhuman one hour feat of cooking breakfast for the family, packing lunch for the children, preparing snacks for teatime, taking a shower, draping starched saree, jumping into the car whose engine would be kept running by my tense husband and charging into the ladies compartment as the train started moving. Whew!

And then, as I grew older still and more acquainted with the ways of the world, of politics and governance in my beloved country, my dreams took a dangerous turn with sting operations and Suresh Gopi/For the People style of violence dominating them.

My dreams grew toxic.

I stop here. The last thing I want to do is to poison the blogsphere.

Namaste!

I finished my business at my daughter’s school and walked down to the bus stop at the junction just a stone's throw from the school.

It was a beautiful junction. A gigantic tree stood in front of a temple, and spread its branches right across the street. The tree was easily more than 100 yrs old. I stood in its shade, my eyes running over the trunk for some label indicating its age. I found none.

I waited under the tree on that hot day, but enjoyed the wait.

Then it happened the first time.

A car pulled up across the street, bang opposite where I was standing. A gentleman looked out, joined his hands in a namaste. There was an expression of deep devotion in his eyes. Without thinking, I acknowledged the namaste with my own. The car drove off.

I was puzzled. Why did he greet me? Did I know him?

As I stood there trying to solve the mystery, another car pulled up. There was a repeat performance, both on the driver’s part and mine.

No sooner had that car left than another one stopped opposite me. Again that reverential namaste, and I, though flustered, reciprocated.

By now I was confused. And alarmed. Just the previous week Doordarshan had aired Satyajit Ray’s Devi, in which the head of the family gets a vision that the new bahu is a Devi. I tried to remember how my face looked in the mirror before I left the house. Yes, I sported a gigantic Sringar Bindi (Size 1) as also the scarlet red Sindhur. Could it be that -- - - -I brushed aside the silly thought from my mind.

And then another car stopped. This time it was an antique Benz. The person sitting in the back seat rolled down the dark tinted glass and looked out. Apparently he was a Tamilian, and wore a safari suit. The namaste again accompanied an intensely worshipful look, with eyes shut for a few seconds. The glass rolled up again, and the car sped away.

I was totally perplexed and terrible uneasy. I was more or less convinced that I was being mistaken for a Devi? I started looking around for an auto.

Before I could hail the auto that was cruising down the street, another car stopped, right in front of me and not across the road as it was going in the opposite direction. The man sitting in the back seat looked out with joined hands. Automatically my palms too joined in a low confidence namaste.

And then I noticed that he was not looking at me but at something behind me.

I whirled around to discover/remember that I was standing right in front of a temple whose deity was prominently visible. I remembered someone say that the deity of that temple was a very powerful one.

Catch Them Young and Safeguard Secularism: The Need For A Central Board For Regulating Textbook Contents

http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/15/stories/2009041555871100.htm


I remember, as a school going child, my day at school began with India is my country, all Indians are my brothers and sisters being shouted out in as many pitches as there were students in the general assembly in the quadrangle. The immense beauty of that cacophony!!

That practice, sadly enough, appears to have vanished from schools now.

I do not know if this practice was prevalent in all the states in the country, but as a student in schools in Kerala and Tamilnadu , I remember vying with the students around me to be heard when I proclaimed my Indianness, my fellow feelings for the other Indians and my love for my country. It was a good practice. It had a subliminal effect on me, and had a role in creating a sacrosanct aura around the concept of ALL INDIANS ARE MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS, irrespective of caste and creed.

The site given above, which appeared in Hindu op - ed page a couple of days ago, is indeed distressing. It talks about injecting communalism in the minds of unformed, tender minds of children in Gujarat as a strategy to usher in Ram Rajya. Indoctrinating communalism in young minds can ensure only intolerance and violence in these future citizens. We see it happening with the Taliban and other fanatical religious groups. The world is reaping the harvest of uncontrolled violence sown through ‘religious’ instruction divorced from secular humanitarian values. An irony, ‘cos religion cannot be divorced from these values.

