The End of Exile

After three years of Covid-imposed exile, I finally made it to my momma-land GOC (God’s Own Country, or as in some interpretations, God’s Own Cakoos) in July for a short trip. More than the mind-numbing pre-trip bureaucratic procedures, what got my goat was the nail-biting wait for the RT-PCR test results.

You see, I had considered myself to be a cool cucumber throughout my life. Exams, exam results, job interviews, job, none of these things ever unnerved me much. I remember a Tamil friend from college days, who would visit my room on the eve of exams to relax. He will come in with his eyeballs popping out of their sockets, almost touching his soda glass specs, and veins on his forehead taut and about to burst. But then, he will see me dragging on a filter-less Panama cigarette and playing cards with another friend, an even cooler cucumber, and all his tensions vanish. Eyeballs pop right back in, bulging veins disappear, and the man is ready to take the exam next day.

That was me before I encountered RT-PCR test. The clinic was going to send the results to my e-mail the evening before the day we were flying. I was irritable all day long, barking at my kids, and generally being an a$$*ole. At around 6pm, the mails came. I don’t know if my eyeballs were touching my glasses, but it was one of those rare moments in my life I was totally tensed. Adding to that tension was the fact that all four of us had to clear this test. I clicked on the links one by one 陰性, 陰性, 陰性, 陰性…All negative! Collective relief all around.

The trip. Narita airport had the feel of a funeral parlour, but transit at bustling Singapore Changi was fun as usual. Thirontharam Hawai Adda looked and felt the same as I remembered it from 2019. The city streets also appeared to be more or less the same as before, and some places still had the bombed-out Fallujah feel with lots of rubble. Oh, it was good to be back. The first couple of days were spent meeting family and friends in the immediate neighbourhood and eating parotta, beef, appam, mutta curry, etc. Then it was time to attend to some unfinished business from three years ago involving government offices, banks, etc. Surprisingly, most of those worked out well. The government staff were mostly un-rude (if there is such a word) and reasonably helpful, which was unexpected, to be frank. I really wanted to get things done this time and was willing to pull some strings if needed, ditching my convictions. So, it was a pleasant surprise when everything went smoothly without me using my connections or greasing any palms.

The only weekend was spent in Kochi with my college mates. We drove to Kochi in a friend’s vehicle to avoid public transport and the risk of contracting some new pox. My friend, I believe, took his license from the KSRTC driving school. He drives his Innova car like the drivers of the killer express buses of the state transport service ‒ threateningly, recklessly, and with utter disregard to rules, road conditions, and passengers. The man looks like he is on a mission, though nobody knows what it is. 

Anyway, we reached Kochi safely and spent some quality time with friends and the brews brought from various parts of the world including the sake I took from Japan. One major disappointment, though, was the food: seafood to be exact. Kochi, the Queen of the Arabian Sea, is famed for seafood, but for some reason the place where we stayed served us something that felt like blubber dipped in batter and fried. I started cribbing about it, and seeing that, my influential local friends went out and found an exotic small shop selling matthi fry (sardines), prawns, idiyirachi (pounded dried beef), etc., which went a long way in assuaging my feelings and making me fall in love with Kochi again.

On the way back, my maniacal friend gave the wheels to me as he wanted to sleep. I was still in Japanese mode of driving, trying to stick to my lane wherever there was one, keeping distance with the vehicle in front, etc. This, obviously, was annoying to the local drivers, and probably even some pedestrians, who were wondering “ii ma#$an ethu konathinnada vandi odikkan padichathu?”, which could be loosely translated as “where the f*#k did this a$$*ole learn to drive?

Well, here I was, stopped at a red signal while heading out of Kochi, when a police vehicle came and stopped near me on my right. In most countries this would be against the law, because it was straightaway blocking the oncoming traffic by being in the opposite lane. Green light comes on and the police vehicle blares its siren and cuts across in front of me. I obediently drive myself into the ditch, which serves as the shoulder in most GOC roads, to let him pass. Behind him went a government car which had a board saying, “High Court Judge!”

