When Loknath Sharma becomes our Brand Ambassador

Grand Kerala Shopping Festival is going grand. Selling this festival is one Loknath Sharma and one Major Mahadevan. Do not scratch your heads if the names are not very familiar -- they are characters from a Malayalam film titled Kandahar.

Nothing new about this. Having sponsors, models or "brand ambassadors" selling products and services is common practice. But what makes this one interesting is the fact that it has cleverly undone a policy decision taken by the Kerala government a few months back.

[Old news in brief: The government of Kerala decides to make Amitabh Bachchan the brand ambassador for Kerala tourism; This move faced opposition from within and outside the party as Amitabh was the brand Ambassador for Gujarat;  (Mid-Day: CPI-M against making Big B as Kerala tourism brand ambassador, Statesman‍: Stiff opposition to Amitabh Bachchan as Kerala tourism ambassador) Succumbiong to these pressures the government backtracks on the decision.]

We also got to hear that Big B was not very happy with the whole episode. (Not made Tourism ambassador, Bachchan slams Kerala : Indian Express‌, 2010 March 25).

That was about nine months back. Now we see the same Amitabh Bachchan disguised as Loknath Sharma and selling another business initiative of the same government. All major newspapers carry colour advertisements on their front page every day, featuring images of Mohanlal and Amitabh Bachchan. Huge hoardings in all big cities of Kerala. The bigger ones have the Government of Kerala symbol of two elephants prominently on them. To make sure we don't mistake the face to be that of  Amitabh Bachchan, there is a small script below (smaller than the "Cigarette smoking is injurious to health" in the old cigarette ads) that says: "Major Mahadevan, Kandahar" and "Loknath Sharma, Kandahar". Intelligent.

Those who opposed the earlier move to make Amitabh our brand image appears to have been done in by this trick.


[Images: (i) Ad on the front page of The Hindu, December 25; (ii) A hoarding in Kozhikode city]

[A Malayalam version of this note was carried in Countermedia. The images were removed for some technical reasons.]

Anu on Chitralekha

".. I have no wish to debate the details of the case or repeat the rapidly spinning tales around Chitralekha. As I find it deeply offensive and denigrating to all my intersecting identities with Chitralekha - dalit, working woman, wife and mother.

Instead, I would like to use parallel anecdotes from the lives of Ruby Bridges, Savitribai Phule, Barbara McClintock and Chitralehka to frame these questions: How are pioneers perceived? And whom does a pioneer facilitate?"

Anu writes : Chitralekha a perceptual divide. [on Insight round table]

Sitting Ducks : A Beemapalli reflection

In a guest post, Bobby Kunhu tries to put down his mixed feelings on his visit to Beemapalli (near Thriruvananthapuram, Kerala) after the police firing that happened on May 17.



It is with the utmost hesitation that I write this. Hesitation because I think I have not understood, nor have many others who have written about the May police firing in Beemapalli. Not that there is any ambiguity in anybody's (who has visited the place) mind about the specific incidents that took place on 17th of May this year. As a part of a small fact finding team trying to tie up its report, I'd rather use this space to raise contextual questions about the police firing that have been haunting me since I heard the first reports of the firing.

At the outset, I need to assert as a human rights lawyer (and independent of the socio-economic realities of Beemapalli) that what happened on May 17th in Beemapalli is one of the worst possible crimes - where lives of 6 people were taken by forces of the state, without following the procedure established by law - in other words extra-judicial murders - and calling it by any other name is as offensive as the incident itself. In my mind, the incident involves the police allegedly firing 50 rounds of bullets at a gathering in a coastal village. The facts are that 43 people were injured and 6 died in the police firing. The fact is that all the people who died and were injured were Muslims. The fact is that there is no credible evidence shown that the crowd fired at was violent or provocative. The fact is that there is no damage reported from the police side. The fact is that the police bypassed the usual procedures that need to be adopted before a firing. Having made that assertion, let me move on to the first set of concerns that have been haunting me.