Now, the RSS-run publishing house in Gujarat has taken a leaf out of this practice of catching them young and poisoning their minds. Yes. It is poison. Hatred is poison. Any text that legitimizes and officialises hatred and violence is poison. Detoxification of the collective mind raised on such ‘righteous’ hatred and violence is a near impossibility. The process of communalizing the tender minds of Gujarat is in full swing now, if the article is to be believed. The motive is political – to ensure vote bank in future for a divisive political outfit.

The centre must step in. Not only in Gujarat but in all states and monitor and regulate the text books prescribed for schools, right from the nursery where, in some states, it is reported that pictures are shown demonizing minority groups.

We need a central regulatory board, totally apolitical in nature, comprising intellectuals of renown. The Board should have a set term and should not be dismantled every time the Central Government changes. Political appointments should not be entertained. Regarding the text books, social studies and history text books should have the same content through out the country The state specific chapters and lessons should be designed by the state board which should be governed by the central board. The content and syllabus designed by the State Boards should be prescribed and published only after getting the approval of the Central board. The state boards should be given strict guidelines to conform to ALL- INDIANS- ARE- MY- BROTHERS- AND- SISTERS CONCEPT.

I wonder if this sounds crazy but unless some bold step like this is taken, India’s secular credentials will become history. The process of sabotaging it is already in the works. A generation anchored in lethal communal ideology is emerging in Gujarat while intellectuals and industrialists sing paeans to the Gujarat mode of Development.

I foresee the type of comments this post will throw up. I will be questioned on why I have no problem with Christian indoctrination and Christian nations’ indulgence in violence through history, or the cracking down on the Sikhs after Indira Gandhi’s death, or Islamic terrorism. Why single out Gujarat alone?

My answer is this. I do have a problem with all this. I do have a problem with every religious or political outfit that brainwashes young minds into accepting hatred as a laudable emotion, and violence as a permissible tool for achieving desired ends. No religion justifies violence and murder. True, Christian nations from the middle ages onwards have indulged in the worst form of violence in the form of Crusades, Holy inquisition etc. But these are shameful chapters in the history of civilization which no one should emulate. These dark, cruel and shameful happenings should not be used as justification or precedence for inculcating hatred among people. The attack on the Sikhs or terrorists attack elsewhere in India are no justification for a State government to officially indulge in the type of indoctrination in the name of Hinduism which is a great religion of peace, a religion which does not provide space for violence. The engineering of the text books to create a generation of hate filled Hindus is NOT the way to counter Islamic terrorism. My problem with Gujarat is that communal politics is slowly but surely gaining legitimacy there, and the path is being made clear to make possible a theocratic state within ten years. For within a decade these fledglings who are being systematically indoctrinated through schools will become competent practitioners of communal politics characterized by hatred, violence and exclusionism.

Let’s remember that much quoted saying that an eye for an eye makes the world go blind. Gujarat is heading for this blindness, for seeds of vengeful hatred are being systematically sown in the minds of the children by the official machinery. All that talk about the sensational and successful development agenda of the Gujarat Government is a ruse to deflect attention from this dangerous, long term strategy to destroy the secular fabric of India.

Are Mallu Males Perverts? The Answer - Straight from the Horse's Mouth

Today, i got a very interesting response to my post titled ARE MALLU MALES PERVERTS?. Click on the link below to read my post.
http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2008/05/are-mallus-malesperverts.html

Here's the response- a confession, rather:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Are Mallu Males Perverts?":

every word in this blog is sad but true . Being brought up in Cochin I have done many things which I feel ashamed of now - How ever those days the general attitude of the crowd is to look at every women as a object for pleasure - even though we had good female friends, the moment we are out from their company the natural attitude is to look and strip ever women in the street . In crowded places we have shown atmost vulgarity too - The point is men/boys in general thinks it is OK to do that - After leaving Kerala and living in a different state/country 1. Feel sad and ashamed of how I treated women. 2. Feel pity for all the women in Kerala . All the movies during those times made sure women was abused and pushed down and glorified all that "Very Macho "" !! It is not that I have become a Saint now - I still ogle women - How ever I make sure I dont stare at them constanly and look at them when they are not watching . And stopped taking advantage of the situation where they are in - totally! - even started helping women to some extend - Finally a piece of advise to all Mallu men -If you have even the slightest intention of getting a girl the only way is to show some decent behaviour - Think with your head and not with your co##

