I learnt a lesson in our democracy.

I learnt a lesson in our democracy.
In our resurrection of a new Kerala after the deluge, we should give more importance to our real leaders in th village and local bodies who are intimately connected the neighbourhood.
A true story.
Ramcharan is one of the 2.5 million unskilled/semi-skilled workers from east and north east states now in Kerala making it their temporary homes and quite satisfied with their conditions, wages and acceptance in the society. Ramcharan is
from a remote Bihar village, illiterate, but knowledgeable in simple arithmetic, can handle elementary mobile apps well, pucca religious, thrifty and supports his family of wife, mother and three children in his village from what he earns here, now around 20000 a month. He has many dreams on his school going children whom he meets only during his annual vacation trips during Diwali. He has accepted me as a close friend because I can speak his colloquial Hindi well and he knows I am some sort of celebrity. He is aware that in India there are two classes, ruling and ruled and it is a rare experience for him to find a person from the ruling class, he has slotted me there, to be on chummy equal terms with a person from the ruled class. Unheard of !
It was 2014. Parliament election time. I asked him.
Ramcharan, are you not going home for chunav?
Kaun sa chunav, babuji?
Lok sabha chunav? The election to select our Prime Minister?
Pradhan Manthriji? Dilli ke? Usmem hamara kya hai? Voh tho dilli ki Gandhi madam aur Laluji karenge. What have I got to do?
I was stunned. The truth! Almost shot point blank on my great democratic concept! Somehow I got my equilibrium back in a few seconds.
I asked.
So you don’t vote. Ramcharan, it is not correct.
No no. Babuji, no. no. I go and vote. In the panchayath election. Look babuji, my family is there. I am here. They should have proper help and protection. My ward member should be a good man.
This was an eye opener for me. For the vast majority of Indian voters, whom we don’t care much in the high profile blaw-blaw of authoritarian political party set up mostly controlled by the dynastic or religious attractive vote-catching
machinery, the election is a process in which he has practically no role.

Amma, three minutes please

                 
             My grand niece, a techie brilliant girl, a mother of  two, a girl and a boy, working in a sufficiently high position in a global firm in Dubai, but purely malayalee, rang me up. 
              Valiammava, I am resigning my job. 
              Why, what happened? Fed up or quarrelled with my nephew or your office boss? 
              No no, it is your great grand niece, Shilpa, my one and only daughter  and your close friend. By the way,did she talk to you recently? 
              I lied.
              No.
              Shilpa is eleven. Unpredictable and intelligent. She 
often calls me for giving advices and my nephew, her father is certain that we are of the same age. When he mentioned this to Shilpa once (it was two years back) in my presence, she told him. This bookman grand uncle is 80 only and since 0 has no value, he is 8 and hence I am elder to him. 
              Now my grand niece said: 
              Yesterday Shilpa came to me with a sheet of paper, a print-out she had prepared. It was a contract and she asked me to sign. It was a simple one line contract.
              She now read it to me.
              I hereby agree to give nine minutes of my time every day to my daughter, Shilpa, three minutes each, three times a day, first in the morning before I go to school. three minutes when I return in the afternoon and three minutes before sleep. These nine minutes are for my daughter and I will hear her.  I promise that I will  not use even a second of it for giving advice or lecture to her or comparing her with others. 
              See, last night I couldn't sleep. I was really upset. I think she is correct. I, in all my parental wisdom, was seeing her only through my love and not through her eyes. I was engineering her behavior without knowing what she wanted. 
To day morning, I started with the first three minutes and heard her. You know, her eyes lighted with an inner joy when I listened to her. I had never experienced nor even thought that such a beautiful heaven was with me and waiting for me to open the door. 
            I didn't reply or give any advice, but just told her that she can try for a job which allowed her to be at home when her daughter returns from school.  
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I am my own school

I am my own school

                             

            If you go to Ujjain, the almost modern city in the present Madhya Pradesh with perhaps one of the oldest citadel of the best education of India’s legendary past, you can find a kaleidoscopic picture of the evolution of our education system.