Silent Media, Silent Opposition

The first of these is the general social and political reactions to Beemapalli firing. In fact one of the factors that led me to take the initiative in organising a fact-finding was the deafening silence that followed the violence in Beemapalli. It looked like that only "Muslim" organisations were interested in taking up the issue. Even the political opposition did not seem like wanting to capitalise this serious lapse in governance. When I tried prying into the possible reason, a newspaper report lauding the media for acting sensibly by maintaining silence and thereby averting a communal issue was literally thrown at my face. (The report was titled, Signs of a Mature Media, Opposition).

But was this violence communal to start with? The victims of the violence did not seem to think so - despite all of them belonging to one single community!!

Interestingly apart from the high profile Lavalin case, the national and Kerala media was filled with stories of racist violence in Australia around this time. Then how did such gruesome violence fail to capture collective social imaginations? The only plausible answer that comes to my mind is the identity of those killed and injured in Beemapally - they were all from fish worker Muslim community - and do not have messiahs touting their cause.

There are other reasons as well for my arrival at this hypothesis. The first being that in the past couple of decades state violence in all its manifestations is being directed against traditionally and structurally marginalised groups. Formal expressions were demonstrated in Muthanga, Chengara and now Beemapalli. Insidious and subtle expressions through changes in reservation structure, discourse on terror used to de-legitimise communitarian political expressions and so on.

Dangerous Activities

Interestingly Beemapalli, being a Muslim ghetto has figured many a time in police narratives on terror. It would take another full essay to analyse this. It is in this context that couple of weeks after the firing, an intelligence report dated before the firing was leaked to the press. This report warns the state police of dangerous and illegal activity in Beemapalli and Malappuram. Much to my amusement, what the newspapers omitted was that this "dangerous" activity is the trade in pirated CD/DVDs that Bheemapally is notorious for. Interestingly, this has been subsequently used to close down this trade and increase police presence in Beemapalli. One of the speculations that was aired as a reason for the extreme violence from the police firing was to gain a foothold into this lucrative terrain.

Claims on Coastal Resources

The next reason is rooted in the socio-economic conditions prevailing in coastal areas generally and Beemapally specifically. The Indian coast has been a simmering pot of discontent for sometime now - aggravated especially after the tsunami. This discontent is rooted in multiple contestations for coastal resources and fish-worker resistance articulated through their right to the coast as a common property resource. I have been witness to a number of concerted efforts to divide the coastal community during the tsunami rehabilitation process. Some of these experiences have been documented as well. These contestations are grounded in the fact of the vulnerability of the coastal communities and Dalit and Muslim communities amongst these are even more vulnerable. Beemapally violence needs to be seen in this context as well. Portrayal of the police violence in Beemapally as communal riots instigated by a Beemapally mob by the police and a section of society including segments of the Catholic church subtly fails to acknowledge that the neighbouring hamlet Cheriyathura is inhabited by Latin Catholics. This reading is inherently dangerous as it pits two similarly placed vulnerable communities against each other.

Two Beemapallis and a Free Run

Further, Magalene, a fish worker leader confirms my suspicion that social indicators in Beemapalli are much worse compared to neighbouring fishing hamlets. She points to the fact that there are two Beemapallys in existence - one glossy Beemapally made of the DVD/CD trade and the other fish-worker hamlet which lacks even basic hygiene and sanitary requirements. She also points to the abysmal female literacy and empowerment in this hamlet in support of her claim. This also perhaps points to a hegemonic social apathy towards people that are forced to live on the fringes - a certain lack of value for their lives. This also could have contributed to the unchallenged free run that the Police is having with their version of the violence and attempts to portray their violence as a communal clash.

My next set of concerns is regarding the impunity with which the Police framed a community as communally volatile and in all probabilities is getting away with it. In his report to the government, DGP Jacob Punnose claims that the police fired 50 rounds and there are 43 injured and 6 dead - indicating that police fired to hit. This also dispels claims that several rounds were fired in the air. Of course there are other unsubstantiated claims in DGP Punnose's report. But what gets my nerve is the shoddy framing that the police has indulged in, without having done any homework whatsoever - is this born out of a confidence that the Police force would get away with murder since the people killed are fishing Muslims? The confidence of the police seems to be bolstered by the collective silences and framing of Bheemapalli as a dangerous area mentioned above. It needs to be remembered that DGP Punnose is spearheading the demand for Police reforms and reducing political control over the police. In the process many vital questions remain unanswered, including questions that would legally place the violence as cold-blooded murder within criminal jurisprudence.

