Category: Kerala

‘Your Moment is Waiting’

The new Kerala Tourism advt is the talk of the web now. The new video, created for an international tourism campaign, is exotic and sensuous. The whole presentation is different from the traditional ads about Kerala. The overused and cliched imagery of Kathakali is presented in a different way. And that same scene highlights the new strategy of Kerala Tousism of promoting rural tourism. Theyyam is featured and that scene is just amazing! The backwater scene sends out a message of finding oneself within the beauty of Kerala. The well-being element of Ayurveda is promptly highlighted. The grove scene is yet another breath-taking shot. Then it concludes beautifully with the final scene of wildlife with an Asian elephant.

I am not sure what is Kerala Tourism targeting with this advt though. If they are after the people in the west who have a mystical passion about Africa and want to get them here, I think they will succeed. This advertisement video, being as sensual and exotic it is, establishes itself as an alternative destination to Africa (is that why there are too many African elements in this movie including the music?). One thing I don’t understand is why they had to bring in a Senagalese singer to lend voice to this video that markets Kerala. They should have included some Kerala elements in the music. And the first scene doesn’t convey anything about the movie (Is that eerily looking human figure a ghost, an old man with a walking stick or a fisherman?). Okay, we know the place is Thekkady but since this is an international ad, I don’t think anybody would understand what this is about in the beginning scene of the video. Except for these couple of points, I loved this fresh new approach.

Shot at Thekkady, Munnar, Thalassery and Kannur in 11 days, this video is directed by Prakash Varma (of Vodafone Zoo-Zoo fame) and is produced by Stark Communications.

Mohanlal as a typical Malayali

The only thing you need to do to understand how Mohan Lal represents a typical Malayali is to simply look at the brands or industries he endorse through advertisements. Here is a reference. Have a look. 🙂

1) At first, Mohan Lal asks us to buy gold from Malabar Gold, saying that we need an ‘eternal golden touch‘ to our precious moments in life. This represents the common Malayali obsession for gold.

2) Then he goes on to ask “why keep gold in your house when you can cash it?” and advises to take gold loans from Manappuram Gold Loan. That’s what a typical ordinary Malayali does. Spend so much on luxuries and when he goes out of cash, get his wife’s/kid’s gold ornaments to take gold loan to spend it for further luxuries.

3) When gold and money go away, Mohan Lal asks us “what’s up this evening?” and gets us to drink Original Choice to forget everything. A typical Malayali finds solace (or gives that as a reason or his drinking habit) in liquor.

There is only one more advt that Mohan Lal needs to do to complete this Malayali representation. An agarbathi ad. He could just show the ‘son’ in the Manappuram Gold Loan ad being not able to take his gold back and runs out of cash by paying interest and decides to hang himself. When the ‘son’s’ dead body is laid down the agarbathi could be shown next to the deadbody with a tagline “everybody has got a reason to pray“!

Happy Onam! And an Onam song

So here comes another Onam! A time for all Malayalees to come home and celebrate the togetherness with family and friends, the colorful Pookkalams and yummy Sadyas. Here I wish all my Malayalee friends a happy and prosperous Onam. Let us not forget the inspiring myth behind this festival – of everyone in the place being happy and prosperous, of everyone being just and fair to each other.

ഓണാശംസകള്‍!

I chose this song because of the Onam spirit that this song has, right from the beginning of the song with “aaRppO… EeRRO!”, poo viLi and the rhythm of a boat song. I should thank my friend Sujay who first brought this song to my notice when we had to choose a song for the Onam competition in our office and then to Vishnu for providing me the track. The track is made of some loops and gets faster at places and I had to make do with it.

Album: Poothaalam
Composer: Kannan
Lyricist: Chitoor Gopi
Singer: M G Sreekumar

Download MP3 of “Vannallo Ponnonam” (4.25 MB)

“Harisree” from Mashithantu

The good folks at Mashithantu.com have come up with a new initiative after their successful ventures of online Malayalam-English dictionary and Malayalam crosswords. The new project is called “Harisree” and their tag-line is “ente bhaasha, adutha thalamurayilekku” (meaning, “My language, to the next generation”). The website teaches you how to write Malayalam. You can just pick up a letter in Malayalam and see how it is written, with the direction points. And when you have chosen a letter, it will show up words that starts with the letter with pictures to demonstrate/represent what the word actually means. If you click on the “Pronounce” button, you can also hear how each letter and the related words are pronounced. And then there is a drawing pad using which you can try writing the letter or word.