Random Thoughts on Elections 09 - Shashi Tharoor, Advani, Narendra Modi et al

The man who jumped on to a rath and traveled from Kanyakumari to Ayodhya to demolish a mosque and let loose communal disharmony in the country now writes to religious leaders swearing to protect “the multi-faith spiritual heritage of India if voted to power”. Not that people don’t change over the years. Had his present posture been prefaced by an apology for his role as the architect of a divided nation, his words would have carried conviction. As of now, one can only say that Advani sure has a perverted and cruel sense of humour!

* * * * *

Coming out of the church after midnight mass on Easter, I collected the longish card that was being distributed at the gate of the church. Distributing novena or prayer cards after service is a common practice. I looked at it to find Shashi Tharoor smiling up at me under an overhanging konna branch with a hand symbol beside his face, wishing me a happy Easter and Vishu. I felt happy. Is it symbolic that this should be given out on Easter? It is predictive of the resurrection of morality in public life in India? Ha ha, if wishes were horses - - - Anyway, Sashi Tharoor’s face is the most visible one in Trivandrum. Congress posters are all over the place and very very prominently pasted. A very different face (he’ll make an excellent poster boy for anti-aging creams, I must say). Taken from many imaginative angles. Seemingly innocent of the filth that distorts the image of our politicians. Once he gets elected (a foregone conclusion or wishful thinking?) will he turn out to be a Dorian Gray? God forbid, but such is my faith in the polity of my dear country.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, netas - of left, right and Centre (read Congress)-are descending all over the state bullshitting the same old stale or toxic crap. When will they realize that they cannot fool all the people all the time?

* * * * *

Elsewhere in the country, Narendra Modi comes up with a metaphor reminiscent of Hitler’s holocaust policy. Congress, being an old lady, is of no use to the country, he says. There is grave danger lurking in this metaphor. In the Jewish concentration camps, the category consisting of the old, the women and children were marked out for the first rounds of gas chambering, ‘cos their utility value was none. If metaphors are windows which expose the hidden recesses of the human mind, Modi is a danger man who can subvert the humanitarian values that form the foundation of a civilized society. And, oh God, he has his eyes on New Delhi!

Maundy Thursday and Indriappam

I have always loved the Maundy Thursday. While it is not all about Indriappam (Kerala version of unleavened bread) and the pesaha paalu (Passover milk), it is also about them. A Maundy Thursday without them is unthinkable to me.

For this pesaha, my maid was on leave. I know many nazarane families have given up this practice of making appam and paalu – but not for a moment did I think of not making it. My eighty plus ammachi (mother-in-law) with poor eyesight and a weak heart and I, still treated like cut glass after my brush with cancer, decided that maid or no maid, appam and paalu we shall make. How can you think of Maundy Thursday without them?

Why is it so, I wonder.

My earliest memory of the Indriyappam and paalu goes back to the days in DARE HOUSE, where I lived from the age of four to ten. The Maundy Thursdays have always been the same. Ichayan (my father) at the head of the table and amma and eight children sitting on both sides of the big dining table. A short prayer and then Ichayan symbolically cuts the first made Indriappam which has a cross on it from two small pieces of palm leaf received on Palm Sunday. Then amma takes over; cuts that appam into as many pieces as there are people seated at the table and staff in the house. Ichayan then dips each piece in the Paalu and gives to each of us and the staff of the house.

The practice is identical in my husband’s house too. I suppose it is the same in all Nazrane houses.

To come back to the question, why is it that I am so particular about this practice? Why is it that I am filled with a sense of guilt? sadness? whenever I have remotely contemplated skipping this custom just for once?

