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!”
 

Back in GOC!

It’s been almost a month since I landed back in GOC capital, and I don’t even know where to start ranting.

First up is the garbage issue. We’ll soon be celebrating the 2^nd anniversary of our hard-fought “freedom to throw garbage anywhere” rights. I am sure our Mayor-ess Moonlight will come up with some novel ideas for celebrating this in style, given her stellar (lunar?) track record.  And hopefully, the state government would chip in with its own stuff, given its deep, anal-expulsive love for the city. Can’t wait for the s#&t to hit the fan. Oh, wait! It has already hit the fan.

Today, Mr. O “Quicksilver” Chandy opened an office for building monorails in Trivandrum and Calicut, which some people say could be run using solar power. Anyway, this man is awesome. One day he is in some Middle Eastern country receiving some major award specially created for him, the next day he is in some other Middle Eastern country with some major “businessmen”.  And then he is in Delhi meeting with the High Command before going back to his ancestral land for some good, clean adulation involving elephants and stuff, and before you could say Jack Robinson or Jose Thettayil, he parachutes into Kawdiar to open an office. You are almost tempted to think that he is somehow deriving all his energy from the “Sun”.  Meanwhile, his office staff members were also making hay while the “Sun” shines. Good for them!

I’m pretty much certain that he parachuted in because there is no road connectivity between Trivandrum and the most important city near it – Kollam. This, unlike what you think, is part of a grand scheme of building waterways connecting major urban centers. In the 1^st phase they have converted a 2-km stretch of the highway, from the IT-hub Kazhakootam to Kaniyapuram, into a waterway. The only problem was, as usual, the authorities didn’t notify the people. Nor did they offer any ferry service. So, people like me, who would have otherwise hired a boat, had to drive on the narrow, muddy banks of this canal jostling for space with other vehicles of the non-seaplane variety. It took me two hours. Next time I’m taking my inflatable dinghy.   

By the way, how did the Brits come up with the Quilon spelling?

1^st Brit: Hey, where are you stationed?

2^nd Brit: Kollam

(Mind you, this is all happening in Morse Code – K is Dah-di-dah; Q is Dah-dah-di-dah. Maybe one guy just wanted to say Po-Dah)

1^st Brit: How do you spell it?

2^nd Brit: QUILON. And you?

1^st Brit: I’m in Koilandi, spelt QUILANDY

1^st and 2^nd Brit: Ha, ha, ha. Aren’t we brilliant?

 

Land of the Free, Home of the Brave

Well, time for a little blog resuscitation, methinks. Not because of the overwhelming demand (two at last count) from readers, but given the fact that I am now in the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” I felt I could utilize my freedom of expression as guaranteed by this nation’s constitution. Here I am, sitting in Florida, enjoying the gorgeous weather, glorious sunshine, wide roads, wider cars, even some wider people, humongous stores filled with extra-large products, all measured using a different system – Fahrenheit, pounds, ounces, feet, miles.

It suddenly dawned on me that the age-old philosophical question of “How many kilometres from Washington DC to Miami beach?” doesn’t make sense at all. “Dhavan-saare, athu kilometre alla, mile aanu, mile!” And Jagathy could have said, “In the house of my wife and daughter, mai#u ennokke vrithikedu parayunno, stupid.”
 

Though I’m in Florida, I’m nowhere near Miami. I am some 250 miles northwest on the western coast of the peninsula, in Bradenton. The warm weather is a welcome break, considering that till a few days ago I was in snowy, north-eastern Hokkaido which was having an extended winter, as temperatures barely went above 5 degrees, i.e. as in degrees Celsius. America has always evoked mixed feelings in me. It is a beautiful country; at least all the places I have been so far in my visits over the past 16 years. People are mostly polite, whether at stores, while driving or walking, wishing you, thanking you, complimenting you, etc. Of course, there are exceptions too.
 

Still, I feel there is an underlying tension somewhere. It could be the gun violence stories that you hear which makes you feel impotent. What would you do if some guy pulls a gun? An advice I got before coming down to Sarasota was to stay to the west of Tamiami Trail and I would be OK. Yesterday, I went to the east of Tamiami Trail to a mall (quite deserted, but nothing scary as such) and came back in one piece. Yesterday, there was a shooting incident in a mall in nearby Tampa, and you wonder. Today we walked around a bit in the nice neighbourhood we are staying for the week, and it was as easy as walking from Vanchiyoor to Jannal Ashoothri in Trivandrum. Perhaps it is all in the mind. You have heard people telling that you could get killed if you take the wrong turn and end up at some crazy place here, and coming from Japan (and even India) where such things don’t happen, makes you a bit nervous, especially since you’re not familiar with the territory.
 

Today, we also went to Siesta Key beach, supposedly voted the No.1 beach in the US, and it was quite impressive too. The sheer expanse of pure white sand (made up of quartz from the Appalachians, as per the signboard on the beach) was a sight to behold, and the shallow water meant the kids could be left alone without much worries.
 

