I am a Malayali

Luckily or unluckily for me, my name doesn’t suggest it. So anyone interacting with me for the first time, might at best guess that I am from the “Madrassi” part of the country, somewhere below the Vindhyas. But from most of my experience, people haven’t been able to figure out a more accurate location of my origins, not before a little deeper and consistent interaction with me or with me saying explicitly that I am a Keralite. I am a Malayali.

Once the cat is out of the bag, I know what is coming. Trust me, I do. I head to a restaurant with someone, and I do not order fish. I am prepared with the answer before the question comes. The question would be a paraphrased version of “Wait, aren’t you a Malayali? Why aren’t you eating fish?” When I order roti or naan instead of rice, I have to clarify again to someone who is doubtful, “I thought Malayalis were completely rice eating folk. My impression was that you eat rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with some coconut based curry.” Earlier on, I used to mouth a polite “No” to most of these questions, but of late I notice I’ve started to get sarcastic on my replies, “Haven’t you noticed I’ve been behaving peculiarly of late?” It is not like my family is a complete aberration of what is “known” as Malayali culture. Hell, no. But there are deviations within every individual, something that needs to be read along less to do with his culture or civilization and more, as an individualistic trait.

I am a big fan of dosas. I have a craving so big for dosas that most places I go, I end up searching for a South Indian restaurant. Okay, I’m letting you on something here. Rest of the country know it as dosa, but for a Keralite, it is dosha. Some of my keener friends have now picked up a talent for picking out someone from coconutty land by keeping their ears open to an uncommon pronounciation of some words, courtesy me. If your father/mother/uncle/aunt/nephew or cousins twice or thrice removed work in the “Gelf”, or keep talking unabated about oil wells and petroleum extraction like it happens in their backyard, you know you’re talking to someone from somewhere close to yours’ truly land.

I’ve had people tell me based on my Hindi that they thought I grew up outside Kerala. Apparently because they expect an accent when a Keralite speaks English or Hindi. I completely agree, I have seen very few Keralites, a very insignificant number in the generations senior to me, who do not sport that accent. One thing I am thankful is, not sounding sexist, for not being a girl. The stereotypes of Malayali girls, come to think of it, notch a grade higher than those associated with men. Be it about braided hair, their default expertise on cooking and a bunch of others which thankfully I am much lesser aware of than my counterparts from the opposite sex.

Don’t mistake me. I’ve been identified (aptly) with a lot of these stereotypes and I probably will continue to be. I’ve enjoyed most of it, and probably will continue to be. Just that after almost a decade of being stereotyped, it is tiring to be explanatory. But as I grow older (read more mature), I feel an increasing need to appreciate my heritage and thus, in the process, probably rectify some stereotypes that have transgressed from the domain of innocent jabs to Facebook memes and northwards. Although I have asked myself if I am trying to alienate myself from what is not uncommon among people from my home state, the answer to that would be no. I am a Keralite by birth and even though Kerala might never possibly be my karmabhoomi, I realize more often than not that I root for my Keralite brethren. Most often, I catch myself instantly interested if I hear someone around me speaking Malayalam when I am out of the state and try to gauge which part of the state they are from based on their accent (Oh yea, in case you didn’t know, you can figure out with a reasonable amount of certainty the region of the state a person belongs to on hearing the way he/she speaks Malayalam). The fact that I am passionate about my state and people speaking my mother tongue, by no stretch of imagination, is supposed to mean that I discriminate against people from outside the state. Totally not, in fact a lot of my friends don’t speak the same language as I do.

Some things are still unspeakably funny. Maybe rather than try and rectify them, I might be better off letting them stand. They have probably stood with my father’s generation, they are standing strong in my generation as well. Why I should I let my posterity not enjoy the humorous twists possible out of them? Like

• It is not skirt my friend. It is called mundu. Yes, that is a popular traditional form of dressing. Of course not, that is totally not a white lungi.
• Yes, we watch Rajinikanth movies. But he speaks Tamil, which is a different language. No, don’t even ask. The scripts are completely different. And every South Indian does as much of Rajinikanth-isms in real life as North Indians would do Salman Khan-isms on their way to work.
• Yes, coconut oil is probably the most widely used medium of cooking. Hell no, that doesn’t mean coconut curries and chutneys three times a day.
• Beef is eaten by Hindus. I might not be accurate with historical facts but I don’t think the reason Hindus eat beef would be that present day Hindus were converted from Christianity and Islamic beliefs.
•  Booze. Aah, the all time favorite. My father says the only thing sober in my town post 6 PM on any day is the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in the town square. But yes, that one you are spot on. Probabilistic analysis says the likelihood of meeting a Mallu who doesn’t booze would be quite slim.
• No my friend, I do not know Kathakali. I enjoy Kathakali as much as Elton John or Pink Floyd would enjoy Carnatic music. Which is to say, probably not much.

