Earlier this month, I spent a few days in the town I grew up in, Trivandrum. They spell it “Thiruvananthapuram” nowadays though. I have been to Trivandrum on and off, courtesy my family (and my wife’s family) who still live there, but I’ve spent very little time – it is usually fly in, eat/drink/sleep, fly out. This time, though, by a pleasant turn of events I spent more time there than usual, and had the opportunity to take long solitary walks around the town.
Despite the evident construction and depletion of greenery, the town pretty much retains its provincial character, a substantial portion of it defined by Malludom – or the state of being a Malayalee. I am not much of a culture vulture, so I will stick to the generalizations about the Mallu society, with due apologies to my fellow Mallus. Read on:
***
Mallus don’t like queuing up. I think it has to do a lot with the male ego. But at around dusk, you would see the Alpha Mallu Male queuing up with great restraint outside the authorized outlets of the Kerala State Beverages Corporation, the world’s most profitable government-owned enterprise, next only to Temasek of Singapore. OK, I don’t have data to support this, but what the heck: they sure make a hell lot of money!
***
The one really good thing I like about Kerala – Bananas! I can reel out half a dozen varieties that you will find in any murukan-kada (that’s paan shop in English): Robusta – the green one you get all over the country, Palayangudan – small, yellow banana, sour and slimy in texture, Rasakadali – small, yellow banana, sweet, firmer than Palayangudan, Poovan – largish banana, fat and stubby, not too sweet, but powdery in texture, Kapapazham – the big, fat, red banana, with a distinct taste (missing in this Pic), the Nendran or Yethakka – the largest of them all, firm in texture and used for chips and banana toast. There obviously are several more varieties – I am missing the vegetable banana used as a vegetable and cooked, and I am sure I haven’t got them all in here. The North Indian misses all these varieties and for him, the banana is just yellow with a uniform taste. In Bombay, one can get the red banana in some south Indian stores, in Matunga and sometimes (not always) at Hyper City in Malad.
***
A distinct feature of Kerala that is disappearing fast is its unique architecture, dominated by adobe constructions with the distinct tiled roof supported by coconut-wood beams and pillars. You don’t see this in other parts of the country anymore, and Kerala seems the last bastion of traditional architecture. It is fast being replaced by modern construction – featureless, artless, characterless, but cost-effective and maintenance-free. One can easily see why it makes more sense to migrate to concrete structures, but yeah, there is something called heritage. Hope these houses and buildings don’t disappear.
***
The Mallu likes his holiday. There will be no business on Sundays. Zilch. In other economies, businessmen hope to see higher volumes on holidays, because your consumers have more time, but not here. The shops will remain closed. The odd shop that is open will do minimal business. The Mallu likes to exercise his right to take a holiday, business be damned! No wonder bandhs and hartals are so successful in this state.
***
But not all things are peaceful and bucolic. I was surprised when I got stuck in a road block for a noisy procession of Ganpati for visarjan. The visarjan is essentially a Mumbai festival. Most other Hindus celebrate Vinayak or Ganesh Chaturti, the first day of the festival, and not the visarjan, which to me is an illogical dumping of a well-dressed idol in water. The visarjan in Trivandrum is mostly sponsored by Shiv Sena. No surprises there, as currently the object of the Shiv Sena and MNS’s ire in Mumbai is the North Indian. It was the Mallu not so long ago..
***
Comments?
PS: No Mallus were hurt in the making of this blog post. So far.
Leave a Reply