I think this is a very useful software especially when you teach children of the now or next generation. And it has some very cool features like I explained above. My congratulations to Joju John and his friends who have worked behind this software. Great job folks! Looking forward to what you have next in line. 🙂

Click here to visit Harisree.



Disguised as democracy

In my post about Prof. Joseph’s hand-chopping incident, I had written about the intrusion of religious elements into the liberal, democratic and political spheres of Kerala in disguise. I think this is more dangerous than the Hindutva politics because Hindutva politics is there on the surface for everybody to see. Hindutvavaadis thrive on anti-minority sentiments and extreme Hindu-nationalist views, and everybody knows that. Hindutavavaadis never hesitate to boast upon their beliefs (except for the grooming campaigns of Narendra Modi these days), but on the other side, the hard-core Islamists chose to play different. When they learned that terrorism and an extreme Islamist movement is a growing concern in the public, they put on the mask of liberal activism and tried to play more left than the Left. While the Left in Kerala has left itself to be rotten, there was an empty space in the field of activism that was available for others to occupy. And the Islamists were quick to fill in that space. It is said that ‘even the BJP is Leftist in Kerala’. So the best way to get public acceptance was obvious – be more left than the Leftists.

The first step in that direction was taken long back – starting with media. A prominent Malayalam weekly and news daily is owned by such a group. They invited the prominent figures in the socio-political-liberal sphere to write for them and made a mark. Then came their student/youth organizations. They started campaigns and agitations on several issues – Capitalism, Globalization, Bourgeoisie, Western Imperialism, Environment, Development, Human Rights etc. When they shouted slogans against America and Israel, their tones were sharper than the Communists. When they talked about freedom of speech for M F Hussain, they kept mum on the threats and Fatwas issued to Taslima Nasreen. When they talked about Imperialism and Human Rights, they never talked about the Islamic imperialist countries and the grave human rights violation in those countries.

When Madani was released from jail, he also played the same political card. Madani was smart. He saw the possiblity of a wider political spectrum and thus included “Dalits” in his come back. The term “Dalit” had already become a fine selling point of all political parties by then. Madani also banked upon the same “anti-imperialistic” politics of the other Islamist organizations.

But people failed to notice it or chose to ignore. And our socio-political leaders kept taking part in their meetings and that image has been used to boast upon their public acceptance. And now the final step – Jamaat-e-Islami is forming a political party in Kerala. And what is their declared obective? Their Wiki page says, “Establishment of (Islamic) way of life in all aspects of life“. And their core doctrine? “the Divine Being is solely Allah, there being no God except Him, and that Muhammad is Allah’s messenger“. Tell me how it is different from the dream of a Hindu nation proposed by the Sangh Parivar.

Now we have a number of such “political parties” and “activist organizations” in our public sphere. And the news of bombs and detonators being placed in the public spaces and people being hacked in the name of religion is increasing day by day. Even though some of the socio-political leaders and intellectuals have turned a blind-eye towards such developments, the consolation is that there are people like Hameed Chennamangaloor who have been voicing against these groups openly since a very long time. And publications like Mathrubhumi weekly having open debates about this as cover stories. But that is not enough. People have to stand up and say, we don’t want an Islamic or Chrsitian version of BJP or Sangh Parivar. We don’t want religion in our political space. We don’t want that one God or multiple Gods and their doctrines to rule us, instead the secular ethos envisioned by the founding fathers of this country. We want to keep our democracy in place, how much shortcomings and failures it has.

Lessons from the questions

The news of a Malayalam professor whose hands have been cut off by a group of Muslim extremists is the talk of Kerala these days. Professor Joseph’s right palm was cut off by a gang of six people while he was returning home from Church on a Sunday. Two Popular Front activists have been arrested in connection with this incident. Popular Front, of which the accused are members of,  is alleged to have links to Islamic terrorist organizations like Lashkar-e-Taiba and SIMI (Student Islamic Movement of India) as is read from their Wiki page.

