Wednesday 16 November 2011

The True Kerala

Kerala tourism. God's own country. Blah Blah.


It was ironical.


Ironical because the real Kerala which never featured in these advertisements or social studies textbooks is no heaven. Nor is the literacy rate students are compelled to memorise in school as the highest in the country really reflecting the prevalent ignorance. 


What good is education if what you are left it is rampant discrimination? It is true that the female population here is educated but look beyond the statistics! Passing twelfth grade is no longer called 'an education'. And for all the prevalent English discourse; why are the people there so alarmingly backward?


I mean to offend no one by this view. I rather merely request that we try to do something to stop this chaos in our country. Is this the place we want to bring tourists too? Perhaps to confirm their notion of savages in the greenery though that is taking the point too far. 


A friend of mine who's maternal home is there quite aptly summed it by saying to me with a shake of her head, that what Kerala was full of was politics. Yes, there was greenery and beauty but then there was the power cut. Everyday people sleep at around 7 or 8 pm and the disappearing act of the electricity is the norm.


Girls are supposed to cover themselves top to toe. Cover your bosom with a duppatta safely safety pinned in three different places. Clothes should be loose fitting and hair combed back in plaits and steeped in oil. Even after you do this you are not safe from the dogs of the road. Or rather the men and boys who oogle at you as if you were out especially in order that you hear that pointless remarks. And on no occasion will the lady be tolerated to step out after 7pm. That is the curfew time for the fair sex.


Besides all this, all that thick shrubbery does aid the common thief. The darkness which the electricity board's laxness causes adds to the charm of an early evening robbery. Afterall, most people there are fast asleep by 8pm.


If this is God's heaven then I'm not too sure that hell is repulsive.  

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