Comprende? Hopefully, this video will help reinforce all the stereotypes you and I have about Malayalis!

Planning, the NITI Aayog Way

A disclaimer at the outset. I was born and brought up in the southern Indian state of Kerala, and thus my opinions are in all likelihood, biased and possibly contrarian from what would be the opinion of a significant majority of the populace of India. Also, adding to that. I am claim to be no expert on matters of policy, federal structure of our democracy, micro finance and all those aspects which typically I see go into discussions on this topic. What I intend to put forth is a small aspect of course correction, something I feel would go a long way in recognizing and imbibing the diversity of India as a nation.

National Institution for Transforming India Aayog, popularly known by the pseudonym NITI Aayog, was announced by the Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi as a part of his speech on the Independence Day of India on August 15, 2014. Essentially, it was a revamp of the Planning Commission of India which was instituted by Jawaharlal Nehru who was impressed by a similar body that existed in Joseph Stalin’s USSR. For many, the Planning Commission epitomizes a socialist thought process – one that is often critiqued as weaker to its capitalist brethren. While it remains to be seen whether this turns out to be a case of old wine in a new bottle or this venture does infuse fresh energy into the policy making decisions of the union government, there is one aspect I wish to point out. I am not very familiar with the activities of the Planning Commission of India over the past half century, but if I were to guess, this issue would’ve existed in those days as well. The lack of respect for the diversity and plurality of India.

To illustrate, I wish to take a different, probably a completely tangential analogy. I studied in a Kendriya Vidyalaya, a central government chain of schools, in my home state of Kerala. Geographically Kerala (as with other territories like Tamil Nadu, Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar Islands) is located close to the equator and enjoys a tropical climate throughout the year. There is not much difference in the length of day during summers and winters. Sometime around the year 2000, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan took a decision to bring up the school hours which till then, was from 9 AM to 3.30 PM, by almost two hours. So in effect, this made the school hours from 7.30 AM to around 2 PM. This decision was made to ensure maximum utilization of day hours in winter and to shift the school hours from the peak sunny time of the day in summers. While I actually did like the new school hours, the decision was probably relevant to a large part of northern and western India but did not consider the southern and eastern parts of the country. The point I am trying to make is, while the intention might indeed have been noble, the blanket implementation might not have been well thought off.

As much as we like to propagate the idea of India as a country of diversity, along with the territory of celebration of the diverse nature of our fabric, we must not turn a blind eye to the diversity of problems confronting the various regions of the country. Taking the specific example of my state of Kerala, a myriad of problems she faces are quite different from those faced by a lot of other territories in the Indian Union (Singling out Kerala here because I am more familiar with the state, this analogy could be extrapolated to other states in other fields as well). For instance, the Prime Minister’s dream scheme for comprehensive financial inclusion of the Indian population, the Jan Dhan Yojana does not add much value to Kerala which has, over the past few decades, had significant financial inclusion statistics. A case for the same effect can also be made out for Beti Bachao Beti Padhao scheme, which is aimed at eradicating gender based discrimination against women among other similar objectives. Again, Kerala has been traditionally a state where education across both sexes has historically been very high and not much discrimination exists against women as compared to a lot of other states in the union and hence, this scheme would not be very much relevant when juxtaposed with Kerala’s social indicators. While not going into depth, I would also argue that education and primary healthcare are also sectors where the state is generally considered to be farther ahead of a lot of its North Indian peers, if not all.

I am not trying here to spew propaganda. The point I am trying to put across is an allocation of plans and expenditures according to, not only the population or clout of the state, but also the strengths (and thereby, weaknesses) of the state. There are states that have a significant dependence on agriculture, on industries or natural resources or on services and tertiary sectors. The needs for them are different and more often than not, mutually independent and so should be the allocations. Hopefully, NITI Aayog will do better than Planning Commission which, to me, sometimes seemed to incentivize poor performance of states and victimize better performance of others when deciding on fiscal spending for central government policies.

Post Script: You can find some relevant news information on NITI Aayog here and here.