The silence on Beemapalli violence opens many cans of worms - including the deeply hegemonic nature of Kerala's responses to its marginalised, latent communalism within the administration and media and so on and so forth. The responses to Beemapalli has left me perplexed, especially after having visited the place. But, having spend considerable time and energy on conflict situations, my sense is that Kerala might be sitting on a social time bomb, if it continues this lackadaisical attitude towards its marginalised population.

I believe Beemapalli calls for a classical "secular" response and honest peace building exercises that would instill a sense of confidence in Beemapally residents that they are not being persecuted - but that might be a difficult job and would call for extreme commitment.

* * *

Sudeep adds: This diary earlier carried a first response to the firing news, various responses to that, and a couple of news reports. Here.

[Image courtesy: Pop Art Machine]

CPM, CBI, CIA and other demons

An interesting post at the fishpond.

Biggest Police firing ever in Kerala..

..and nobody is talking about it.

My friend called me yesterday and told me about what can be called the biggest ever Police firing that happened in Kerala a few days back. It killed five people, and injured about 40 others. He was surprised that I did not even know about it.

I have Mathrubhumi at home, my father is active in Kerala's political scene, I have journalist friends.. Nobody told me about it.

May be nobody wants to talk about a "communal" incident.

I did some googling and found some details. From interesting sources.

"Islamic Terrorism" website says,

"Muslims, Christians clash in Thiruvananthapuram Kerala, 5 killed, 38 injured".

Sounds cheeky. But only when one gets to the fine print, it does tell so much:

"Securitymen in different uniforms stood guard in front of shops which remained closed for the second day after the police firing to avert communal clashes claimed five lives."

OK - so it is not the Islamic terrorists who killed five people. It was the Police. The article goes on:

"It all began on Saturday when a goon from Cheiryathura, a Christian belt, tried to extort money from merchants at Bheemappally, a Muslim-dominated region. After being manhandled by the locals, the goon, Shibu, rushed to Cheriyathura only to return with a company of his men to retaliate. The gang from Cheriyathura set ablaze a fishing net at Bheemappally.

Though the police intervened on Saturday night itself, they lowered their guard assuming normalcy had returned. On Sunday afternoon, a group of youth from Bheemappally stormed into Cheriyathura, hurling bombs at the people of the rival side. The police opened fire, killing four people on the spot, as the mob moved towards a local church. Another person succumbed to injuries on Monday. Nearly 38 men have been injured in the incident.."

New Kerala site says, "Four people were killed in this Kerala capital Sunday after clashes between groups of two communities forced the police to open fire, an official said."

A Police firing that kills five people is not a joke. Not even in the infamous Muthanga firing could match that. Yet, nobody seems to be interested in taking up this issue, except for some Muslim groups (at the risk of being branded communal).

Congress-led UDF is busy celebrating victory, and CPM is busy finding reasons for their wash-out. Muslim League has decided to speak about it after three days (See news in today's Hindu).

New Indian Express is probably the only major news paper link that reported the incident. (Again, with a funny title: Four killed in communal clashes in Kerala).

Then I saw one e-mail with link to news on NCHRO page (Kerala Police fires at fishing community, four dead) on a mailing list. Nobody responded to that mail on the list.

I wonder where do we go from here.

Attacking women : Easiest way to kill a struggle?

The news from Chengara (ചെങ്ങറ) is depressing. Women are being abducted and raped, men kidnapped, in addition to over two weeks of cutting off food and other lifeline supplies to people who have been protesting peacefully for more than an year now.

[See: ചെങ്ങറ: 4 യുവതികളെ പീഡിപ്പിച്ചെന്ന്]

Even worse, all this is not making news. It seems CPM goondas are doing all this, so one expects the likes of Malayala Manorama and Mathrubhumi to cover this as sensational news. But they are silent. Are they just scared? Or plain bought off? Or the managements have personal interests in protecting these people and finishing off this struggle?

