Dystopian Kerala & Modi's Somalia

Mr.Modi’s Somalia comparison has for the past one week caught up much attention in this strip of land called Kerala (which , I’m sure historiographers(sic) of the Hindutva party would want to believe was allegedly carved out from the sea by a dreaded and conscientious  warrior, a Brahmin who detested Kshatriyas). The now infamous comment of Mr.Modi, who excels in sonorous rhetoric, laced half truths, innuendos apart from blatant lies and malarkey effectively aroused outrage in the State, but that seldom crossed the Western Ghats .Folks up north and elsewhere in the country wondered what the hullabaloo was all about and some may even have scampered to their computers to Google and find if Somalia in far away Africa suffered any tectonic shift. However  the chorus of protests over the PM’s comments  did create  some reverberation in distant Delhi among the minnows in the Modi government.

It was fun days over the past week, with an abuzz social media lampooning Modi and caricatures of his faux pass aplenty flying all over. I must admit that I missed no opportunity in sharing and commenting from my part- a contribution towards increasing the misery if I can, of one of the most disagreeable and detestable person to wrest  the Prime minister- ship of this country. Strong words? Cannot find any stronger ones, I must confess.

Now what I must address here is the allegation that Mallaus false pride was hurt by the comparison Mr.Modi made of Kerala with Somalia. Eventually Mallus hit bed with pleasure after satirising Modi’s comments with the economic and social index statistics of Gujarat.

 How true is the accusation? Indeed it is true to an extent. It is truer that than the truth of the hurt Malayalee pride, in fact it is the Mallus hypocritical heart that has been offended and hurt.

Keralites live in a house of wax- a house that is bedeviled with castes, superstition, sleaze, voyeurism, environmental destruction, cantankerous qualities and what not!  On the flip side agrarian and land reforms that communist ethos heralded, the social emancipation of a vast multitude of low caste, an universal education system, commendable health care, yet, I wonder if any Mallu even in his most ludicrous moment exclaim that Kerala is an epitome of Shangri-La. Century and more ago Swami Vivekananda painfully exclaimed that Kerala is a land of the insane. Many monsoons have since poured down on the land- communist social revolution heralded social and economic paradigm shift in the milieu, the Gulf boom created a tectonic transformation in the economics of the State. Today Keralites contribute 40 percent and more of the foreign remittances (i.e. Rupees 1 lakh crores). Ironically 3 million plus expatriates from other northern and north eastern states work in Kerala. All from States where IMR is abysmally pathetic let alone the plight of infants among Scheduled tribes.

Where does this place the Somalia of India?

As I mentioned I reveled in lampooning Mr.Modi. But the act was not out of hurt pride or obsessive hypocrisy , nor did I go to bed pleasurably for having mocked Mr.Modi, his gauche and inappropriate misleading comments, thus hoping to veil the supposed veracity of his statements. I savoured the pleasure of mocking a man who have apparently befooled the country and whose malarkey was laid thread bare by his own foul and boorish mouth and actions. A man who rode on to become the PM of the most populous country through means that was heart wrenching, and thrives on dispensation that is distasteful ,divide and rule.

The foremost issue that Mr.Modi raked up and which en masse the State took up in indignant chorus- was the mischievous and spliced , selective comparison with one of the most dystopian territories on the planet, “Somalia”. He claimed that “The unemployment in Kerala is at least three times the national average. Infant mortality in Kerala among Scheduled tribe community in Kerala is worse than that of Somalia. The State can meet only 13 percent of the requirement of their agricultural products. Even after 70 years after Independence, Kerala depends upon other states for 70 percent of its power requirements. Most of Kerala youth are forced to leave the State in search of jobs. Only through overall development can the State be brought back to its past glory.”      

 Past glory? I wonder what he was referring to.

It only requires little intelligence to understand that such has been Mr.Modi’s shenanigans and ploy, whereby he subtly proclaims wrong statistical data and spliced, selective data to mislead the audience. Instances during the previous general election were abundant. The specious statement over what black money stashed abroad can do to an individual Indian – who may stand to get Rs 15 lakh. More than a mouthful to fool the gullible!

The current plight of the Adivasis or the indigenous  forest dwellers of  India- the original inhabitants of the country even before the fair skinned Aryan invaders and later, the sacerdotal Hindus and the lesser ones  usurped their land is well documented statistically. The glaring indifference that Adivasis face in India is not an isolated case to be foisted on Kerala alone. True the mortality rate in Kerala is high among adivasis, but less than the national average (though that is not a status to pat one’s back). The fact is indifference to the original inhabitants has been not endemic to political parties or to Kerala.  And this Government with its mad Hindutva mind set has no reason to shed tear for the aborigines. Once electoral exercise is done with, scheduled tribes, scheduled castes and other non entities (as the RSS would see them) will be relegated into the septic tank. For, for a racial and religious purity that the Hindutva ideology calls for, there is no room for lesser beings.

