Onam greetings to you and all. I thought I had sent out the greetings yesterday but noticed this morning that the message failed to deliver.
Glad that you appreciate the places I wrote about. There are many others too, as you probably know.
The striking thing about Kerala as you enter it from other states is the stream of school children, all dressed up smartly in colourful uniforms, neat and clean, and very cheerful and chirpy. This is such a stark contrast to what happens on the other side of the border when one would see children loitring listlessly, often grazing cattle. On the not so bright side of Kerala when you travel around, is the sight of "wine shops" and bars that are over flowing with customers from wee hours in the morning. Not so much in the Malabar side but certainly every where else that I have travelled.
Kerala roadsides also have one of the best garbage clearing systems in the country and it is also relatively plastic free. One would see ice-cream vendors along the road side with a cardboard carton placed next to his vehicle where his clients would deposit the litter. All this means so much less of stray dogs. You cannot escape the countless number of billboards colourfully painted with messages most often announcing a range of footware or wares of jwellery shops. Mammotty and Mohanlal would compete even here for eyeball space. This can be an eyesore for an outsider as this would stand between him and Kerala.
I was amazed to observe some road habits of a Malayalee. An ambulance is given way instantly and even a KSRTC bus does it. This is such a contrast to what happens in Bangalore, specially, when an ambulance is just another vehilce trying to push its way. People cross the roads through cleanly marked pedestrian crossways which never happens anywhere outside Kerala. You very rarely see people squatting to ease by the roadside which is very different from the "pee"ple in other parts who use the road sides as loo's. The roadsigns on the highways are very adequate and also written in English. Despite all this, Kerala roads could turn out to be the least motarable ones when its gets shut down by "bandhs" and "hartals" which are announced in a flash and far too often.
There is no better place in India than Kerala for a traveller when it comes to roadside food. Most roadside restaurants serve tasty food in hygenic conditions and at very reasonable rates. They serve boiled warm drinking water. Tipping is not possible as you are required to settle your bill directly at the cash counter where one has direct access to the owner of the place, if you wish to pay a compliment or otherwise. And yet, you could be at the receiving end if you dare to ask for a spoon to eat as that would mean challenging the culture.
Temples, mosques and churches line the roadsides at such regularity that it made one of my friends to make a "north-Indianish" assumption that this is why Kerala was called "God's Own Country". You will find posters of Abdul Madani, now cooling his heels in a jail in Bangalore, proclaiming that "WILL BE BACK ONE DAY, LIKE A STORM". The road side tea stalls still have those characters that you see in Srinivasan's movies, who sit on that bench and read out from a Malayalam newspaper. In Malapuram district, two wheelers have their number plates in green, often numbered also in Arabic. "Saree Sellers", "Disco Step Cutters" would directly call out the boards that crown the shops selling sarees and the one that is a barber's shop.
So much has changed and yet so little has been lost in Kerala. As I stood by the banks of Bharatha puzha that was flowing from bank to bank, on the same spot that my father had stood in early 1940's to cross the river to get to Tirur to take a train to Madras where he did his MA Honours in MCC, I was completely at peace, like others who live in Kerala. Kerala is ahead in many ways without being in the rat race. "Roads speak our culture", said a board. Indeed it does, especially in Kerala. Travel by the roads in Kerala, and you can take in the warmth of your motherland!!
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