The incident has to be condemned and the culprits should be brought to justice, as we cannot excuse any form of terrorism or extremism, regardless of which community it comes from – the majority or minority. But there are a couple of issues attached to this incident.

The problem arose when Mr. Joseph, a professor of Malayalam in Newman College Thodupuzha, included a narrative in a question paper that he prepared for the students of the college. The narrative was from an article written by film maker/politician P T Kunjumuhammed. Kunjumuhammed had written about the script that he wrote for his award winning movie “Garshom”. He wrote that the scene in which the protagonist of his film talks to God was inspired by a lunatic in his hometown. So the lunatic would call God and God would respond “what is it, you son of a dog“? (I am unsure that “Son of a dog” interprets it’s Malayalam usage “Naayinte mone” well though). The question that came with the narrative was to supply the punctuation.

P T Kunjumuhammed’s article:

Kunjumuhammed's article

The controversial part of the question paper:

Courtesy: Mathrubhumi.com

Prof. Joseph took the passage and instead of leaving the lunatic nameless (as in the original passage) he added a name (which he did not have to do) and the name he chose was Muhammed (which also he did not have to do as there are many other common Muslim names if he had to give one). This was really unnecessary for Prof Joseph to include such a twisted version in the question paper. When this became a controversy, the college management and Church apologized for having to hurt the Muslim sentiments and they suspended Joseph when the question paper became a controversy which was a rightful thing to do.

But this gruesome act of extremists leads us to another thing – how a group of radical Islamists have begun to unleash their terror openly in the Kerala society. They are in large numbers and comes in different names. They have infiltrated into the liberal, democratic and political spheres in disguise. And if they are not stopped now, Kerala will soon become an Islamist playground. The under current is already on.

The Malayali Factor

Today’s is a guest post from a friend, Sally Varma. Please post your thoughts in the comments section.

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On May 22, 2010, Saturday morning, an Air India Express plane from Dubai overshot the table-top runway at the Mangalore airport and plunged over a cliff into a wooded valley, killing 158 persons. There were 160 passengers and six crew members on board Flight IX-812. The passengers included 137 adults, 19 children and 4 infants. Eight passengers survived miraculously.

The whole of India was shocked with the news. I was at home watching TV and was going through the different news channels showing the news of the crash. I went through all the regional news channels first and was shocked to find a harrowing truth. All the Malayalam news channels only cared about the Malayalees in the flight. Among the 160 passengers in the plane, the only reports that were being shown was about the Malayalees who were in the plane. The newsreader kept repeating the same news of the number of Malayalees on board, the number of Malayalees killed, the number of Malayalees who escaped etc… It is a sad state that we live in where such bias takes place. Is this not a tragedy for India as a whole or is it in the viewpoint of all these Malayali channel’s ‘just a tragedy for Kerala’? What about the other people and their families, the non-Malayalees on that ill-fated flight? Don’t they too deserve the same prayers as the Malayalees?

I then switched channels and went to the Tamil news channels, which were faithfully showing the news of the crash with no partiality or bias towards only the Tamilian people on board. Also channels like CNN-IBN, Times Now, NDTV 24×7, were all showing religious coverage of the crash.

So, I think this shows the Malayali attitude of selfishness and regional chauvinism. And to think that all these channels and papers were criticizing Bal Thackeray for his comments on Sachin.  Bal Thackeray had slammed master blaster Sachin Tendulkar for his statement that he is an Indian first and then a Maharashtrian. If these Malayali channels can do this sort of bias while reporting news of a national tragedy like the Air India plane crash, then I think the comment from Bal Thackeray also can be justified.

It is high time that the Malayali media stop promoting such regional sensationalism and start to consider everyone as equal human beings.

In memory of the 158 HUMAN BEINGS who were killed in the Air India plane crash of October 22, 2010. May their souls rest in peace.