Now, I know that we shouldn’t judge judges just because they break the law. He might have been rushing to deliver some late-night judgment of national importance. Maybe, it was related to that actor showing his butt on a nude photoshoot, which riled many people in the country. To be sure, that actor was cutting into the action of the Jain monk people, who probably have a monopoly on butt-show. The rule says that not every dumbo can show his or her butt. The judge hopefully will decide “independently” as to who can show their butt, upon giving due consideration to the ruling dispensation’s whims. Remember, judges are important people who can throw the book at you using words like infructuous, Suo motu and mutatis mutandis. So, I quietly drove out of the ditch to continue with my journey.

There are couple of things you learn early on in India. One is to not diss on gods, religions, or religious people. The retribution will be swift and harsh. If at all you want to say something, it should appear to the religious person as you’re dissing somebody else’s god. Religious people are OK with that. Another thing you learn is to keep quiet against the powers that be. The state can do whatever it pleases using all of the tools it has at its disposal including the army.

The Supreme Leader of the country, for example, is a man who boasts one of the biggest breast sizes in the world at 56 inches. This is probably second only to the 57 inches of Arnold Shivajinagar, popularly known in the West as Arnold Schwarzenegger. Interesting trivia ‒ Shivajinagar is also an actor like the Supreme Leader, though not as good. As a thespian, Shivajinagar is limited to action hero roles, whereas the Supreme Leader is famed for his ability to pull off any given role. Angry middle-aged man, tortured soul, grieving husband, mountain-dwelling ascetic, weatherman, military strategist, economist, mathematician, birdfeeder, you name it – he has done it, and done it with elan. To top it all, he is also a real-life crocodile Dundee-ji.

Sorry, I went off on a tangent to praise the Supreme Leader. I was discussing how you should not say anything against those who rule over us. This is true even for regional leaders in many states. Many of these leaders have special organs similar to the large breast of the Supreme Leader. Some have double or multiple organs. And they all have cult-like followers. For instance, the Supreme Leader only has to snap his fingers and the cult members will carve you up. Well, maybe not snap his fingers, because snapping might bring the cultists out of their trance. Could it be dog whistle? I don’t know. The opposition party representatives also have organs, but they mess up in putting the right organ in the right place and often end up, for example, with their heads in their posterior orifices. That is why people call them the dis‘organ’ized opposition.

Anyway, I fervently hope that our law-breaking judge was able to save the country and deliver a landmark infructuous decision as to who can show their posterior in public. My reverie, meanwhile, was broken by the maniac sleeping in the passenger seat, who was wide awake now and ready to drive. With him at the wheel, we had an uneventful journey back to Thirontharam with our hearts in our mouths, and the foul taste of an eminently forgettable dosa from a restaurant in Kottarakkara.

Despite the two food-related mishaps (blubber fry and dosa), on the whole it was a short and sweet trip to GOC with kappa, fish curry, idlis, dosas, vadas, bajis, appams, idiappams, puttu, patthiri and of course the national dish of parotta and beef fry. Moreover, thanks to the much-improved services at the village, taluk, and corporation offices, I was able to accomplish a lot on the personal front. Next time around, I hope to stay for a much longer period.

 

P.S. My maniacal friend is not exactly that bad. From a local perspective, he is a normal driver with the optimum amount of animal instinct necessary to survive on the roads there.

 

Capital Punishment

Being the capital, Trivandrum attracts all kinds of people who want to air their grievances in front of the Secretariat here, the de-facto symbol of power. So, for example, if you are a group of divinely ordained people like the Brahmins who used to wield some power; but are currently facing threats from the unwashed, uncouth, un-everything nincompoops (a guy called Parur Rakesh from a lower caste was appointed as a priest recently) who are taking away the one primary job of yours – i.e. having personal conversations with imaginary beings; then you could pack your $#it and come to Trivandrum and protest. You could build a sacred fire in front of the Secretariat and invoke the gods to wreak destruction on the sacrilegious punks trying to cut in on your action. It should be a piece of cake, since you have the secret hotline to said being.