Indiavision reported the abduction and sexual abuse on women on last Sunday 10th August. When I saw no mention of this in next day's major Malayalam newspapers, I searched for Chengara" on Malayala Manorama online edition (English version). It returned zero results. "Nandigram" returned 100 results on the same page.

* * *

So is there a parallel between Nandigram and Chengara?

The similarity is that both have CPM on the wrong side. The difference, in Nandigram it is people who have land who are struggling to keep it, whereas in Chengara, it is the landless who are at struggle.

Which makes it difficult to understand their demand for many of us. Many of us who can connect to Nandigram as an emotional attachment of "man with land". (The time is not 1957 when we had some sort of land reforms in Kerala. Make no mistake, we are living in a time when the power centers of this nation are ruled by the land mafia.)

* * *

What is this struggle all about?

Over 5000 families of landless Dalits, Adivasis and other marginalised people started this protest on 4th August 2007 claiming 6000 acres of land (you read that right -- six thousand acres) that is illegally kept by Harrison Malayalam Private Ltd in Pathanamthitta district, Kerala. Around 24,000 people from different parts of the region have moved to this area, with tents with poles and plastic sheets.

* * *

Why should they be given land? We do not have enough land to give everyone..

I would not blame someone from a relatively better-off household who thinks like this (that is, if they came to know about it). But I hope we try to go beyond this and try to find out why these people would risk their lives in a life and death struggle like this.

Dalits and Adivasis are the sections of people who were denied any right to land in the land reforms that said "krishibhoomi krishikkaaranu". That applied to the farmer, but it excluded those who worked at the fields. Needless to say, it also excluded others who were at the lowest end of the society.

"The Sadhu Jana Vimochana Samyuktha Vedi (SJVSV), the collective that leads the struggle, has opted for the land take-over as strategy remembering the tradition of the great leader Ayyankali, the militant dalit leader whose mission was to ensure liberation of dalits from various forms of slavery, right to agricultural land, as well as right to education in Kerala," says an article that appeared in The South Asian.

Add to it the fact that the land kept by most rich land owners have been encroachments traditionally, this becomes an even more severe power inequation. Many of them managed to get some legal right to their land with the power they had, and some did not even care that much. (Apparently the land where this struggle happens was leased to Harrison Malayalam and the lease expired in 1985. No rents have been paid to the State ever since).

That is where a state intervention is required to ensure justice and right of living to those who are living in the "margins", so to speak. And it asks us to rethink the way we are used to looking at things. Labeling anyone who comes out in support of this struggle as a "Maoist" will not help.

* * *

Some links in Malayalam:
Mathrubhumi news
ചെങ്ങറ ഭൂസമരം ഉയര്‍ത്തുന്ന ധാര്‍മ്മികപ്രശ്നങ്ങള: a blog post with links to some writings on this issue.
Randaam bhooparishkaranam viplavavayaditham ennu Pinarayi, Manorama news today without mentioning the word Chengara.

Videos:
Indiavision: Women attacked in Chengara


Chengara land struggle: a report

When Kottayam woke up in the night

Here is another one on women's day. Pictures of Malayali women reclaiming the night hanging out in the city and doing streetplays and songs. Keralatthil mathramalla Kottayatthu polum orupakshe aadyamaayi:-)



To view them closer, visit this album.

Chengara and Deshabhimani's turn as Manhappathram

It was not long ago that one prominent CPM leader in Kerala, himself the general manager of the party's Malayalam newspaper Deshabhimani, called Mathrubhumi a yellow journal (Manhappathram).

Now it is Deshabhimani's turn to do some real yellow journalism. After Kairali and People TV channels (they claim not to be party channels, and let us buy that) spied on some men and women late night at a vigil extending support to Chengara land struggle and aired some hot clippings that featured some of my friends, Deshabhimani today carries on its front page scenes from those clippings.

The news piece also claims that it was found that those who came for the struggle are Naxal, Maoist activists feigning themselves as human rights activists.