           Let us start with puranas. The 5000 years old Sandipani asram, the first of our still visible   educational set-up, a totally teacher controlled  in-house one, with the saint Sandeepani accommodating all Kshatriya princes and talented Brahmin boys, admitted and taught everything from science to statecraft to wrestling to music to philosophy to swimming, with general studies and then specialization in whatever their and position and talents expect them to do when they come out of the school. Make them efficient to perform their duties well in their ore-destined spot in the society was the motto of Sanjeevani Asram School. The Pandavas and Kauravas were students there and Lord Krishna and the pious and poor Brahmin Sudama (Kuchela) got education there. Of course everybody had to help the teacher’s wife to run the house where they all stayed together. She was a mother, strict warden and part time teacher. The boys had long excursions to various parts of central and western India from the hills to the sea. Even now, you can sit on the allegedly same reddish rock stone steps of the tank adjacent to the Ashram where Sri krishna used to sit and tell stories of his fishy episodes in Vrindavan with Radha, his girl friend, almost the same way as the present 12 year olds pass on their first love affair pictures to his Whatsapp friends.

               Then the next stage came. Around 2000 years back, Kalidasa, the eternal literary giant appears. He was an illiterate, but highly talented and personally blessed by Saraswati Devi, the Goddess of words. He had the best of education from the King Vikranaditya’s court where the Navaratnas, the nine gems, the top intellectuals and experts in various fields were available. And storytelling became the conduit of education. In  perhaps the best ever literary work, fiction created in any language, Sakunthalam drama, Kalidasa very beautifully included the political, economic, scientific and social wisdom by subtly changing part of the story of Sakuntala from the original Mahabharata. Even salabhanjikas, the marble statues of palanquins on the 18 steps to the throne and Vethala, a bat type animal-human started telling stories with full of wisdom and practical knowledge. It was the real education. Panchathantra, kathasrithsagaram and Jathaka tales were all stories with wisdom and education passed on through generations almost orally by wandering bards and it was a parallel learning platform for the poor. The education came out of teacher’s iron physical control.  

               The British came and lo, they changed the entire structure. They wanted English knowing clerks and an educational set up was created with stress on study of English language first and foremost. As an unavoidable hazard, British law and history and basics of science and their culture were brought in. Schools, colleges and universities appeared slowly, poor imitators of British institutions. Now, in Ujjain, Sandeepani and Kalidasa are out and Vikram University rules the area. About sixty years back, I was in Ujjain searching for Sandeepani and Kalidasa and found the picturesque green semi-forest area of Vikram University, named after King Vikramaditya. Many mounts and small hills. Three rivulets flowing to Kshipra, the river with perennial water flow and sacred memories, and the lush colourful surroundings. The university was affiliating dozens of colleges of almost all faculties then available, history to physical education (the first ever sports college in India was the Lakshmi Bai College of Physical Education, Gwalior affiliated Vikram university situated about 400 km away), science to architecture and medical to literature. The new Sandeepani was there, the Vice-Chancellor, but he never had any communication with his sishyas and even the language which they used for written communication was foreign. But still relics of the past were occasionally felt in the atmosphere.

            Now six years back, I went to Ujjain. Almost the entire landscape changed. The fresh look was really beautiful, the buildings had the best of Europe mimicked Indian architecture, the air-conditioning in the class rooms were superb and teacher student day time friendship was pretty close and the library based inputs and changing examination styles gave a sophisticated pride to even the visitors like me.    

           Of course, we are not so great and royal as Oxford or Berkeley, but we are not far behind. Our universities may not be in the best 100 in the world but I don’t know, but I am sure some of them will be in the first 10000.

          But I am upset. Independence brought clarity to India’s aspirations. Rapid economic progress with social justice. Literacy was the first priority. So a huge flow of literate children commenced and we were forced to just duplicate the existing system and facilities to accommodate them. The capital input necessary for the facilities, land, building, library, laboratory and what not, the cost was going up. The result was the cost of education spiraled up unimaginably fast making it beyond the dreams of the poor.

        My friend, Dr, A Ramachandran, Vice-chancellor of the Fisheries University, the only one of its kind in India, told me his experience. A Kochi man, his father spent only Rs. 5000 for his education from primary school to doctorate, but he had to shell out Rs.50000 as fee for admission of his child to the pre-primary LKG class, both in Kochi only.  

