April 13, 2012
Morning hours spent with an accountant and then a banker. As part of getting a new designation in a company here, I need to get myself even more identification numbers. The new numbers will be provided when I produce the old numbers that this nation has given me along, with some photographs. The accountant runs a successful firm. And as all managers in the city I have come across, who run successful firms, he complaints about the staff; about their lack of care and commitment.
Apparently, lack of character is the new character of the younger generation of workers here. Dedication to the job and devotion to the boss exist only on the resume. Religion has finally managed to train a generation of Indians well. Somewhere along the economic liberalization process, that proverbial switch has flicked: from meaningless chants we have moved onto making all chants meaningless.
The ruling alliance at the state government inducted a fifth minister from the Muslim League component yesterday. Anyone reading today's regional papers would think democracy is a way of governance in which each community sends its chieftains to join a grand council of chieftains. They then carve up the portfolios according to the size of their community and proceed to loot the coffers and the land.
The current hue and cry is about how the minorities of the land are the majority in the government. Nobody is an Indian or a Keralite anymore. Their only allegiance is to their caste and very specific religious denomination. The Nairs want more ministers. The Nadars want at least one minister. The Catholics can't have enough. The Syrian Christians need more. The Wahabis and the Sikhs are waiting in the wings, I suppose.
At the bank after the session with the accountant, the conversation is, as expected, about the communal essence of Kerala governance. I am told how some communities are robbed out of their chance to run hospitals and schools. I wonder if Nair engineering is different from Iyer engineering and Islamic dental is different from Christian teeth. "I think we have all misunderstood Gandhi," prefaces the banker. I am all ears. "When he said 'Quit India', he was talking to us Indians, not the British!" Ah....
After the double financial whammy, I seek refuge in the Kerala Bhasha Institute's book stall that operates below the road level, next to the church at Palayam behind the VJT hall. In the absence of alcohol in life, book shops are my bars.
There is a limit to which stupidity of a society stays entertainingly comical, after that it plunges one into deeply painful, disturbingly ominous sense of tragedy. The way the people of this land identify themselves with unnatural labels and imaginary guardians in imaginary spaces gets to me from time to time.
Into this society, my sister's baby is soon coming. A couple of books specifically to read to the baby. That should fly in the face of the accusations of trenchant cynicism that I have faced for long! Found a copy of Kadamanitta Vasudevan Pillai's "Padeni", the authoritative work on the folk art form. The book is well aged though not previously owned. I pick up another one on Theyyam. Achan has been down with fever since yesterday. Nalacharitham Aattakatha Second Day purchased for his recouping.
Its been ages since my sister and I worked on The Hindu's crossword together. We enlisted the baby also into the task yesterday. Miserable 25% success. We decided not to blame the new team member. 100% today. Somebody sure is touchy!
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