CPM knows that it may not be too long before Chengara becomes another Nandigram so this could be just a frustrationary measure. If they really think they have won some points with this one, I can only wish them get well soon.

[The news is available on their web edition right now here].

Below is a trailer of a video on Chengara struggle, for those who did not know about it.

The Boss

Rajni is Boss. No doubt about it.

But first half of Sivaji: The Boss disappointed. A sad heroine character and some attempts to be funny that fall flat (despite best efforts from Vivek). But the lion has to roar, and he does. There's quite an amount of fun in the second half.

If I were to pick the best thing about the film, it would be the impressive screen presence of the villain (I don't know the actor's name).



Anyone who loves the superstar would have already watched Sivaji, but amidst all the hype around the film, let us not forget a long line of films that made the superstar -- Ranga, Thangamakan, Moonru mugham, Padikkatthavan, Maaveeran, Velaikkaaran, Mappilai, Annamalai, Mannan, Uzhaippali, Yejamaan, Muthu, Basha, Arunachalam, Padayappa..

And when Sivaji: The Boss is getting so much acceptance in the metros and multiplexes, when it is getting released simultaneously in as many as 72 centres in Kerala (the highest for a Malayalam film has been 60), one must remember that less than ten years back thearte owners in Kerala were refusing to play Padaiyappa because they didn't want the "uncultured" Tamil audiences to spoil their halls.

It is intereresting to see how the amount of money involved has made all the difference. What else could it be?

VIBGYOR time

The festival starts today at Thrissur, Kerala. Focus of the year is Earth. See VIBGYOR International Film Festival: Celebrating Identities and diversity.

And schedule.

Of Vagina Experiences and Music, in Kerala

"What does this word mean?
And in kerala?.."

Gargi tells us her experiences at a Pattu Kalari (Music Workshop) that was held recently at Vagamon, Kottayam district, Kerala.

And she puts the lyrics of one song they composed at the workshop: My name is clitoris.

Philadelphia

Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington starrer Philadelphia was apparently the true story of an attorney who sued the world's largest law firm for firing him because he had AIDS, despite the filmmakers originally claiming it to be "fictional". (Reuters: Lawyer says "Philadelphia" is true story). Now the film has the following message at the end credits: "This motion picture was inspired in part by Geoffrey Bowers’ AIDS discrimination lawsuit, the courage and love of the Angius family and the struggles of the many others who, along with their loved ones, have experienced discrimination because of AIDS."

Revathy adapted it in Hindi as Phir Milenge (We Will Meet Again), with Shilpa Shetty and Salman Khan in the lead. In the Indian version, though, Shilpa Shetty's character does not suffer from AIDS, and stays healthy till the end of the film. The emphasis was that being HIV positive does not mean AIDS.

And then last November-December, in a Kerala society that boasts of being "educated" and "cultured", Five HIV-positive children were expelled from a school after protests from parents of other children. Their future of those students is still hanging in uncertainty, and I'm not sure if they were allowed to appear for the annual examinations this March..

(Around the same time, a group of members of the neighbourhood made a big scene against cremating the dead body of a person died of AIDS. Also in Kerala.)

When do we grow up as a society?

[Image: Phir Milenge, from Times Online, UK]

Maa: death, inspiration, unrest

On 17th December, I read this mail from Gargi that said,

"my grandma's sinking.

i'm not feeling anything particularly about it.
other than wishing her a good death

was feeling bad days before."

Me too hoped she had a peaceful death. Two days later when I reached Kerala, I realized that Maa died a day before I read that mail.

Now she writes on her blog (after a long silence):

"she left me without a void.
she fills me.
just fills me..

not as memories,
but as a kind of inspiration.
(she'd written in her diary
that was published somewhere
"inspiration is a mere reason
to hide your own emptiness.." )
i agree,
and i agree to this too
that i'm empty.
i need to fill it up.

wanted to write something about her.
she seems vast.huge.unfathomable.
yet.."

True, she is such an inspiration. Ma for some, Comrade Mandakini Narayanan for some. I have been trying to read up on her, and every time I am left with a feeling of wanting to know more about her. More about this world. More about people. More about myself.