        But I am optimistic. The waves are slowly taking shape and about to roll. I can visualize. The bard culture, the best educational system ever, beyond written language, but based on sound and pictures and colours, available to everybody, damn cheap when competition and new inventions bringing fresh ideas almost every day from thousands of fertile young brains will be the educational platform. It will revolutionize even the concept of learning in an unimaginable manner and the day is not far off at the present speed. The school, library, laboratory and teacher will be part of you and it will not be even a distant cousin of the distance education, the maximum we can visualize now.

             It will be a world where everyone, even the poorest, gets education connected with their genetic specialties and the world will surely be happier and better than the past generations including ours.

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THE ONE AND ONLY SUKUMAR AZHIKODE

(Sukumar Azhikode,(1926-2012) award-winning writer, scholar and the most influential Gandhian intellectual in Kerala, had been fighting cancer for nearly a year. Hailing from Kannur in north Kerala, he had made Thrissur his home but was cremated at the historic Payyambalam beach in Kannur with full State honours.An intellectual giant, a great humanist, a cultural guru, a committed secularist, a champion of human rights and a sentinel of social values, he gave expression to his ideals through more than 35 books, thousands of articles and countless orations — all laced with grace, dignity and humour. As a literary critic, he upheld the timeless values of the classics. His range was wide, ranging from Indian philosophy, Vedas and Upanishads to the subtly nuanced pure literary criticism. His writings on poetry gravitated towards sociological and cultural criticism)

                  I knew it was my last visit. For around two months, Sukumar Azhikode, the charismatic presence in the dais in all important functions  in almost every village in Kerala for the last 60 years, was bed ridden, his thundering voice becoming weaker every day, the non-stop procession of people from all walks of life coming to see him day and night outwitting the medicines’ limited ability of rejuvenation, the cancer cells gnawing at him hesitating for the final kill. It was really a befitting scenario to the farewell scene of one of the luminaries of Kerala’s cultural scene.

                 We had shared many platforms during the last decades and his canny sense of humour was invigorating in equally in personal talks and before the mike and it was always a pleasure for all to hear him. He was vicious in his attacks on leaders who he felt are erring at the cost of justice and social ethics and the beautifully venomous words he used endeared him to the audience and readers, but in most of the cases put an indelible wound which remained as a scar mark on the victim. Azhikode was a Gandhian to the core, in deeds and personal life, and regarded these comments to the Gandhian dictum of never hate the enemy, but only his wrong acts.

                Sukumar Azhikode had a brilliant mind which Kerala will miss and it is a real loss to our society. He took upon the responsibility of a corrective mechanism, a watchdog syndrome within the system. He never wanted to change it, but was satisfied with creating awareness about the mistakes and he left the process of corrective action to the societal mindset.

                He was the super star in Malayalam oratory and the beauty of Malayalam language was really felt by the listeners when the words flowed with colourful ripples supported with his enchanting body movements.         

               On the material ladder, he was not an achiever. He was never made a vice-chancellor by the politicians, offered only the lowest of the padma awards when comparables got vibhushans and bhushans, his ambitions in literary field to become President of Kendra Sahitya Academy thwarted at last moment and in political field to become Lok Sabha member decisively smashed in political equations and his love affair  never had even an endearing Devdas climax.

               But he was one of the greatest real achievers of our generation. He was throned in the minds of millions of ordinary malayalees, whose causes he always championed fearlessly and vehemently. Funny part is that even diametrically opposite groups, ideological or social wanted him to be with them. But he wanted everybody to be with him.

               In our present money oriented psyche, he was one of the very few leaders who gave more importance to the economic value of justice, happiness and equality rather than the value of material possessions.    

               His last words to me were futuristic.

               It was the second time I was visiting him in the Amala hospital in Thrissur . Both times I told: I will take you to Ernakulam for an inauguration in a few days after your discharge from here. The first time he smilingly agreed. The second time I had gone with GPC Nair, one of Kerala’s top technocrats in management educational field in his newly acquired Rolls Royce car. I told Azhicode about the car and said that we were going to take him next in the Rolls Royce. He smiled and when we were leaving he called me and whispered in my ear.