I suppose nostalgia has something to do with it. Sitting around the table for this ritual always takes me back to the many many years we’d done this before. As we children grew up and flew away one by one, the number around the table dwindled. On some Maundy Thursdays, our little nephew and nieces would come home for the breaking of the unleavened bread. Their young bright faces and enthusiasm and chatter would make up for the missing siblings. There were times when my brothers’ friends joined us for this ritual. Yes. There was plenty for the mind to wander and linger over. Nostalgia is certainly not innocent of complicity in creating that compulsive need to perpetuate the practice.

But that is not all. There is something more to it, something more compulsive than nostalgia, something which admonishes the mind when it toys with the idea of skipping the practice. That something has a deeper appeal, but I cannot put my finger on it. The emotions evoked by it defy clear definition but I will try to analyse them here and now.

I think it has something to do with the shared knowledge in the collective consciousness of the nazranes who, for generations have been fed on the Biblical story of Jehovah’s protective arm over the chosen people in slavery, which the feast of the Passover commemorates. Equally if not more important is the fact that it is a reenactment the Last Supper. The text is translated into action year after year in the family on Maundy Thursday, and the whole ritual brings with it a complex interplay of tradition, myth, shared knowledge and spiritual experience which constitute the sense of nazrane identity.

And thus it was that we got the neighbour's maid to grate coconuts. The rest, the two of us managed.

By one thirty indriappam and pasaha paalu were ready.

Once again achachan (my ninety four year old father-in-law) cut the indriappam i.e. broke the bread -unleavened one on this day.

Shashi Tharoor in the Fray: Why we should Give him a Chance.

Why is he in the fray at all?

Possibly because of the weakness the President of the Congress Party has for intellectuals, technocrats and political novices. Also because she has an incurable faith in mallus (!? :-))

My take on Tharoor

He is a true global Indian.

I think most of us in my profession began to take him seriously as he made his presence felt through his literary works. Then, of course, he became the Under-Secretary General of the UN and all mallus were proud of him. When his claim for the position of UN Secretary General was rejected, all Indians were angry. Mallus were more angry. Many said that the US manipulated the appointment ‘cos they knew that Tharoor couldn’t be manipulated. Well, what the truth of the matter is, no one knows. Whatever it is, Shashi Tharoor’s image suffered no damage. He became a man of character and a man with a mind of his own despite his well celebrated super diplomacy.

I attended the inauguration of his AABC at Technopark. Mr. Tharoor impressed me by his very difference. He was picture perfect on the dais which he shared with MA Baby and VS. We saw the diplomat in action on that occasion - strict adherence to protocol, all the right moves and gestures like escorting the CM and The Education Minister to the lectern which was hardly 10 feet from their seats, when the MC invited them for their messages. Tharoor played his role as the host and organizer with much charm and élan.

After the inaugural function in the common hall of Technopark, we had to move towards the AAbc building which was bang opposite the hall. I saw a strange sight which both amused and impressed me. Mr. Tharoor put the ministers in their cars and instead of getting into another AC car and following them to the office , he ran across the compound, across the road and disappeared into the gates of the building! No doubt he was waiting for them when the VIP cars reached the building.

I cannot think of many public figures who would have run like that in the hot sun( except perhaps Alphonse Kannanthanam), totally impervious to the fact that he is a celebrity and a person who missed the highest position in the world by the skin of his teeth.

Why should we elect him?

The points stacked against him are 1.he is inexperienced in Indian politics 2. He is too westernized in his thinking 3. He is not in touch with the ground reality in India.

Let’s look at each of these problems.

He is inexperienced in Indian politics – true, I guess. But what are these experienced guys doing? The more experience they acquire, the fatter their pockets become, the greater their nexus with anti social outfits and greater their propensity to play the communal card.

He is too westernized in his thinking

So what? A refreshing change, a new perspective and a global outlook. The country can do with it.

He is not in touch with the ground reality in India.

