Thommankuthu Waterfalls

 

Thommankuthu is a sleepy village in central Kerala.  It lies 18 km from the nearest town, Thodupuzha (Idukki district), from where buses are available at regular intervals passing through Thommankuthu. 

A river with seven waterfalls flows at the edge of the village.  That is the tourist attraction in Thommankuthu.  On the banks of the river are thick forests with a wide variety of plants and trees.  One can trek through the forests.  There is 12-kilometre stretch of trekking path available to the tourist.  You can climb that rugged path listening to the soothing sound of the waterfalls and the greetings of cicadas.  The smell of damp wood penetrates your nostrils sharply in some places. 

The greatest advantage in Thommankuthu is that the place retains the pristine beauty.  There are no traces of the modern civilisation and its inevitable pollution, though one may be saddened to find a few disposable cups and plastic bottles in one or two places.   There are constant reminders that the place is meant for eco-tourism and hence waste should not be strewn around.  But there is no place assigned for dumping the waste that the tourists normally carry with them – plastic bottles for water or soft drinks, disposable plates for snacks, etc.  You may, however, be relieved that such wastes are found very rarely in the place. 

If you wish to spend some time in the lap of nature, breathing invigorating air, relishing green beauty, inhaling the aromas of nature and immersing yourself in the coolness of flowing water, Thommankuthu is an ideal place.

I took some pictures during my brief trek in the place on 22 Oct 2009.  Since WordPress does not easily support pictures I have posted them at my Sulekha blog [to which I am forced to return by the limitations (or my ignorance) of WordPress].  You can see them by clicking here.

When the Police Join the Criminals

 

When the police who are supposed to protect the people from thugs become protectors of the thugs, the people can only console themselves with the belief that they are indeed living in the mythical kaliyug. 

Paul M George, a business tycoon, was killed last month in Kerala.  The Kerala police arrested certain people quite promptly.  However, Kari Satish who is alleged by the police to be the murderer is turning out to be a mercenary scapegoat: one who accepted the crime for a monetary reward.  Satish’s mother claimed that she saw the police placing a knife (made in the shape of the letter S, first letter of the name of the accused) under Satish’s bed and then recovering it as the evidence.  Later on a blacksmith came forward with the admission that the police had ordered him to make that knife after the murder had taken place.  The blacksmith is now in hiding and has applied for anticipatory bail.  He needs legal protection from the police for speaking the truth!

In the meanwhile, two notorious criminals, Omprakash and Rajesh, who were supposed to have been travelling with the victim George in his car on the fateful day were absconding.  The police finally caught up with them when the media pressure became too hot to bear.  However, the police did not permit the media persons anywhere near these two thugs.  It is alleged by the media that the two criminals are being given VIP treatment in custody. 

Omprakash is a notorious criminal with 17 cases pending including 2 murder charges.  There were already 5 warrants against him.   Rajesh has 25 cases against him including murder charges and four arrest warrants.  Both of them lived in Kerala, probably enjoying the hospitality of top police officials, until the murder of Paul George took place.  Since George’s family is influential and wealthy enough to pursue the case against political clouts, the two criminals have been arrested.  But will they be proved guilty.  Malayalam newspapers say that the police are trying their best to make these two criminals the witnesses in George’s murder.

The English media in India are now full of reports about the Gujarat police murdering 4 innocent persons in a fake encounter.  The murder was carried out by a police officer who specialises in (fake?) encounter killings so that he could obtain a promotion.  It was alleged that the 4 victims were conspiring to kill Narendra Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat and the person behind the pogrom against Muslims in Gujarat in 2002.  

It appears that the common man who has no ‘connections’ with the people in power have very little chance of survival, let alone justice.   The tragic fallout of this situation is the gradual erosion of people’s faith in the social systems represented by the police and the politicians.  That will lead to a social vacuum. 

John Ralston Saul has argued in his book, The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of the World, that such a vacuum “encourages the rise of false populism, a taste for war, divisions between civilizations, racism and the misuse of gods.”  The alarming rise of mafia gangs in the towns of Kerala vindicates Saul’s theory. Equally alarming is the rise of religious cults, godmen and godwomen too. 

Shall we console ourselves with the myth of kaliyug? I’d rather believe with Antonio Gramsci that “The old is dying, the new struggles to be born, and in the interregnum there are many morbid symptoms.”  Gramsci, however, wrote that in 1930.  It seems to be a very long interregnum!

Onam in the Time of Swine Flu

 

Onam, the grandest festival of Kerala, is a festival of nostalgia and longing.  It celebrates the annual visit of a king, Mahabali – or Maveli, as he is more affectionately called – to his erstwhile kingdom.  Maveli was the most just and honest king one can find in the legends of Kerala.  During his reign Kerala was nothing short of a utopia.  There was prosperity everywhere.  People possessed all the good qualities that could be expected of people.  The gods became jealous and so one of them came and tricked Maveli sending him to the netherworld.  However, the god was generous enough to grant Maveli’s request to let him come back once a year and visit his people.  Onam celebrates that visit.