Thilakan and “The Gangs of New Kerala”

What goes on in the Malayalam movie industry these days make the movie lovers quite sad. The current state of the Malayalam movies is quite pathetic. We have only a couple of hits each year and rest of them bombs in the box office. The state of the cinema theaters is also pathetic that one wouldn’t take the pain of going to a theater to watch a movie and would rather watch it at his own home. With the arrival of big LCD screens, Dolby home theater sound systems and DVD/Blue-Ray discs, watching a movie at home is much much more comfortable than watching it in a theater. As a result, many theaters are closing down rapidly.

But who cares? There is absolutely no effective discussions going on about a rescue plan. The people in the industry are busy making crappy movies and the competition is so high in this field that we get crappy, crappier and crappiest movies – one after one. Then there are these organizations (AMMA, MACTA, FEFKA and all those funny names) which functions like gangs and we see their gang wars quite often. And it is cinema that dies in this war.

The whole incident of Thilakan being an outcast from Malayalam cinema has proved that there is no hope for any improvement in the near future. Thilakan had accused AMMA (Association of Malayalam Movie Artists) of not allowing him to work in the movies and he pointed fingers at the superstars (Mammootty and Mohan Lal) in particular. What followed was a series of cheap stunts.

Director B Unnikrishnan, general secretary of Film Employees Federation of Kerala (FEFKA), said that the actor in Thilakan has died. But Thilakan has some great performing moments of Malayalam cinema (or rather Indian or world cinema) to his credit and we all know what kind of movies B Unnikrishnan has directed. Unnikrishnan also said that he would resign from his general secretary position if Thilakan could prove that FEFKA banned Thilakan from acting in films. Incidentally, the same FEFKA has threatened to pull out all technicians from the movie “Dam 999” if Thilakan was cast and the producers threw Thilakan out of the project. And as far as we know B Unnikrishnan still holds on to his position.

The above incident proves that there is some truth in what Thilakan says. He also lashed out at the Super Star fans and I whole heartedly agree with him on the fan-hood. The fan associations work like thugs, threatening people if they boo in cinema halls (and they themselves send booing teams when their enemy star’s cinema is released) and they also threaten people who leave after intervals when they are fed up of watching crap movies, and now the fans of Mohan Lal and Mammootty have united against Thilakan. Kerala now see that the rivals joining hands to fight a lone, old man.

Thilakan undeniably is a great actor. The truth is that if there is Thilakan acting in a super-star movie, he outshines the super stars with his acting prowess; however small his role is in the movie. So there are good reasons to believe what Thilakan says about the popularity-hungry, fan-fed Superstars working on denying him chances. Take a couple of superstar movies for example. “Kireedam“, an award winning movie where Mohan Lal and Thilakan played father and son, had both Mohan Lal and Thilakan in an equal performance and for the movie lovers, it was a treat (remember the scene where Thilakan says “kathi thaazheyideraa…“?). Or take Mohan Lal’s commercial hit “Sphadikam“. Thilakan’s Chacko maash was the most powerful character in that movie than Mohan Lal’s Aadu Thoma. Or take Mammootty’s “Kauravar“. It was an outright Thilakan movie, though Mammootty was in the lead role. Or take movies like “Perumthachan“, “Moonnaam Pakkam” etc. I can draw a lot more examples.

But he had very little support from industry, probably because nobody wants to question the “kings” and destroy their own career. Sukumar Azheekode came in support of Thilakan but he only added more garbage to the already stinking mess. Thilakan had claimed that he is a staunch Communist, but the party kept mum on the whole matter. It is understandable particularly when Mammootty is the chairman of party-owned Kairali TV. So the party did not back the ‘lesser Communist’ when they have ‘elite Communists’ in their fold. But renowned director Shaji N Karun came in support of Thilakan. He said, “The organizations have nothing to lose if they ban Thilakan. But the it is the cinema viewers who are going to lose.” He is so right. It is not AMMA, FEFKA or any other organization who is going to lose, but us, the Malayalam movie viewers. And the members of these organizations are busy looting our money and give us crappy movies.

Love Jehad?

Three of my good friends who are Christians married Hindu girls. All three of them were either studying or working together when they first met and fell in love. The girls got converted to Christianity. What do I call this? Love Crusade? I would like to know what Catholic Church has to say about this.

Two of my Hindu friends married Christian girls. The girls got converted to Hinduism at Arya Samaj offices. What do I call this? Love Karseva? I would like to know what Viswa Hindu Parishat has to say about this.