How many of our netas have that? They are in touch with party's ground realities, not the country’s. Besides, Shashi Tharoor is learning - and learning pretty fast. He’s improving every second.

And then of course, a whole lot of pro Israeli articles he wrote which can be dismissed without much ado. He wrote them not in the capacity of an MP.

Will he win?

No idea. Hope he does. The differences in the party over giving the ticket to Tharoor have been ironed out. The campaign is in full swing. And he is media’s pet.

A word of advice to Tharoor from a well wisher.

Build up a rapport with the intelligentsia of Trivandrun with whom he is very popular. They have a great reach and are a sure route to the common man. They are waiting for a change, for a new face and new mind free from the frog in the well syndrome.

Wish you success Mr. Shashi Tharoor

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Chilled in Venice and Capuccino

“It will be windy”, Antonio, the travel agent’s local man who accompanied us through the tour in Italy, had cautioned us. “Put on something warm”.

So I pulled the sweater over the salwar suit. My feminist husband who turns macho when it comes to braving inclement weather, chose, however, to wear a half sleeved shirt, and , as a concession (I was nagging) a sleeveless sweater. I must say he looked quite handsome!

As we entered the bus, I noticed that most of our friends were also clothed as though to beat a mildly chilly weather. Of course, none was as inadequately dressed for the weather as my dear husband.

The short walk from the hotel to the bus was brrrrr cold! I got nervous and offered to run up to the room and get the windcheater and the cap for both of us. As expected, the hubby vetoed contemptuously with an upward turn of the left corner of his mouth.

WE soon reached the spot where we had to alight from the bus to board the boat that was to take us to ST. Marks Square.

As we walked, the realization hit us with the bitterly cold blast that greeted us, that we had seriously underrated the weather. It was windy all right but the wind bore no resemblance whatsoever to the welcome breeze or even the occasional chilly wind of our tropical homes. This was terrible - felt as though someone was shoveling ice on me as I walked along. I looked around and saw everybody shivering shamelessly. Some were trying to control the jaws which went kadakadakada.

“They should have told us it’ll be this cold”, someone grumbled.
“They dihidihidihid”, voice unsteady.
“They should have told us it’ll be freezing cold! Pah”

As we waited for the boat, we noticed that the water between the jetty and wall was full of rotting leaves.

The Keralites among us tried to make a joke of Venice being the Alleppey of the west but couldn’t get to the end of the joke as our voices dwindled off into a freezing halt. We tried to smile at each other but ended up grimacing.

I looked anxiously at my husband. He grinned at me nonchalantly, but I thought I saw something laboured in that grin.

“Not freezing?”, I asked him.
“Will survive, don’t worry”. Casually.

The boat arrived and a batch of Chinese tourists came out. All of them looked double their size from the layers and layers of clothes they had wrapped themselves in. Their headgear reminded me of the pictures of Eskimos. And as they passed us, they were grinning at us and at each other, hugely amused at us, the poor tropical creatures, shaking and shivering and crouching in the most undignified manner.

The boat was warm and soon we were in our elements. The view on either side was incredible. It felt as if we were moving through the medieval ages. Cameras were clicking furiously but I sat back and enjoyed the feel – the feel of traveling through some age in the remote past, the feel of the romance of a bygone era.

Oh, it was lovely.

How well these Italians have preserved their heritage! The centuries old structures were well maintained. How well developed is their tourism industry. Why can’t we also do this, I thought sadly. We too have an equally great heritage to preserve. Why don’t we get our act together like these people who are so proud of their history and heritage?

WE reached the jetty near St. Marks Square where the guide was waiting for us. Out of the warmth of the boat, we restarted the uncontrollable shivering act. I saw hands disappearing into the sweaters, noses turning red, teeth chattering as people listened to the very competent guide who was least impressed by our frozen condition. She herself was in a great overcoat with a furry collar, and wore a warm monkey cap which covered her ears well (It took all my self control to restrain myself from snatching it off her head and running away with it). She wore knee high boots, and here we were with nothing more than trousers or jeans or churidars or salwars between us and that sadistically biting wind that was, without let up, sending millions of tiny sharp icy darts.