               Don’t hurry.

               He and I knew that the golden Rolls Royce from the heaven was waiting for him for many days and nobody can say no to the Gods.                                               

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Eco tourism- Historically speaking

Eco- tourism is the ga-ga word in Kerala now. It tops the oft-repeated comb words in the vocabulary of young and old Kerala intellectuals of 21st century looking around for a bit of revolution and finding no scope in the political or ideological arena enter the fresh green environment of nature preservation and connected ecological kaleidoscope. It is a self-satisfying phenomenon for the activists and quite an easier way for achieving wide publicity which in the present competitive world, it is difficult to attain without extremely high ability and dedication.
I have a doubt, a genuine one for which I think I will not get a direct answer. Still I feel we should ponder over it. What is meant by eco- tourism? Is it the tourism connected with ecology or with economics. May be both. Just as in the cases of other pious organized activities in the fields of education, medical services and religion, the strong undercurrents of economics overpower everything else. Worldwide, tourism generates annual revenues of nearly 3 trillion dollars and contributes nearly 11% of the global GNP (Gross National Product), making it the world's largest industry.
But the die-hards will not agree. So let us see it in the historical perspective.
Let us just try to find out from our past. And where should we start except from our God’s own country, Kerala? Who was the first tourist to Kerala? No doubt. Lord Mahavishnu’s fifth incarnation, the first in real human form, Vamana himself. Vamana was so enticed by hills and rivers, the greenery and soft winds of this land that after completing his mission of removing Mahabali from the throne and packing him off to the nether world, he didn’t wait much. He came as Parasurama in his next incarnation, first as a tourist, but found the land so fertile and the people so friendly that he decided to colonize the land with his followers from the arid poor hilly tracts of Deccan plateau. But he had problems. Fortyfour perennial rivers and hundreds of streams, thick woods and deep lagoons and no roads or pathways. And worse still the land was infested with snakes, hundreds of varieties, most of them poisonous. Parasurama threw his axe wildly, cut down trees, reclaimed marshy lands, elevated the snakes to the deity ’ s level with special sarpakavu in every household and declared that the entire land belonged to the temples. The Keralites were given in return the blessings of God, the weather forecasts for cultivation and celebration of innumerable festivals to forget their downtrodden existence. In Kerala, every household had their serpent shrines where they grew all types of medicinal plants and herbs. Most of the illness in the household were cured by the herbs from their own backyard. The vegetables and even foodcrops were cultivated in the compound around the dwellings. A unique eco-friendly society grew up. But it was ecology and economics combined which motivated Parasurama. You may laugh at this stating that it is only a legend. OK. Let us leave it and come to the recorded history.
The first real tourists to Kerala were the Jews. In 587 BC, when Nebudchasnasar freed the Jews from the Babylonian prisons, a large batch among them fled the country and came to Kerala shores traveling in the merchant vessels plying from Egyptian shores to eastern ports. In 370 BC, Titus Vespasian destroyed the sacred temple of Jerusalem and many were taken as prisoners and sent to Mayokra. A large batch of their descendants came and settled in Kerala.
In 52 AD, St. Thomas, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ came to Kerala and was received at the port by the leader of the Jewish community Habban. St. Thomas had come to save the souls of these fallen Jewish communities. He converted many of these Jews and also many local influential families to Christianity. He established seven places of worship, called Palli, the name for the Buddhist temples in the local language.
Marco Polo in the 13 th century had recorded. The great province of Malabar is the best of all the Indus (the name India was derived from Indus, the great river now in Pakistan) and it is on the main land. There is in this kingdom a great quality of pepper and ginger and cinnamon and nuts. The travelers came to Kerala enamored by the aroma of the black pearl. The Chinese, the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Arabs, the Jews. The Chinese concentrated at the port Kollam, 60 miles south of Kochi, and the Phoenicians at Musaris, 20 miles north of Kochi. The Arabs were the traders and middlemen. The major commercial land route, the caravans originating from the Gangetic planes in north passed through the eastern mountains and plateau and ended in Kerala ports after traversing 2000 miles.
It was all sheer commerce. But unfortunately the locals had very little voice in the matter. The local rulers received meager tax revenue. The tradition is still religiously followed. Only one more mode of transport is added. By air. Now Kerala boasts of three airports, all of international specifications with direct flights to east and west. Few more would come in a decade.
Keralam was perhaps the flag bearer in the eco-tourism idea from time immemorial. Here tourism was always eco-friendly and economically attractive.
So let us shout: Eco-tourism is ours to stay.