In another two weeks, I’ll be back in GOC, the real land of the free, where people are free to poop and throw garbage anywhere they please, and the real home of the brave, where even a mundane act such as crossing the road is an act of bravery.
 

And, hopefully, I would have recovered some of the mojo to keep this blog alive.
 

Three Wise Monkeys + 1

There is a myth that has been going around for about 6½ decades in our country, which we tend to present to foreigners to earn brownie points as well as to deceive ourselves.  I do it all the time. This self-deception can be explained in terms of cognitive dissonance, which is used to describe the feeling of discomfort stemming from holding conflicting beliefs and trying to adjust those beliefs to reality.  

India is a secular, democratic country with freedom of thought, expression, blah, blah. This is the myth which has been drummed into us by our textbooks and our government over the years. The sentence has a few extra words. Let’s try to take those out. India is a secular, free, democratic country with freedom of thought, expression, blah, blah. Now that is more like it. India is a country, blah, blah. This is a fact and I hope no group would be offended by it.

Still, we have to be careful. So I’ll take the blah, blahs out too. India is a country, blah, blah. I’m happy with that, and hopefully nobody will like me on his/her buttbook bedspread, or friend me or tweet or chirp me or crap on me. I don’t want to see horrible things like what happened to those two girls or the cartoonist in Mumbai, the guys in Calcutta, the professor in Muvattupuzha, etc., happening to me. 

Cognitive dissonance – You have freedom of speech, but you can’t criticize anything and in some cases not even comment on it as an impartial outsider. If you do, you get #$%@ed. This is especially true in the case of religious and caste-based groups, groups with narrow parochial interests, politicians and officials. Surprisingly, or should I say unsurprisingly, the left is also intolerant of criticisms as author Paul Zacharia found out in Kerala. I initially thought he was being irresponsible by not filing a case against those thugs, but later on I could understand why he did that. The threat of physical violence is always there and your fame may not be enough to protect you.

So, I think it will be wise to act kinda like the three wise monkeys – see nothing, hear nothing, and speak nothing. I added a fourth monkey. Smell nothing. You can’t forget that. The stink!

G'bye.

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.  

 

You’ve Come a Long way, Baby

The early 80s was the time when chicken corners became popular in Trivandrum. The boom was pioneered by Taj Chicken Corner and Tushara Chicken Corner in Palayam. The format was amazingly simple. You go in; they serve you a plate of fried chicken (4 decent-sized pieces), a small bowl of curry with neck and stuff, some sliced onions, a pickle and unlimited number of wafer-thin chapattis. The chicken was delicious and spicy, unlike the stuff-dipped-in-batter peddled by multi-national chains, and was priced at Rs. 17 or 18 then, I think.

The first time I went there was with a cousin and a friend (all 10^th std. students from St. Joseph’s HS), and none of us were aware of the abovementioned format. Once we sat down, we were given an idea of the system by the waiter, who then promptly served us the chicken pieces, etc. and we had a real go at the chapattis. The bill came and that was when we realized we were short of money. You see, we had this single Rs. 50/- note, which was good enough in those days for three people to eat chicken in most places, but fell slightly short at the chicken corner (reason why I think the price was 17 or 18).

We thought for some time, and then my friend had an idea. We knew the guy who was running a place called Chin Lung, the sole Chinese restaurant in Trivandrum at that time, down the road. My friend went there while we both waited, convinced the guy to lend him Rs. 10, and we all got away without washing dishes.

Chin Lung used to serve regular Indian Chinese fare – chop suey, fried rice, sweet corn chicken soup, etc. There used to be a Chin Lung in Brigade Road in Bangalore too (maybe it is still there), though apparently there was no connection between the two. Anyway, Chin Lung disappeared somewhere down the line and the city lost its only exclusive Chinese restaurant.

All these came back to me because of Taj and Chinese food. The Taj here is not the Taj Chicken Corner but the Vivanta by Taj Hotel at Thycaud, where they opened a new Chinese restaurant called "Chinapolis" recently.  In the years since that Taj Chicken Corner-Chin Lung episode, I had the opportunity to get acquainted with authentic Chinese food and came to really enjoy it. So, when I heard of the new place, I immediately went there, despite being a bit apprehensive due to an earlier not-so-enjoyable experience at the Taj’s regular restaurant buffet.

We, my wife and I, were the only guests in the cavernous dining hall (another guest came in later, thus making it three). Chinese tea was served along with some pickled vegetables and for some reason, Korean kimchi. The menu had a decent look to it, though chicken dishes stood out. We ordered a dim sum, Shanghai pork ribs, mapo tofu (doufu) and a flat noodle dish. The dim sum was excellent, with big prawns in them. The only issue I had was with the pudina chutney they brought along with it. If an Indian person wants to try out Chinese food, let him/her eat it the way it should be had. Why do you have to offer pudina chutney? Next thing you know, the dim sum will have dal and coconut in it and guys will be eating it with sambar. I hope they don’t go down that slippery slope.