Anyway, what I am trying to say is that this is the beauty of India’s democracy. You are free to protest. Another beauty of our so-called democracy is that the state is free to send policemen to disrobe you and crush your family jewels in front of TV cameras broadcasting live to mallu living rooms, as the Marxists recently discovered to their chagrin. This is part of the government’s Bollicks Crushing Programme (BCP) modelled after the Chief Minister’s Mass Contact Programme (MCP, jana sambarkka paripadi). We’re in line for another UN recognition pretty soon. Our MP, Sasi Tha ‘Roor’ should pull some strings in the UN through his social networks to make this a reality. I dream of a day when I would be able to see huge billboards of our CM holding spherical objects in his hands, similar to the ones that showed him holding a bunch of MCP petitions. Talk of emasculating the opposition! Way to go!

(He, our CM, is back with his MCP. When the CM has to go around addressing issues that should ideally be solved by a clerk, then that means something is seriously wrong with the government machinery. Perhaps he could get rid of many of these people and save the exchequer some money.)

Well, apart from the above-mentioned political hullabaloo, Trivandrum also hosts processions and parades by a plethora of religious groupings. Especially, some processions promoted by the Hindu right appear to be part of their strategy to expand their base in Kerala. There was one in which cute little kids dressed as Krishna were forced to walk on the hot city streets. Curiously, none of the kids (pictures) I saw were dark as Krishna. They were all fair to very fair complexioned, not even wheatish. Whatever happened to kaakkakarumbans and kaarvarnans? Another was the Ganapati procession. Suddenly, we are like Bombay! Big-time immersion of Ganpati Bappa in the Arabian Sea. I don’t know whether they were singing “Ganpati bappa morya pudhchya varshi lavkar ya” (Lord Ganesha, come again soon next year) during the procession, but recently when I went to clean-up Sankhumugham beach with a group of volunteers, there were still some Styrofoam, plastic and plaster-of-Paris remains of the lord on the beach, and I almost wanted to go "pudhchya varshi yeu naka". Where are the eco-warriors when we need them?     

Some good (?) things that happened in the recent past – Nilgiri’s started selling Yakult probiotics drinks, which my kids used to love back in Japan. They also have Lindt and other expensive Swiss chocolates (have resisted the temptation so far), tortillas and even miso soups on their shelves. Persimmons are back in season at my favourite vegetable vendor “Spring” in Nanthancode. There are a couple of new restaurants, which I have to try out. And, a new online lending library (letusread.in) has started functioning, for which I promptly signed up today after I read the news in The Hindu. Interesting times ahead.

PS. Couple of days ago I saw a news item where a guy from Kochi was complaining there was a Trivandrum lobby working against them. It seems Tha 'Roor' had commented about some stupid cricket game getting washed out, which didn’t go down well with the Cochin dudes and Cricket Association honchos. What is with this 'Roor' guy and cricket? Anyway, I was interested in this powerful Trivandrum lobby. So, I checked out the KCA website and lo and behold, what do I find? Of all the matches given to KCA, barring a few junior games in Perinthalmanna and Thalaserry, everything else was allotted to – no, not Trivandrum, but Kochi, which included the washed out Duleep Trophy matches, Ranji matches, ODIs, everything! Some powerful Trivandrum lobby this is!  Or, it might just be that this Trivandrum lobby strived to get all the matches for Kochi so that they could sit back and enjoy the super soppers in action. Wicked, or what? I, for one, think the super soppers are more fun. I hope more and more such matches are washed out, whether in Trivandrum or Kochi, or Ranchi or Cuttack so that these match-fixing, lazy, untalented bozos do not get a chance to show off their mediocrity.