Orchestrated bludgeoning of Universities & centers of learning and higher education is something that has been consistently practiced by fascists’ mobs (governments). This government under Mr. Modi has taken that exercise to newer levels. The matter is afresh in our minds and the process of clubbing into silence is going on.

As for the other falsehood Mr.Modi trumpeted, statistics on the Central Govt’s web sites of the economic survey gives enough information to rubbish his allegations. So copying them here is of less importance. A bakth yesterday stated indignantly that he doesn’t believe the statistics I quoted to rubbish Mr. Modi’s assertions. I   conveyed my empathy and told him that indeed with the Government headed by Modi one cannot even trust the official statistics to be true. For this government excels in rewriting and concocting everything and anything from cows to videos to economic data.

 This is what irks any conscientious person especially a Mallu , in the current context when a man with notoriety for presiding over a State government that did nothing to stop fanatic, religious madmen and marauders killing innocent people, goring and wrenching out entrails from human bowels, under whose watch gruesome killings which would shame Attila the Hun happened;  under whose watch his State actually went further down in Social Index parameters; a person who nonchalantly compared the Gujarat killings to a puppy being run over by a motor car, bays sententious statements and anguish at the plight of a Adivasis who have been hounded out in every State in India. If this is not hypocrisy , well what then does the word mean?

No, not over- his present government incessantly uses paramilitary and regular forces in the central heartlands of India to drive out the indigenous forest dwellers from their forest land so that the land can be given on a platter to his corporate benefactors. Why doesn’t Modi weep for the many tribes driven out of the Narmada valley when the monolith of a dam came across the Narmada to cater the over indulgence of Gujarat’s big cities and to quench the insatiable needs of big businesses?

Where is the inclusive development he speaks of? Rubbish utter, utter falsehood this comparison to Somalia!

Father Alexander

When I finished watching the movie “Spot Light” I could only think of Father Alexander, a priest who I have met a few times- that was long ago. More still, of whom I have heard quite a bit- of his sensational exploits and intriguing escapades.

“Spot Light” tells us about the cover up and intrigues that is the culture within the Catholic Church. That doesn’t mean that prelates of other denominations are angels in pristine white. The autobiography of  the catholic nun, Sister Jesmy , titled, “Amen” narrates in detail the abuse and utter violations that was inflicted on her while in the nunnery  and which eventually gave her the courage and  will to castaway her ordination. Devout Catholics would abuse her and call her renegade, an apostate and a charlatan hoping that would safeguard the sullied name of the church.  The difference here in this country is that mendacity and unsavoury conduct inside religious abodes, be it a Hindu ashram a Christian Seminary or a Madrasa will be covered up by the authorities and the whistle blower will be hounded.

The hamlets and villages in the mountains in the Western Ghats have always fascinated. More than a quarter century ago they were picturesque beyond words and laid back places, where often one felt time seldom moved forward. Where the weather was always cool & pleasant and electric fans were a strange and wasteful invention even at mid noon in the months of April and May.

When one drives up into the mountains and hill country in Kerala the ubiquitous cross graved out of wood or concrete beckons you like detritus monolith radiating a powerful evangelical image and sorcery. It is in one such hamlet that Father Alexander foraged as the custodian of the local parish and the sole mediator between the mortals and the Lord up in the heavens.

He was stout, may be 5’ feet 7, wheat complexioned, pretty large forehead and bald plate with remnants of hair on the back of the head. He was always clean shaven, his forearms where thick almost grizzly like and with dark hairs. His eyes, I felt glinted with cunning. The fellow seldom wore the frock outside church, wearing it to only on occasions that demanded his priestly   interventions such as the holy mass, prayer congregation or other religious functions and duties. That meant when one saw him in the village market in his trousers and slacks he would pass as just another guy. He was a speed demon behind the wheels and not many those days owned a jeep. He sped across the sharp bends in those mountain roads and the narrow stretch of roads crisscrossing the verdant tea bushes raising halo of dust behind him. God fearing folks, both labourers and the more affluent stood respectfully by the sides letting him whizz past. After all, this guy was the sole mortal who could petition and intervene for them with the saviour and his dad cocooned in heaven. That automatically gave him priority in their life’s and their personal or family affairs. It also assured him the head table at every dinner and feast in homes in the parish. And father Alexander was a regular guest of honour at the prominent houses in the village.

I often thought that the reverence he was shown by folks was nauseating and condescending. Well, that is what would happen when you have intermediaries between you and your creator!