Needless to say, the square was simply out of this world. Soon it was dark and the lights came. The sight took our breath away –the lights were symmetrically arranged for the best effect. The bell tower, St. Marks Church churches with stunning carvings and pillars – oh, it was all so richly carved with figures from history, myth and religion. Only, we were freezing and wanted to get into a warm place to revive our blood flow which, by then, was beginning to get congealed.

My poor husband by then had given up all his macho pretensions, and was making funny sounds.

“What is it?” I asked.
“Chumma” he said, like Mohanlal.
“What are those strange sounds you are making?”
“Hei, it’s nothing”, he said. He tried that lopsided grin which froze half way thru. I noticed the goose bumps on his arms. He was the only human being in that crowded square who had any part of the anatomy exposed to the stinging wind. I noticed that he too was becoming an item of tourists interest.

I wanted to gloat and tell him “Serves you right”. But I didn’t. After all, I can’t behave as though there is no tomorrow.

Soon, it was time for the gondola ride. We chose not to go. Another couple from Kerala too decided to stay back. We were not sure if we could handle the cold(When the group returned after the ride, they told us that the gondola ride was warmer than standing in the Square). Besides, it was dark and the visibility was almost nil. The guide told us that it was worth going just to feel and hear the sound of the water lapping on the sides of the gondola. Well. We have traveled enough times in the snake boats back home in Kuttanaad. So there was no novelty in the experience, we Keralites who chose to stay back consoled ourselves. It was a different thing if we could see the banks, which, the guide had told us, was not possible in that fading light.

So we hung around in the square while the others went for the gondola ride. The ground floor off the pavement of the square was full of shops where Italian jewelry, Murano glass items and a whole lot of other things were very attractively displayed. We tried window shopping. The rates appeared whopping, particularly when we converted euros to rupees; I guess our frozen state too had something to do with the rates appearing prohibitive.

“Let’s get into a café and have something to drink”, I suggested. “It’ll be warm and coffee will warm us up”

We got into a café and ordered cappuccino coffee. We were thrilled at the prospect of sitting in the warm café and sipping little by little piping hot coffee. Soon the order came. Each of us was served, without exaggeration, half an ounce of bitter coffee! We masked our utter dismay behind a poker face while it was being placed on the table. I even managed a sweet thank you in the direction of the waitress. After all, we are the brand ambassadors of our country!

I wish I had taken pictures of our expressions as we looked at the half ounce blackish coffee and then at each other.

“Maybe more will come”, I said hopefully.
“Mmn. kaathirunno” (you can wait forever for it), my friend said.

We tried sipping the coffee slowly but none of us could go beyond one and a half sips. It was over! One and a half sips for two euros!!(More that Rs.120).

“We came in for the warmth. Let’s think that we are paying for getting away from the cold”, I said weakly. After all it was my bright idea to walk into a restaurant and sip a giant cup of piping hot coffee and feel the warmth seep through your body and thaw the frozen blood. I had to come up with some justification.

All the three nodded somberly in unison.

Looking back, we realized that we should have freaked out on some good food and stopped converting. But I think it takes a few days of transacting in the unfamiliar currency to be able to do that. The Venice trip was in the evening of the day we landed in Italy.

And of course, our brains too were frozen, disabling sensible thinking. It takes sometime to handle the alien climate of an alien place too.

Renaissance Visited

I saw. I really and truly saw. With my own eyes.

I saw the Statue of David and the Pieta. I actually stood before them and looked at them. And thought of what the sculptor believed - that a form was always trapped in a stone, and the sculptors job was to liberate it from the stone!

I saw Buonnarotti’s aesthetic extravaganza on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel and on the wall behind the altar.

