A Secular Gulp
Kerala, or as the tourism brochure advises us "God's Own Country", is a tranquil, gentle state of indescribable natural charm. Missing is the loud aggressiveness of north India. Present, instead, is a polite, cultured society where people display grace, good-manners, a ready smile and an extraordinary willingness to go the extra mile in order to please the visitor. In museum after museum, near closing time, we were told not to hurry. Tell them how much you are enjoying your vacation in their state and their eyes light up. No one pushes, no one shouts, no one shoves. Queues are formed obediently. I detected only one beggar during my week-long holiday.
Off Kovalam, I watched two portly gentlemen polish off half a bottle of whisky in under 15 minutes (watch out: the Kerala peg puts our Patiala cousin to shame), one small sip, then one gulp and the glass is empty. Yet this copious tippling was done noiselessly in the "family room" of a restaurant. By cow-belt standards, everything is astonishingly clean. Toilets, parks, roads, buses, are a sight to behold. At Thiruvananthapuram railway station, I stood transfixed: the station was spotless.
No communal riot, big or small, has occurred in Kerala for the past five years. Churches, temples and mosques stand shoulder to shoulder (Christians and Muslims constitute 40 per cent of the population) and one evening at Kochi, I heard temple bells and the muezzin's call to the faithful go up simultaneously. Adjacent was a church blazing with the star of Bethlehem, and the sound of carols. For pseudo-secularists like me, Kerala lifts the spirit.
A New Promised Land
To the synagogue in the old part of Kochi. Jews first came to Kerala in 73 AD after the sacking of Palestine by the Romans. The only working synagogue in India was built in 1568 and even today, though neglected and desperately short of funds, it is an inspiring place of worship. There are 14 Jewish families left in Kochi.Correction, make that 15. One came back from Israel last month. In their heyday, the Kochi Jews were models of citizenship. They contributed hugely to the making of the city. Israel, unfortunately, has not turned out to be the promised land. The chief of the synagogue tells us his son, a dentist, is experiencing "lot of difficulties and discrimination. He wants to leave". The last surviving families are ageing yet firmly rooted: they are determined to die in Kochi, a city which gave them sanctuary, respect, livelihood and the right to practise their religion unhindered. Only one thing upsets them these days—journalists. "They ask too many questions," says Mr Moses.
Pressing The Point
A wonderful holiday was further sweetened by a query I was put repeatedly. It began at the Thiruvananthapuram Press Club—which I had the privilege of addressing—where a journalist asked me: "How does it feel to have overtaken India Today?" (If IT thinks I am making this up they can check with their Kerala correspondent who was present.) I corrected the premise of the question but requested the journalist to spread the good news anyway.
Comrade And Christ
The 82-year-old chief minister of Kerala, E.K. Nayanar, is a jovial man sitting under two gigantic blow-ups of Marx and Engels. He is less jocular when he meets a member of the press (Outlook included) as he is convinced a serious media conspiracy to defame him and his government is rampant. "There are 10 newspapers in Kerala, nine are against me, only one supports me." Which one is that, I ask. "My own (the party paper)." Comrade Nayanar is blunt but "connects" with the masses. Real power rests with party apparatchiks. "They are Stalinist types," I am informed. When I meet the general secretary of the party, he looks anything but Stalinist. Nayanar’s other bugbear is the church. "Christians in Kerala vote against us en bloc because the priests here tell them Communists are against god, therefore enemies of the church."
A.K. Antony, meanwhile, is his usual placid self. How this fundamentally decent and honest man survived in the Congress party is a major miracle. "I’ve had enough of Delhi. I don’t want to go back," he says. What is his relationship with old foe, K. Karunakaran? Antony tells an unconvincing lie. He says they have no problems.
Independent observers believe, thanks to incumbency and non-performance, the Congress will edge the Communists out. Meanwhile, in north Kerala the rss and cpi(m) cadres are busy killing each other. And in between the rss takes on state bjp leaders. It should be an interesting election five months on
Invasion Of Paradise
I go to Kerala to get as far away as possible from the political cacophony of New Delhi. And what happens on my first day? There is a mile-long traffic jam just outside Kottayam. It seems Mr Vajpayee too has chosen Kerala for his musings holiday, and as his entourage passes, holding me and the uncomplaining Kottayam-ites up for an hour, I console myself with the thought that I have seen the last of the vvips from my native place. Alas, as our car inches towards Kumarakom, posters, stickers, hoardings welcoming the "world’s most noble prime minister" proliferate. We pass the Taj Garden Resort where Atalji plus family are booked and I discover to my horror that we are booked into the Golden Tulip, literally a stone’s throw away from Mr Vajpayee’s cottage.
We are prisoners at the Tulip. Security is crazy; apparently the Lashkar is coming. No movement is allowed. At night, the Dominic Brothers’ famed resort Coconut Lagoon, also a stone’s throw away, beckons. But there is no way we can get there. I consider swimming from the Tulip to the Lagoon, but am warned that the spg will shoot. Next day at lunch I order the local speciality karimeen, caught fresh in the morning. The management says sorry, there has been no catch since fishing in the area has been forbidden for the day—and may continue to be forbidden. Locked and fishless in Kerala!
Enough is enough. We rearrange our programme and head out towards Kochi in the fervent hope that we have left prime ministers and their ilk behind. As our car taxies into Kochi’s Casino Hotel, a banner, again a stone’s throw away, announces: "Welcome to the honourable Arun Jaitley." He, we’re told, is expected any minute.