I have mentioned this over and again in many communications that at least in Kerala, those who have to compromise on their religion for a wedding happen to be Women. I have said that this is more of a gender issue because I have never heard of a boy converting to his girl’s religion to get married.

However, when the boy happens to be a Muslim and the girl happens to be a Christian or Hindu, why is it linked to the word Terrorism and an immediate interest in calling it Love Jihad? Why is it that our media even called it an organization without even investigating a little? Why are they remaining silent now that the DGP has submitted a report before the court that there is no such organization and no indication of anything like Love-Jehad? How could the Catholic church shamelessly join hands with VHP in keeping the numbers of the herd intact?

To conclude, an old online acquaintance of mine who happens to be a Muslim married a Christian boy some years back. Both of them have not changed their religions.

What do I call THAT?

What has made DHRM possible?

On September 23rd, a 61 year old ordinary citizen from Varkala went for his usual morning walk and was brutally killed by a group of militants with swords. By evening, the police arrested a member of DHRM (Dalit Human Rights Movement) in connection with this murder, which was followed up by the arrest of 6 others from the same group. The victim had no proven political links and the police stated that this murder was done by DHRM “to get public attention and to prove their strength in ranks“. Police also said that they are inquiring to see if DHRM has any terrorist links.

The obvious reaction of the public to all this was the utmost anger towards such outfits which use the measures of terror to gain publicity. But then I read this article in last week’s India Today (Malayalam edition) about the Varkala incident. I was surprised, because it is not in India Today’s nature to present a view that is contrary to the public opinion and I read that weekly for their local news section in the first couple of pages and then the ‘masala’ section in the last pages. Saritha Balan, a reporter of India Today (Malayalam edition) has written in detail about the backdrop of the murder in Varkala. She says it is important to ask how such an organization like DHRM could influence a majority of the Dalit communities in Ernakulam, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram districts.

Highlights of the India Today report:

  • DHRM stood for the well-being of Dalits as per some of the residents of Dalit colonies
  • Hundreds of families in the Muthaana, Thoduve colonies are living without the basic facilities
  • There is not even one cent of land for one house in Thoduve colony, where there are more than 600 houses
  • A family has to live in a ‘house’ that we can hardly call a ‘room’ by the public measures
  • Even the primary education is luxury here
  • There is not even a radio set for ‘luxury’

DHRM came to the scene in such a situation. As per some of the colony residents, DHRM gave them hope and they taught them to live responsibly. Most of the Dalit men were under the influence of drugs and alcoholism but DHRM conducted study classes for them. Saritha reports that an 8 year old Sandhya told her that DHRM study classes ask the children to study well and look after their parents.

“My husband would drink all day and was a total waster,” 29-year-old Kochumol, a mother of three, says. “He turned a teetotaler after attending DHRM study circles.” Soon, she followed him to these Sunday gatherings where, over five hours, Ambedkar’s life would be recalled and advice given on daily affairs. Cultural shows at the end were a big hit. Despite their meagre earnings as wage labourers — they call themselves ‘coolies’ — everyone would gladly pay Rs 30 for the events. [via]

The India Today report also quotes the colony residents and says that Shivsena activists have been threatening them. We can understand the concern of the political parties here. Communists who have been benefiting from the Dalit communities in Kerala since a very long time would not like another outfit to take the leadership of Dalits and contest in the elections. BJP and Shivsena alike would not like such a Dalit uprising as they have been trying hard to place themselves as the alternate shelter for Dalits in Kerala.

The DHRM has a notable influence among the Dalit community and they have contested elections from Attingal constituency and won 5217 votes in the last parliamentary elections. The question to ask here in this context is, did they (DHRM) have to do such a brutal murder in order to get public attention? They were already popular among the community that they work with and would they go ahead and make such a stupid decision to kill someone and get negative publicity? If it is not the DHRM, then who did that brutal murder? The questions remain unanswered until the final verdict on the case comes out. The DHRM members say that they trust the judiciary like we do and they hope the real culprits would be sent to justice.

Also read:

What is DHRM and why do they kill?
Ambedkar’s Lost Boys?

(Image courtesy: Tehelka)