Who is the God, in God’s Own Country?

Who is the God in God’s Own Country?
It is a fair question. The Marxists, who are not permitted to believe in God rules Kerala and shamelessly proclaim that Kerala is God’s own country. I was sure, something is wrong somewhere. Then I saw and heard the climax of the Marxist party’s well organized state conference at Kottayam two years back. The groupism in the party as promised was ended and only the burning pyre was to be lit. Then what happened, we all saw it live in TV.
Rain and Dance. The burning pyre doused. Leaders running hither and thither. An unrehearsed fiasco. Strong reprimands and don’t care attitude of the booze. The God had intervened. Sure.
But who was this God? The omnipresent one who attends and caresses even the non-believers’ party conference. The God is everywhere, in the pillars and the walls, Prahlada’s words were confirmed by Lord Vishnu himself by his incarnation as Narasimha, the lion man.
In Kerala I am sure there is a God, and he is now with the Marxists. It is historical. Lord Vishnu’s two incarnations, Vamana and Parasurama are directly connected with Kerala. And God Almighty sent St. Thomas to Kerala coast centuries before the pagan Europe heard about Jesus Christ. So Kerala is God’s dear land. No doubt. He changes form, we know, depending on the circumstances and need.
Bhagavad Gita clearly says.
Abhyudhanam Adharmasya…
Whenever there is wrongdoings, I would take new forms and will be there is. Lord Krishna had told Arjuna.
Now which form he has taken in Kerala?
From the 1940s nobody who was not a communist was accepted as a normal human being in Kerala. Everybody was a communist or at least a socialist. Even the most ardent capitalist in Kerala was socialist, if not communist. The communist capitalists organized trade unions and led agitations. All the political groups, even the blatant caste based and religion based political parties also swore by socialism. The Legislature, Executive, and Judiciary all three pillars of democracy here wore socialistic gowns. The Fourth estate not only swore, but also led the other three in vocalizing it.
The real new God was Communism. But nobody got upset about it. Kerala Communism was a very special variety, homemade, a heady spicy mix of Chinese Marxism, Russian mafia, Cuban dreams, orthodox Hinduism, Lord Ayyappa and a shot of democracy for taste.
Kerala, the God’s own country was always ready to replace God with Marx, Satan with bourgeoisie, heaven with classless society and the temple with party. The replacement saga is not over. It still retains the fancy of the public. Kerala people are searching for an idol and experimented with Vivekananda, the world renowned Hindu philosopher, Sree Narayana Guru, Kerala’s spiritual and social revolutionary, and EMS, the outstanding politician Kerala had produced in the post independent era who had almost outwitted spices and changed the color of Kerala map on the world atlas from the lush green to blood red. Kerala started boasting itself by democratically electing world’s first ever-communist rulers. Even hardened communists of Russia and China couldn’t believe it. Really they looked with suspicion at Kerala people and rarely their leaders who used to have very friendly relationships with the Central Government in Delhi included Kerala even in their sight seeing tours.
Even the opponent political parties in Kerala had to swear by socialism to survive and rule the state in alternate five year terms.
So really in which form the God appeared in the Marxist Party’s state conference and made His presence known?
Now I knew. God always deal with the top and it is easy for him. Who knows, He also may be a capitalist in his thinking, otherwise, why should there be such poverty and misery in the world, I was wondering. The God talked to Karatji, the general secretary, I am sure. And malayali Comrade Karat spelt it out in oxfordian English quoting EMS, the all knowing doyen.
It was just before the ceremony of lighting the fire at the funeral pyre of factionalism in the party.
He said.
Our God is now our Parliamentary Aspirations.
Long live the God.
In God’s own country, how can He appear in another form!

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