One thing we all should remember – when things like these happen, it means there is money involved and "they" would like to keep it as exclusive as possible, lest their share of the pie become smaller. "You" are there just to hold the flags, throw the stones and get kicked in the nuts. They walk all the way to the bank. OK, not walk, but go in a car. Land will be given away for free to moneybags, coal fields will be given to corporations for peanuts, and frequencies will be allocated for a pittance to telecom companies. In the meantime, you’ll be given polluted air to breathe, poisoned water to drink and intermittent power to watch the idiot box. Be thankful.    

 

I Kinda Have a Dream

Next month is the 50^th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech (March on Washington, August 1963). To think that it’s been only about 50 years since black people got equal rights in that “shining city on the hill”, “the beacon of democracy”, “the indispensable nation” is mind-boggling. But that is another story. Here today is my own ‘I kinda have a dream’ inspired by the great MLK speech.  
 

I KINDA HAVE A DREAM

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as just another stupid day in the history of our State.

Some years ago, some great Mallus, whose statues might one day cast shadows on garbage piles, signed some worthless proclamations. This came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of mallus who had been searing garbage piles here and there.

But many years later, the Mallu still is not free to do what he pleases with his garbage, which he has to slyly dispose off in distant neighbourhoods in the middle of the night. Many years later, many Mallus live on lonely islands of opulence in the midst of vast oceans of waste. Many years later, the Mallu is still languishing in all corners of the world and finds himself an exile in his own land, only able to come here once in a while to throw tissue papers around.

In a sense many come to the State's capital to take a dump. When the architects of our city, if there were any, drew up the plans, they were thinking of the hordes of people who will come here with their flags and plastic bottles and Styrofoam food packets and their bodily orifices for excretion. So our architects ensured that all men, some women too, would be guaranteed the unalienable right to choke this city to death in addition to the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that the State has given the people a bad cheque; a cheque which has come back marked "insufficient funds" to give them the freedom to throw stuff. But we refuse to believe that the bank of government inefficiency is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity for corruption in this State.

It would be fatal for the State to overlook the urgency of the moment. This stinking monsoon of the Mallu’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating season of dengue and Chikungunya. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst by drinking from the tap of municipal water supply.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here to throw a few stones. Some of you have come fresh from the Middle East or Singapore where your quest for freedom to poop by the street side left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Kasaragod, go back to Alappuzha, go back to Kochi, go back to Idukki, go back to Kannur, go back to the slums and ghettos of all our cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be replicated in your cities too. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in wet Mallu dreams involving sultry sirens silhouetted against solar flares.

I have a dream that one day this State will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that some, if not most, men are idiots."

I have a dream that one day on the green hills of Ponmudi the sons of rich guys will get sons of power shovel (JCB) drivers to raze down the hills and make it motta (bald).

I have a dream that one day even Attapadi, a place apparently overflowing with rice and ragi given by our State, will have the freedom to throw the plastic sacks in which the rice and ragi come there.

I have a dream that my children will one day live in a State where they will not be judged by the colour of the plastic packet they throw on the street but by the contents of that packet – Lay’s, Pringles, Kurkure, etc.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, right here in the capital, the vicious caste-ists, their lips dripping with the words of tolerance and love only for their own kind will throw filth at each other; and one day right here, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little wheatish-complexioned boys and girls as well as fair and lovely boys and girls, as sisters and brothers to go to the Secretariat and the Corporation Office and dump their diapers there.

                                 (Diapers and other garbage that some lovely parent throws near my house every few days)

 

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be filled with Big Bazaar bags, every hill and mountain shall be made low to build monuments to greed, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the garbage dumps shall be revealed, and all the fish and flesh and organic waste shall be in those dumps too.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back with.

And if we are to become a super-duper State, this must become true. So let garbage flow from the prodigious hilltops of the Sahyadri. Let garbage flow from the mighty peak of Anamudi. Let garbage flow from Mookunnimala of Ananthapuri!

Let garbage flow into the Ashtamudi Lake of Kollam!

Let garbage flow under the kothumbu vallams of Alappuzha!