Onam celebrates a people’s longing for a better world, a world where there is a prevalence of goodness. 

The celebration of Onam makes it quite different from the other festivals I have seen in India.  Festivals such as Diwali and Holi, celebrated mostly in North India, send shivers down my spine with the ear-splitting noises or lung-choking dust they involve.  I dread both these festivals and would hide myself if possible in a closed room to escape the fumes generated by the Diwali fireworks and the Holi dust.  But Onam would bring me out from any room.  Onam is a festival of beautiful flowers, music and dances.  Onam is a feast to the eyes and the mind.  No assaults on the human body that is already threatened with the umpteen pollutions of an industrialised, scientific and technological civilisation.

Onam celebrations have already got under way in Kerala.  Maveli will get a very colourful welcome on fragrant floral carpets.  There will be all the traditional music and dances.  There are boat races and other enthralling competitions.  People will wear new dresses.  There will be the traditional vegetarian meal with at least eight dishes.  There will be all the signs of joy and prosperity.

But will Maveli be really thrilled? 

The noisiest controversy that commands the front pages of Kerala’s newspapers these days is the murder of a business tycoon, Paul M George, allegedly by a group of professional goons.  The real issue is not one of a single murder case but the predominance of professional thugs in the socio-political milieu of Kerala.  God’s own country (as Kerala advertises itself in its tourism brochures) has become Goons’ own country.  Politicians and businessmen and film stars and anyone of some influence make use of professional thugs to achieve their various goals.  High-ranking police officers are accused of sheltering the thugs who killed Paul George.  There are even allegations that the Home Minister’s own son is involved with the thugs.  [The Home Minister has denied the allegations, of course; but as I watched him on the TV I noticed that his denial lacked the usual power of his rhetoric.]  The names of more and more politicians and police officers associated with thugs are coming up slowly.

Will Maveli, the just and honest king, be thrilled to see his kingdom being ruled by professional thugs?

Kerala is also suffering from innumerable diseases.  Swine flu that has taken its due toll on the state has only been the latest malady to befall the state.  Chikunguniya has been extracting a heavy price from the state for the last many years.  Apart from these are the many mysterious diseases such as tomato flu that keep on visiting the state every monsoon.  The diseases of the affluent such as cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure became an integral part of the regular life in the state many years ago.   Kerala was once projected as an example of ideal progress with its remarkable achievements in education, health, sanitation, women’s employment, and eradication of poverty.  But today Kerala stands as a sick society – both physically and socially.   

Will Maveli be fooled by the fragrance of flowers and roll of drums?

Perhaps Maveli can take a lesson from the comedy shows on Malayalam TV channels.  The Malayalee knows to laugh even in the times of the severest adversity.  The laughter is usually tinged with cynicism.  Cynicism is an integral part of the Malayalee psyche. 

M T Vasudevan Nair (celebrated Malayalam novelist and script writer of movies) tells a poignant story to illustrate the cynicism of Malayalees.  Pasha is a great magician.  He meets Houdini once and the two engage in a contest to prove each one’s excellence.  Houdini is convinced that Pasha is superior to him and gives him the due honour.  Pasha continues to travel across the world marvelling people with his magic.  Finally he reaches a land where the people are not marvelled by his magic at all.  When he performs his great vanishing tricks the people merely say that it is some cheap trick.  When Pasha makes someone fly in the air, cuts a woman into pieces, or saves himself from a box locked with a dozen locks before being thrown into a blazing fire, the people remain listless.  Frustrated, Pasha takes a knife, cuts open his breast, takes out his heart and holds it in front of the people.  The people refuse to be fooled by what they claim is a plastic heart.  Collapsing, succumbing to his inevitable end, Pasha asks in despair, “Which land is this, my dear people?  Which land?”  The people say with pride, “It’s Kerala, it’s Kerala.”

But Maveli need not fear any such fate.  He is the best-selling icon of Kerala.  Kerala needs him just as much as an ordinary man needs dreams, or at least as a trader needs a logo.

Kerala Government Crumbling?

Pinarayi Vijayan

V S Achuthanandan

The Marxist government of Kerala led by V S Achuthanandan is teetering on the edge of a collapse.  When the Indian National Congress (INC) romped to victory in the recent Parliament elections and Achuthanandan was questioned by the press about his party’s dismal show the Chief Minister was reported to have laughed.  Achuthanandan rarely laughs.  The ordinary people of Kerala would have been amused by that rare laugh.  But little did they know it would kick up a lot of unsavoury controversy.  The self-proclaimed ‘senior advisor’ of the Marxist Party and avowed intellectual, Sukumar Azheekode, declared that the chief minister’s laughter was a traitor’s laughter.  Not content with calling Achuthanandan a traitor, the intellectual went on to describe his laughter as “obscene”.  Soon the chief minister became a shameless creature that “excretes in its own cage.”  Eventually the intellectual demanded a dialogue from the chief minister as if the latter had perpetrated some crime on him.