[News on Mandakini's death: Times of India; The Hindu story: A revolutionary to the core]

Happy Christmas, in Rappai's name

Theetta Rappai (that translates roughly as "eater Rappai") passed away.

A piece on him that appeared in Telegraph.co.uk four years back: Restaurants ban India's 'Big Eater' (26/08/2002)

This diary won't be very regular for the rest of the year. So here's Christmas and New Year wishes in advance!

Chithralekha

The beauiful name stands out. [It could be an interesting story in itself-- People from the "lower" castes were not allowed to give good names to their children. In Kerala, there were a set of names that were "reserved" for them-- none of our "merit" mongers seemed to have any problem with this reservation. One my friend has told me his father named his sister "Suvarna" (golden) and called her "thampu", as a short form of "thampuratti" (the queen) in what was perceived as an open challenge to the existing social system, and it made many feel threatened.]

Coming back to our heroine, Chithralekha is a Pulaya girl from Thrissur, Kerala. She married a boy who belonged to a different caste (Ezhava -- a shudra caste, comes under OBC, Other Backward Castes). The boy's family and CPM, the leading left party in the state, were against it. The boy was from Kannur district, a CPM stronghold. In order to make a living, they decided to buy an autorikshaw and Chitralekha was to operate it in Payyannur town. She faced problems getting a driver's card, and when she got it, it was continuous harassing in various forms by the fellow automen (most of them ezhavas and dominant castes). The glass of the vehicle was broken and she was beaten up. When the case went to the police, they said she is a prostitute. Then her autorikshaw was burnt to dust in the night, and she was threatened she'll face the same fate as that of her vehicle.

All this happened more than a year back, and I heard about this story for the first time from my friend who mentioned it in an e-mail. I could not find any details on the net. Not even a single news-paper report. (Unlike in the recent Khairlanje incident that the media was forced to give some coverage. Here is one letter that Ravikiran Shinde sent to Rajdeep Sardesai. This blog post checks why Priyanka is not quite a Priyadarshini Matoo and Jessica Lal for us). Recently another friend of mine faced the same problem when she was trying to document this incident in the context of gender-caste opression in Kerala.

She figured out that this was second such incident of a Dalit woman's auto rickshaw being burned in that town.

Unlike Maharashtra (latest Outlook carries an article on the Dalit rage that followed Khairlanje-- interesting), issues of caste oppressions are not dealt with politically in the "God's own" Kerala where CPM takes the contract of rectifying all the social and economical problems (ok-- first we will "boil down" things to class politics, and do what we feel like). If anyone else-- any group, political outfit, persons-- try to raise any issue, they will be silenced. And the opposition Congress is useless-- they don't feel any need for any serious political intervention, they are content with the people who get fed up of the left rule and put them in power every alternate election. I hope Kerala grows up to deal with such issues in a political way.

A Natural Question

This Onam, one of the leading periodicals in Malayalam published an interview with an author who writes short stories and has written a couple of novels. The last question was paticularly interesting: "When you write so much about intimate encounters between men and women, the natural question is whether it has anything to do with your experiences".

I don't understand why is this a "natural" question, and wonder if this would have been a "natural question" had the author been a man.

She could have just said that none of your business. But being a woman, and having to live in Kerala among an apparently intellectual society that is sex-starved and moralistic when it comes to women (many woman writers have faced threatening phonecalls and other kinds of threats), she prefers to give the safest answer possible-- a disclaimer that it's got nothing to do with her or anyone else's experiences, and they are completely imaginary.

* * *

I hear that Sithara S, who has written some quality short stories in Malayalam, has gone into silence. She didn't live in Kerala (probably out of the same fear) and was settled in a foreign country. But a woman has to keep fighting those who try to silence her-- either from the society outside or from within the family-- especially if she chooses to express (through writing, theatre.. whatever). I hope Sithara gets back into business soon-- the Malayalam short story scene is really sad.

The moon, the sun and Pooja

In this earlier post I talked about Excitement. Yesterday I receive another mail from Pooja. This time it's more of a curiosity that it evokes in me than excitement.