But not only that; let garbage flow from the high ranges of Kottayam!

Let garbage flow from Sabarimala of Pathanamthitta!

Let garbage flow from every hill and molehill of God’s Own Country. From every mountainside, let garbage flow.

And when this happens, when we allow garbage to flow, when we let garbage flow from every village and every hamlet, from every town and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all men, Nairs and Ezhavas, Protestants and Catholics, Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims, and all other caste, religious permutations and combinations and even atheists will be able to join hands and take the next flight out of the country singing, "Free at last! free at last! we are free at last!" “But we will come back once in a while to throw tissue papers!”
 

Amicus Curiae, or what?

 Every now and then a word pops up in the media which makes you go, “what the f$#k is that?” Over the past few weeks one such word has been bothering me. The word is amicus curiae, and everybody seems to know it. It rolls off the tongue of TV ladies effortlessly as if they were taught “A is for Amicus Curiae”, instead of “A is for Apple” in kindergarten.  Mind you, these are people who can’t differentiate between Malayalam letters such as ba and bha.

I found out through painstaking research in Google that the word means “friend of the court”, or a person appointed by the court to assist it in deciding a matter. Here the matter is what to do with Padmanabhan’s jewels (or Padmanaba, as the ladies say) hoarded in the temple vaults, at least one of which is guarded by killer snake symbols.  After weighing the pros and cons of a snakebite, the amicus curiae decided to become an amicus regius, friend of the royals. We don’t know what the court will decide. Hopefully, it will benefit the people, as the leftists hope, rather than a bunch of superstitious sycophants.

At the same time, the Hindu groups’ claim that the Left is targeting only them is also legitimate. There is quite a bit of pussyfooting by the Left when it comes to other religions. My hope is that one day a government of ours, left or right, will develop the guts to tax all these religion-related entities – the temples, churches, mosques, ammas, appas, babas, bhabhis, swamis and swaminis. Some small percentage will do, which could be used to develop the civic facilities used by these groups for festivals, etc.

Anyway, we have some breathing space till the court decides on what to do with the Lord’s jewels. If the Lord doesn’t like the verdict, get ready for snake attacks, thunderbolts from heaven and other means through which the Lord wreaks destruction. By the way, do you think the guys who did the divination with the cowry shells know how it is going to end (because the Lord must know how it ends and have told them, otherwise it doesn’t make much sense in being the Lord, does it)? The suspense is killing me.

Whether the Lord likes it or not, his land is now literally a stinking cesspool. The chief minister, while chitchatting with some German kids who pointed out the garbage problem, told them that there is no good model to follow to solve this. He told that to Germans! Germany is a country which even Japan looks up to as a model for garbage handling, recycling, etc. Pathetic. Can someone teach these guys googling? Only a few days ago, a group led by a minister went to China to “learn”, among other things, about garbage handling. There had been umpteen such expeditions before to all corners of the world, but we are still weighing all the options, lest something goes wrong. Perhaps he could go to Brahmapuram and see how it is done in Cochin before we all go down with dengue.    

In the meantime, the city Corporation held a convention with politicians from different parties, social and cultural leaders as well as regular folk. They took some kind of pledge (led by actor Suresh Gopi) about garbage with their hands held out. What more could we possibly ask for? A convention and a pledge! I have a nagging feeling that at least some of the guys who took the pledge had their middle fingers out.

P.S. Continuing with the theme of the previous post – A couple of weeks ago I went to a restaurant called Villa Maya near Eenchakkal. Very high-end, with an ambience that a few years ago would have looked out of place in Trivandrum, but now, doesn’t appear too odd. Signs again of the rising affluence of the city. The prices are five-star-ish and the menu is quite appealing and palatable to Indians. Their operation will need some tweaking as far as some of the dishes I ordered are concerned. First up, the steak. They never asked me how I wanted it. I got a too well-done steak, whereas I like mine rare, or medium rare, at the most. Next is the Quattro Formaggi pizza, a pizza made of four (quattro) cheeses (formaggi). Though reasonably good, it didn’t seem like it had four cheeses in it. It is a new place and probably lacks in experience, but on the whole I think it is a good addition to the city’s dining scene.  