 Azheekode, however, is only the lighter side of the hot issue.  The real issue is the corruption charge against a Marxist minister, Pinarayi Vijayan, who is accused of having swindled millions of rupees from a deal with SNC Lavalin, a Canadian firm.  Vijayan has more clout in the party than the chief minister.  Most of the senior party members support Vijayan.  They even got the State Assembly to avert the case against Vijayan.  But the state governor jettisoned the political game and gave sanction to the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI] to prosecute Vijayan.   Achuthanandan defended the governor’s action. 

Kerala now has a Chief Minister who has lost the support of his own ministers.  But the Marxist Party knows very well that the Chief Minister has the popular support; the people know that Vijayan is not quite innocent.  The party chief, Prakash Karat, would love to show the door to Achuthanandan and save Vijayan.  Has Karat too benefited from the Lavalin deal?  No, of course, he thinks that Pinarayi Vijayan is innocent.  The people of Kerala may not agree, though.

The Opposition consisting chiefly of INC is demanding the resignation of the chief minister who seems to have lost the support of his ministers.  One thing is sure: Achuthanandan has become a loner in the party.  And loners don’t survive in democratic politics.

The Farce that’s History

History is written by the winners.  And the winners may be the Catholic Church as it was in the case of the innumerable innocent women burnt as witches in the medieval period, or the slightly less innumerable men burnt as heretics, or (to cite a contemporary example) the innumerable number of young boys exploited sexually by the Christian Brothers in Ireland.

 

I’m going to narrate a very ‘interesting’ (funny but sad) episode from the history of Kerala to illustrate the farcical nature of history.  [For those who don’t know where Kerala is, it is a small state in the southernmost tip of India.]

 

On the 13th of this month [June] some Keralites will “celebrate” the golden jubilee of what is known as the Angamali Liberation Struggle.

 

A Liberation Struggle that started with the effort to save a man who fought against alcohol but ended up as a labourer in an alcohol shop!  A Liberation Struggle that was directed against the first Marxist government elected democratically in the world but the hero of which ended up as a CITU [Centre of Indian Trade Unions – a Marxist organisation] member!

 

13 June 1959, Angamali, Kerala:  The monsoon is tumbling down all over Kerala very generously (unlike in the present days!).  Kunjappan goes to picket a toddy shop. [Toddy is a local variety of alcohol.]  The police of the ruling Marxist government arrest Kunjappan.  The church of Angamali bursts out into unusual tolls.  A huge crowd of believers gathers in front of the church.  They are told that a man who fought against the vicious poison of alcohol in the village has been tortured and killed by the police.  The people, ever so eager to lap up whatever is told by the church, take out a march to the police station.  The SI [Sub-Inspector of Police] is terrified to see a crowd of over 2000 people.  He orders: “Fire into the palla!”  The constables obey the order religiously.  Seven people fall dead on the spot.  The rest escape by fleeing.  [Not too many people are foolish enough to die for their religion.]

 

The death of seven persons in police firing is a big event in the India of 1959.  It leads to a social upheaval in Kerala.  It leads to what came to be known as a Liberation Struggle in the history of Kerala.  Liberation from the brutal Marxist government. 

 

The whole farce of the incident lies partly in a linguistic twist.  The word ‘palla’ used by the SI meant ‘bush’ in his colloquial language.  He was asking his constables to fire into the bush!  [Why he didn’t ask them to fire into the innocuous air as the police usually do is a mystery.] But the constables didn’t understand their SI’s colloquial parlance.  For them ‘palla’ meant ‘belly’ – the local meaning of the term.  One word, seven deaths, a liberation struggle – a farce in history!

 

Yes, it was a farce in history.  On July 31 the government of Kerala was disbanded by the union government of India.

 

The real farce: Kunjappan who picketed the toddy shop, who fought heroically against alcohol, became a labourer in a toddy shop later.  Moreover, he became a member of CITU!

 

7 June 2009.  A pastoral letter written by a bishop is read out in the churches of Kerala.  It calls for another Liberation Struggle against the present Marxist government in the state.  The real reason (which the pastoral will not mention, of course): the church is not able to make as much profit from its educational institutions as it would like to.

 

Another Liberation Struggle may set off in Kerala.  If the people haven’t learnt better lessons than in 1959.  No, they haven’t.  People cannot afford to learn such lessons.  Survival is a matter of staying with those who will write the history!

 

Want more farce?  A man called Chaku died of drinking after the 1959 Liberation Struggle.  The reason: he was the one who shouted to the 2000-strong crowd that had gathered in front of the Angamali church: “Chalo Police Station”.  His guilt feeling wouldn’t let him live in peace after the death of the seven persons because of his sloganeering.  Slogans and guilt – two of the many gifts of the church to mankind!