As a child I had seen them in that gigantic hardbound album of classical art which I couldn’t lift. So heavy it was. My brother Vakkachayan had acquired it from somewhere and it was my favourite pastime turning its pages, from the first to the last and reading the captions and the explanatory notes. Every picture in that book of paintings from the 11th century to the 19th century had a long story behind it. My brother told me many of them, and I poured over those pages almost every day. The Sistine Chapel paintings and the statue of David, I remember, made me blush. I remember the domestic help once teased me for looking at ‘obscene’ pictures.

But last week I saw them all. In flesh and blood(!?). And I looked and looked.

No. I have no trained eye for art. But the idea. Yes. It is the idea that held me enthralled. The idea I had passed on to my students year after year when I introduced them to the Italian Renaissance, the precursor to the English.

Looking up, with my head at right angle to the body, at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the heavily crowded room where cameras were not permitted. I remembered the numerous stories about Michael Angelo. The Agony and the Ecstasy. The spirit of Renaissance reflected in the strange but exquisite co habitation of the Hellenic and Hebraic achieved in the paintings and sculptures of the period. The liberation of art from the straight-jacketed demands of an austere religion. All that I read (without fully comprehending) and taught as part of my profession came crowding into my mind. The feeling was strange. It was like a nostalgia for something I have never seen or experienced – perhaps a nostalgia for an imaginary world I was forced to inhabit as one of the imperatives of my occupation, and which eventually entered my soul and became part of me.

Maybe I’m not making sense.

The Return of the Natives - Are You Ready, Kerala?

The reverse flow has begun. The NRIs who kept Kerala going through the ‘Money Order Economy’ are returning in hordes/hoards to Kerala.

Is Kerala ready for them? The Government is offering rehabilitation packages. But how effective they will be, time alone can tell.

But one thing is certain. Kerala will be hit below the belt with the return of these people who buttressed for decades a comparatively non-income generating state. These Non resident Indians slogged it out in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and the USA to sustain a lazy and arrogant people back home. Now, Kerala will not take kindly to their return. And, these people cannot be rehabilitated unless the proverbial Kerala mindset undergoes a sea change, and a climate is created for investing money in business in Kerala

This brings to my mind an incident I witnessed in 1986, while traveling from Trivandrum to Changanasserry in a bus.

The bus stopped in some place after Kottarkara, and a well dressed man in his early forties alighted. I had the window seat and so I had a good view of the gripping drama which unfolded outside.

Apparently, the passenger was employed in the Gulf and had come home for a vacation. He had boarded the bus from the Trivandrum airport. As he got down, the kili unloaded his suitcases from the top of the bus, and left them in the waiting shed. In the meanwhile, the man had hailed a cab and was about to load the suitcases into the cab when a group of head load workers (hereafter will be referred to as attimaris) circled him. The man very politely said that he didn’t need anyone’s help to put those suitcases into the cab. The attimaris became aggressive. Some raised their voices. Others began to get abusive with the taxi driver, threatening dire consequences if he transported the passenger.
.
“How much”, the passenger asked. Still polite.
“RS. 200” (it was in the eighties, mind you).
The passenger smiled and said, “Come on, brother, you must be joking”. He then offered to give them some money for a cup of tea for each of them.
The attimariwallas became nasty. They laughed raucously; their language and body language changed

“Let’s see if you leave this spot without giving us what we asked”, one of them challenged in the most belligerent, offensive hateful manner.
Another man put his hands on the suitcases.
And then something happened which stunned us.
All on a sudden, without any warning whatsoever, a great transformation came over the passenger. From a polite, peace loving soft-spoken man trying to arrive at a compromise with the attimariwallas , he metamorphosed into a raging bull!
“Take your hands off my box”, he thundered.
Believe it or not, the attimarywalla jerked his hands away as though the suitcases were white hot.
“I slog it out in the desert sun for days and months”, he continued, unstoppable by now, “and you guys cooling your heels here want a share of what I made with my sweat, eh?”(Literal translation)
Then, he unbuttoned the sleeves of his shirt and pushed them up his arms, clenched his fist and said, loud and clear in a deadly calm flat voice.
“Come. Who wants 200 hundred rupees? Come and take what I have to give”, he said.