 

Emerging, Submerging...De Vannu, Da Poyi

Kerala, as we all know, ‘emerged’ when Parasuraman threw his parasu (axe) from Gokarna to Kanyakumari. Why Gokarna? Why not from Ratnagiri, or Porbandar? He must have had his reasons. Some guys, however, didn’t see eye to eye with Parasuraman on his tomahawk-launch land-grab. They took their parasu to Kaliyikkavila and slashed all the way south to Kanyakumari, and then to Kasaragod and cut off all the way north to Gokarna, essentially thumbing their noses at Parasuraman. To be fair to those guys, Parasuraman, unlike Sardar Patel, didn’t have any clue of linguistic divisions. Otherwise, why would a 200-odd kilometre stretch of Tulu and Kannada speaking land be a part of Mallu-land?

The fact is that Kerala had already ‘emerged,’ though the exact date of the axe-launch is not available. At least, that is what I believed until I saw the words “Emerging Kerala” recently. This suggested that we, after all, haven’t ‘emerged’ and it is still an ongoing process.  So, what’s cooking? Were all those parasu stories, well, just stories? Are these people ridiculing the beliefs of millions?

From what I gather, this is again a new-age land grab. Like the 64 brahmin families Parasuraman brought from outside, this time around we’ll see Arabs and others being offered land and other sops to stay put. We don’t know if weapons are going to be thrown around for the sea to recede or whether existing land will be carved up. What we do know is that someone is going to take a hatchet to that green cover we have, or whatever is left of it, pretty soon. Incidentally, no one mentions about the local population, their needs, their lives; neither Parasuraman, nor our new lords. 

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We often lament about the lack of do-gooders in our society. Accident victims bleeding to death in front of hundreds, people not helping others in distress, etc. Well, guess what? There are still a few of these good Samaritans around, though they only come out of the woodwork once in a while. Recently one such guy came out of nowhere. My guess is that this is the guy who always drives in front of me at 20 km/hr speed while blocking both lanes. He is the guy who follows the Kerala rule of “line driving,” which states that if there are two lanes in one direction, you drive on the dividing line so that both the left and right side mirrors (folded) of your car are equidistant from that line. He was so aghast at the thought of seeing an F1 car zooming at speeds above 40km/hr through Kawdiar that he immediately pulled a rule out of his posterior sphincter and filed a PIL against it. The government was stunned and dropped the idea. It didn’t matter that no one, not even unhealed cripples sitting on boards with wheels, traverse that stretch below 100 km/hr.  

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Cabotage: A thick creamy soup made from cabbage and potage, originally developed by the Kerala government to fool, sorry, feed the public during famines (“Let them drink soup,” the government was supposed to have said when told that the people didn’t have potable water to drink).

Cabotage law: This law states that any ship arriving at a physically existing (Cochin) or never-to-exist imaginary port (Vizhinjam) is allowed to dump 10 lakh TEUs of cabotage soup into the sea as long as the ship’s captain and cook are Indians and there is a rave party in progress on the deck.

The government decided to relax that law to allow foreign captains also to join the party as long as they are not Pakistanis or Chinese, and they have a three-year relationship with a native.

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Other recent events that entertained me:

- The impromptu romantic evening of candle-light dinners gifted to 600 million Indians by the government, which deliberately switched off the power grid, in a bid to increase the population.

- The dope Hazare giving up on his fast-unto-death stunts.

- Another hartal, which is essential in cleansing our air, as vehicles don’t run on that day, and kids and workers get a day off.

 

- Our CM declaring that his government is taking a scientific approach to garbage. I think he was talking about using gas masks to approach garbage and go around it. He will also throw in a pair of gumboots for good measure.