"..In a city of all unexpected places, among a Muslim community whose hairs stand on end in sight of my bizarre outfits, the endless parade of men and women of various ages and forms who come and go, my pumping up the tires of my circus cycle, my solo-ness and unconcern over it and the absence of my mythical Himalayan husband… but who, nevertheless accept, tolerate, and support me.."



"..I am running of all things, appropriate at once and also absurd, an art and performance gallery- draavidia, the first one of its kind in the little macondo city of cochin (and arguably in kerala.) (Ten years ago now started by a philosopher poet.) a funky east meets west in a pooja-kinda-way pricey shop (the lunar shop) and helping with a funky café (the solar café). i make herbal tea potions again- this time of vanilla pods, saffron, licorice, fennel.."

"..I love you. I need your support and blessings and letters and visits. I need financial support. I could bring so many of the amazing traditional and contemporary performance artists I know in kerala here if I had money...i need great music to play for full moon dance parties. If you’ve always wanted to come to India and have had no excuse. Come! You can stay here and help or do a residency…besides which there are plenty of beautiful places to choose from in kerala to live- by the ocean, in the mountains, in the woods…"

"..its not unlike the storytimes at simon's rock, not unlike the sunday potlucks in portland, not unlike what you might fathom, colorful, eclectic.."

Here's the address to send letters or other contributions:

pooja
draavidia art and performance gallery
customs boat jetty
fort cochin
ernakulam district
kerala
india

She says she'll be there till feb/march for sure.

Onam day: My Snake charmer friend Jetson

His friends call him Paampu Velayuthan (meaning a snake-charmer) but Jetson is not quite a snake charmer in the sense that we understand that word. People call him when they find a snake, he comes and catches it, and leaves it back in nearby forests. He says he got to snakes as he wanted to do "something different", and snakes because they were around us but everyone was scared of them. "I wanted to change the people's attitude towards snakes, and give a message that they are just like any other living being". He seems to have succeeded in it to an extent, and there are people now who make a call to him before trying to kill the snake with whatever means they could find (I have seen people killing a snake hitting it with a branch and then pouring kerosene and burning it, it was a dreary scene. Ugly memories remain more clear, says Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata in Thousand Cranes).

Last month when I went to Kerala on a long weekend (Tuesday was Independence day, Wednesday was Janmashtami, so if you take off on Monday it was a five-day long weekend, isn't it tempting?) my Maharashtrian friend came with me. He wanted to do something exciting. I checked with my friends in Kerala, who told me that most trekking places in Kerala are difficult doing in monsoons. I didn't want to disappoint my friend, I called Jetson's house. His mother asked a number of questions about my whereabouts and why I called him, apparently to make sure it is not one of those "snake calls".

Jetson is now taking the snakes more seriously and is planning to do a research on Indian snakes. (Naturally, his folks are a bit worried). The 23-year old can be reached at jetson_for_animals at yahoo dot co dot in.

Happy Onam!

Wish you all a happy Onam! (Tuesday 5th September is the main Onam day this time, the thiruvonam day of Malayalam month Chingam).

I was looking for a good Onam pic on the net to share with my friends, something other than the cliched Onam images of thiruvathira (a dance form where girls dress up and swing to please the voyeuring male gazes), pookkalam (a rangoli of flowers), vallam kali (boat race) or Kathakali (supposedly signifying Kerala, though majority of Keralites did not even know what it was like), and I landed on http://www.rock-sea.net/nature/insects/slides/onathumbi_001.php on sarah and rock sea's page.

Excitement

I am all excited to receive a mail from a friend of mine. The mail shares the hardships and excitements involved in trying to set up a women's space (and place) in Kerala. About the patriarchy and crap that are up against them. (You would know if you have ever tried something similar in Kerala). And about the energy she derives from the work. And how she is looking colourful and cute again, after a grey and weary season that went by.

In her own words, it is ``an art gallery / eco-shop / 'lunar shop' and a 'solar cafe' in a city in Kerala". The address is

draavidia gallery
fort cochin
ernakulam district
kerala
india

And I hope she's still there when you reach:)