I couldn’t believe what I saw. The attimaris moved back in a group, looked at each other. Then one of them looked at the cab driver and said, “Go on, take him to whichever hell he wants to go to”. Then looking at his fellow headload workers, he said”Let’s not waste time on these good for nothing people”, and they walked off.

Our bus left the stop at this point. The driver, conductor and the passengers were eagerly waiting to see how this drama would end, and I must say that all were happy with the ending.

As the journey continued, I remembered a report which had come in the Malayala Manorama a few days earlier.

A foreign tourist landed in Kochin airport. As luggage, he had only a back pack and a sophisticated video camera with its accessories. The attimaris surrounded him as he came out of the restricted area and told him that as head load workers, it was their right to carry the video camera as it was a fairly big piece of baggage. A fellow passenger, whom the foreigner approached for an explanation of their demands, explained to him the practice of attimary.

The visitor thanked him and walked back to the airport, bought a ticket for the next flight out of Kochin - to Goa.

A Manorama reporter met him at the Goa airport and asked him what made him come to Goa.

“There is no Atti Mary (sounded like attic without the last k sound and Mary, the name) in Goa”, he said.

Things haven't changed in Kerala still. The situation is as bad if not worse.

Now, back to the return of the diasporic population of Kerala, the situation is grim not only for them, but also for the state. Predictions are very disturbing. The most pessimistic prophets of doom see the state plunging headlong into the worst economic abyss with inflation, unemployment, crime rate and suicide rate reaching an all time high. With the elections in the offing, these issues are non-issues to leaders and political parties who, by now, should already have set afoot policies to preempt the projected alarming fallout of global meltdown.

But then, it is too much to expect from our netas a feeling of an urgent need to address these issues. What does it matter to them if the state economy crumbles like a pack of cards? Or trauma grips people across the classes? Or men, women, children succumb in despair to the tribulations of a failed economy?

With political support, unionized labour, Associations of officers and clerical unions in the public sector will continue to agitate for their pound of flesh, totally impervious to the fact that they are highly privileged with an all time high salary, perks and job security in times when retrenchment across the globe is casting dark shadows of uncertainty and insecurity across God’s own country. And what does it matter to our callous netas if this state and its people go to the dogs?

Thank You and Good Bye, Sri Mathew T. Thomas, Our Dear Transport Minister

He belongs to that endangered species among politicians called Statesmen.

He is clean.

He is a performer. He had begun to turn things around for the KSRTC.

He is creative, imaginative and resourceful. He had earnestly set about reviving the ailing KSRTC with innovative moves.

But Mathew T. Thomas, the Transport Minister of Kerala had to go. He had to submit himself to party discipline. But he was stoic about it. Cool as a cucumber, and cheerful. “The minister’s post is not my birthright”, the man said! The most quotable quote from a sphere dominated by Pinarayis and Mayavathis and Lalus and others of that ilk.

I hope they are listening.

And the people of Kerala love him. People love honest and performing ministers. To have committed, competent and upright politicians at the helm of affairs redeems our faith in the democratic system.

On a personal note, his wife is my student. She shifted residence to Trivandrum when her husband became the Transport Minister in the LDF government, and commutes to a town in mid-Travancore where she works as a lecturer. She traveled in the ordinary class for more than a year. The ordeals of commuting in the ordinary class can be appreciated only by those who have done it. A few months back, she took first class season ticket when she realized that the time spent in the train can be fruitfully utilized for preparation and paper evaluation.

Recently, I happened to travel in the same train that she commutes in. She came to hear that I was traveling in the next compartment, from a common friend who had run into me in the station. She came over to see me. I must confess that I was flattered that the minister’s wife had come to see me. But what struck me was that she was the same old respectful pleasant and unassuming student who attended my lectures some twenty odd years ago. A very unassuming, self-effacing person who simply did not think of taking advantage of her husband's position.

Not only Caesar, but his wife also is above blame.

May their tribe increase.