- And our Olympics – when are we going to see reason and import some African athletes?

 

Maglev, Trivandrum Monorail, Railway God and Confucius

A picture is worth a thousand words (in some versions it is 10,000 words). This saying, I found out after painstaking research that involved googling it, was an American creation slyly attributed to Confucius to make it sound convincing. I was reminded of this quote when I saw some impressive pictures of cities in Kerala. Stunning high-rises, coconut trees and shimmering backwaters! The only problem is that these pictures are worth only about 250 words (or 2,500, whichever you prefer), or only about a quarter of what Confucius meant. None of these pictures show the streets, the grounds, the earth on which these buildings stand, for obvious reasons. It is not a pretty sight. But, I assume that is what tourism hyperbole is all about. Confucius, if he comes back now, would be shocked to learn that fishing nets from his country are being used to catch foreign tourists in a distant land.

Recently I read a comment (about Gurgaon) that you have to keep your eyesight angled up by about 40 degrees and you may be tempted to believe that you’re in some 1^st world city. A similar comment was made by a Japanese guy to me many moons ago.  He said that Trivandrum looked better than Hawaii from the air. But then there was a pause, and in typical Japanese fashion, a lot was left unsaid. An American would have probably said, “yea, we got down and that was when the $hit hit the ceiling literally.” You can’t walk 10 metres or take in a panoramic view without being jarred by piles of garbage, ugly buildings, and eye-piercing colours. When did purple and parrot green become our state colours? I missed that revolution. There was a time, in my youth, when we used to (ignorantly) call any colour that is not white or its derivatives as “pandi colour”, a derogatory reference to the colourful Tamil scene. I don’t feel that way now as far as Tamils are concerned, because now I realize that such colours suit them, and their personae. Likewise, their rhythm, the beats, and the sound. Those look and sound fabulous in Tamil, but don’t work in Malayalam. Still, Tamil being the bigger cultural entity around seems to have had a bigger, detrimental impact on Kerala in the last decade than I had imagined.  (And, if I ever get my hands on the Asian Paints guys, I’ll kick them till they turn purple.)

Well, I lost track. I wanted to write about garbage-free Kerala. But then, it is a futile exercise. There was a garbage-free Kerala plan initiated by the previous government 4-5 years ago, which was thrown into the trash can after the first few days. The new plan is also destined to take the same route by the look of things, with a slight detour where a CIAL-like entity will make some money in the process.

Couple of follow-up news regarding Trivandrum monorail and railways.

Our CM has become such a visionary he has become almost Palin-esque (Sarah Palin – An US politician who said she could see Russia from Alaska) in his vision thingy. He could, sitting in his perch in the Cliff House, see all the way to Kaliyikkavila in the south and all the way up to Thalapadi in the north, to which he plans to extend the Trivandrum monorail. He is not even winking any more.

While the CM was at it and thinking up ways to carve up the state booty among corporate sleazebags as quickly as possible, the railway god revealed his plans for using maglev at Kochi. The news report quoted him as saying this technology is widely used in Japan. Now, that was taking it a bit too far even for a god, especially, in this information age. The only maglev system commercially operating in Japan is a contraption they developed for the Nagoya Expo, which they are continuing to use over an 8-kilometre stretch at great loss. The only other and oft-quoted example is the one in Shanghai that connects the city to the airport. Again, not a metro system. He said the maglev can run at speeds above 500 km/h. Now, how that is beneficial in a metro system with stops every kilometre is beyond my comprehension. But it is god’s words and you have to take it as it is.

Today you see the news that the Japanese maglev will be used for the high speed railway system in Kerala. Again, the system this guy is talking about is not operational on a commercial basis. The Japanese do have a test line in Yamanashi and have touched speeds well in excess of 500 km/h, but the way he talks about it is similar to the earlier-mentioned saying attributed to Confucius by the American. Enhances the credibility. He and the media, however, seem to be ignorant of this big world-wide internet webby thing. Interesting days ahead.