Father Alexander was quite indulgent when it came to food and he relished meat, be it from the bovines or fowls. I heard the story that the Father also relished wild boar and deer meat. He had a coterie among parishioner who would fetch him meat of exotic animals and jungle fowls even though hunting those beasts was banned. There was a hushed statement murmured among parishioners that the priest loved exotic spirits and voluptuous women.

Indeed that was the truth. Such worldly munificence as sumptuous exotic food &wine and patronisation alone did not make the world of Father Alexander turn around. It was a known secret in the parish that he had liaisons with a couple of women folks in the town and I guess his flock surmised that was a divine benefaction bestowed on him and they would turn a blind eye to such escapades!

The few occasions I have had with the guy were over dinner and the intervening prelude when he was feasting on some imported spirit arranged by the host, he seldom picked conversation with me. Neither did me. Indeed, it was a case of mutual dislike even without speaking much. He would sit like a Noble in grandeur and hold the other guests in conversation, moderating their opinions and closing the topic with his assertion and opinion. All that while also relishing the patronising of the host and his wife. I would sit watching the group and would wonder about the King-size life of a catholic priest in such remote villages. I have exclaimed to myself what splendid rollicking life they have.

Father Alexander showed the gamut of his priestly powers when he churlishly refused to give Holy Communion to my wife for she wed a non-Christian. Though she was taken aback a bit by the prelate’s arrogance she understood the frivolity of accepting the holy sacrament from a dissolute person as he. Worse still Father Alexander without batting an eye used his writ and powers to send my father-in-law back and forth  a dozen times from the faraway place he then lived and refused to give the baptism confirmation for his son who was to be married soon. The justification the man gave for his conduct was that the daughter married a non-Christian. That was the depths of Christian hypocrisy, piggery and prudishness.

The last I heard of this guy was he was ensconced in some church in the Coonoor hills and had moved in with a Muslim woman and was in live-in-relationship with her. That was some years ago and I ‘m wondering if he continued to be harboured by the Church or whether he lives on even today. However when sleazy stories of Christian priests and their exploits are told I muse about this guy Father Alexander who lorded over a flock of gullible folks in a picturesque village surrounded by verdant forests and vast acreages of tea bushes; where time almost stood still and life was ethereal like!

REQUIEM

If one must see the artistic side of hypocrisy then one must attend a memorial service, a requiem. It is amusing and at the same time quite disgusting too. Often, the eulogies sung for the departed is delivered with the same effectiveness as the invectives showered when the person was alive.

I indeed was amused at some of the words and pretentious phrases that were offered at a memorial service I went to, the other day. The service was in remembrance of people in the Malayalam film industry who died in this year since January. “Good mother of God” someone exclaimed rightly there were more than a dozen of them. Not just old blokes but mostly in their mid life. Pretty early to have gone, I thought.

Of the many eulogies that were offered, I felt that only a few, very few sounded honest, sincere and matter of fact. Reserving kindness for the dead after they have departed is rather an exercise in waste and dishonesty. But then the departed seldom come back to comment and express on the encomiums sung at memorials.

Personally, I dissent with the law of Nature that is quite cruel and sadistic that many who are in the threshold of life and thereabouts are pushed down stiff and dead. But one cannot go afar in these matters as the mystery gets curiouser and curosier when you think about it.

Of all matters what was annoying was the speakers at the memorial leaving the venue once their bit of eulogies were said. It was direct smacking of those dead cheeks with their extended limbs of insincerity a specious interlude. I wondered what it could be in their mortal life that was pulling them to some other destination. It was obvious that their presence was just an exaggerated exercise in pretension.

What is putative misery about such gatherings are the wishes and remarks, that the departed have safe journey to the celestial world and their “souls” rest in peace. Goodness gracious what the heck is that -“soul”?

I once read a statement of the late Rajneesh comparing death to orgasm. The later, he may have experienced many times over, but wonder how he could equate that pleasure- to the feeling in death.  One can never know or tell the feeling outside biological existence! Mr. Rajneesh hasn’t come back since he died to narrate the orgasmic enthrallment he experienced in death.  I suppose he was being metaphorical here or may be euphemistic.

Isn’t this talk of soul and peace unto the soul plainly false and simply quibbling? A desperate attempt at trying to satisfy the hankering for mortality?

Come on, as I mentioned elsewhere in some post no one has come back from dead to write a travelogue. Feeding ourselves on fatuous matters is helping us no where further. Attributing truth to something that has not been proven or is simply preposterous is stupid mistake. If the mystery cannot be solved as Bertrand Russell observed suspend judgment rather than mystify and mythicise it.