Tag Archives: trivandrum

Cheralam to Keralam to Ketta-idam – A Report on ‘Development’ from Trivandrum, Kerala: Sriranjini R

This is a guest post by Sriranjini R.

Cheralam Sriranjani

ISIS in Syria, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Taliban in Pakistan, Boko Haram in Nigeria, ecological problems, climate change … the list of the world’s ‘security’ problems seems endless. India has its own share of course – the India-Pakistan conflict, India-China problems, Maoism and so on. In Kerala, police have been desperate to find ‘security threats’ of their own. They first tried hunting down a ‘druglord’ whose picture was found on T-shirts of young people suspected of drug use. His name is Bob Marley. Please give the man up if you find him anywhere. Then they tried looking for Maoists. Every state has some, how come we have so few, was their complaint. After going after thin, dark-skinned, bearded fellows, Kiss of Love activists, and sundry others, hoping that one of these will be a Maoist, finally they caught one. And he didn’t look like any threat to most Malayalis.

Continue reading Cheralam to Keralam to Ketta-idam – A Report on ‘Development’ from Trivandrum, Kerala: Sriranjini R

Have the Gods Fled Their Own Country? Mohan Rao

Guest Post by MOHAN RAO

kathakali-performance-in-stree-vesham-in-mumbai

I returned a few days ago after four wonderful days in Trivandrum – having gone back there after some thirty years. Looking over Trivandrum from my seventh floor hotel room was a wondrous sight for sore eyes, a thick lush greenness everywhere. Hardly any high rises, an occasional mosque, temple or church rising above the green.

Going for a walk the next morning, around the medical college area, it was vastly reassuring to still see some old bungalows, and a number of ugly new ones of course. But not that many apartment blocks. Unlike Bangalore, the ones that have come up are not named Malibu Towers or Sacramento, but Revi Apartments.

Yes, it was wondrous to see Lakshmi still spelt Lekshmi and Ramya, Remya. Continue reading Have the Gods Fled Their Own Country? Mohan Rao