The ribs were succulent and I really yearned for a cold beer, but I didn’t go down that slippery slope as I had to drive home. Then the mapo tofu came. Looked pretty much the real deal, but upon tasting I realized something was missing. This is a very spicy dish but what they served was quite mild. I could, however, taste some Chinese pepper in there. So, I called the waiter and asked for some ground Chinese pepper. He didn’t have a clue, went in and came back and said they didn’t have it. Maybe they’re using some packaged sauce instead of freshly preparing the stuff, I thought. Anyway, it was reasonably good and we enjoyed it. The noodle dish could have been better.

A few guys came by while we were eating, asking about the food and the service, and we truthfully told them we were enjoying the lunch. Towards the end, a Chinese chef poked his head out a couple of times, looking at us gingerly, not sure whether to approach us or not. Eventually he came and as it turned out, he was the actual cook and that explained the authenticity. He talked in heavily-accented English and we told him everything was good, but the mapo tofu ought to have been spicier. He became animated and explained why he didn’t add too much “Szechwan” pepper (which I had earlier requested the waiter using the term Chinese pepper). This pepper gives a numbing feeling and apparently many guests didn’t like it. So, he just added a bit for the sake of keeping it real. He told me that the next time I should just sent the word in asking for more Szechwan pepper and he will make the real thing. And, that is what I will be doing; perhaps even ask him to conjure up a dan dan mian (not in the menu), if possible.

I wrote all this just to highlight how far Trivandrum has changed in the last 10 years or so. There is a place in Trivandrum now (other than my house) where you can eat mapo tofu! Unthinkable a few years ago. The city is slowly beginning to get a cosmopolitan feel to it, not least fuelled by the presence of the well-travelled techie crowd from the Technopark who have high disposable incomes. Besides this Chinese place, there are many multi-cuisine and other restaurants spread around the city. Café Mojo at Kuravankonam (good) and Curry Chatty near Mettukada (good food, poor service) for multi-cuisine fare, Casa Bianca at M.P. Appan Road for Italian (good, when the foreign owner is there), and Cherries and Berries opposite Cotton Hill School (waffles) come to mind. There is a Hyderabadi place near Technopark (Dakhani Degh) and various places selling North Indian food besides the much-hyped international chains selling their banal stuff.

There is a place called “Spring” in Nanthancode where you can buy almost any vegetable. They even have asparagus (very skinny ones for my liking), artichoke, daikon radish, lotus roots, pakchoy and small cucumbers in addition to fruits from around the world including persimmons. They also have packaged tofu, Canadian maple syrup, ajwa dates and other such exotic, expensive items. At the deli in Taj, you can buy baguettes, croissants and quiche. Supreme bakers sell reasonably good marshmallows. And, the other day I even saw Lee Kum Kee sauces at the Nilgiri’s store.

The social and cultural fronts have also become quite enriched. We have a couple of literary festivals – the Kovalam litfest and the Hay Festival - and a major international film festival, in addition to smaller cultural feasts organized by the foreign cultural centres of France, Germany and Russia.

Many local people are slowly waking up to these changes. Some time ago I happened to talk to the owner of one of the biggest gold jewellery shops in Trivandrum. The person asked me what I did for a living and I told him I used to be a techie, blah, blah and the conversation naturally veered to the topic of Technopark. He was under the impression that all IT-related development was happening in Cochin, and that there were only a few thousand people working at the Technopark here. I told him that as far as I have heard from friends, there are at least 30 to 35,000 people working there and he appeared dumbstruck.  Mind you, he is one of the top businessmen in Trivandrum and one of the richest. So, there is a certain level of ignorance among the populace of the changes happening around them. I feel we are at the threshold of a great leap akin to what Bangalore witnessed at the beginning of the IT boom in the late 80s, early 90s. Whether we succeed in avoiding the infrastructural and other pitfalls of Bangalore will be the key to our city’s proper development. Let’s hope we make it.

You’ve come a long way, baby…

 P.S. While singing the paeans of my lovely city, I can’t quite ignore the humongous elephant in the room. That is the garbage issue. This is a grievance common to most cities in India, but we were not one of them. There was a time when Trivandrum was the cleanest city in the country. There was time when we had proper garbage collection. There was a time when corporation guys used to go around spraying stuff to kill mosquitoes. There was a time when people swept the street in front of their house and carried their own shopping bags etc., etc. Let’s hope our retarded corporation rulers and the let’s-carve-up-the-real-estate State government find a solution to this issue pretty quickly. It’s been frikkin 10 months since they collected garbage and I have 6 sacks of plastic waste behind my house.

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?