Rubber & Prejudice or No Bride for Rubber Tappers

June 01,08 | M.R. Subramaniam |Businessline

No Keralite is coming forward to tap rubber these days. Workers from Tamil Nadu are getting jobs in infrastructure projects. Therefore, planters have now turned to getting workers from the North,” says Mr N. Radhakrishnan, President of the Cochin Rubber Merchants Association.
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One reason Keralites not wanting to become tappers is due to a social stigma attached to it and them not able to get brides!

Kerala's future

"Kerala is in a state of flux. Caught between a communist past and capitalist future, between pessimistic melodrama loving older generation and a practical cosmopolitan young generation. A land blessed by nature being destroyed by false pride of its people. The time of this land is yet to come"
- Quote from Parashunaama

Bloody road

The roads of Kerala today are the reflection of the governance- and we are mute witness to the total chaos.

judgement and concept of fairness

a soldier kills and is awarded, not punished for murder. but rewarded. Has the soldier committed murder!!?? technically yes. Has he really committed murder? perhaps not.

not all snuffing out of life is murder. murder, noun 1. the unlawful killing of one human being by another, especially when it is intentional... but communication is not just words it is more complex. not all killings are equal. some have to be rewarded, some have to be punished. that is the law of the society. i am not going to substantiate that.

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location: an electric crematorium in x town. dusk.
"there is a threshold of pain that i could take. beyond that my mind and body gave up. my tolerance was relative. absolutely" - a dead body of abc who was hanged for murder. according to him and some others, wrongfully. according to some others rightfully.

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basic.
survival. of. the. fittest.
physical needs first.
then the well being.
then comes grooming.
then craving for appreciation. (maslow).
then spirituality.

to each of us each stage is relative as well as absolute.

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self. i. me. myself. define it.
self is i.
self is mine.
then there is self which is projected self... the me keeps changing....
eg: my brother. my father. my wife. my nation. my world. my universe. all of which becomes me in different contexts. my brother is me if anyone threatens him, till that point i might have been baying for his blood. my nation is me, i will kill for it when the enemy strikes. survival of 'i' is primal need. But, the needs keeps changing. they are relative.

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location: an air cooled bedroom, close to midnight.
"the definition of me: sub-atomic particle is me. the cosmos is me. me is my community but the outsider: my enemy. mine is my survival. my well being. my grooming. my need for appreciation, my God" - the conscience of a surviving politician who instigated a communal riot.

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judgment is human capacity.
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the 14 year old mother who killed her child and was not punished for murder, the keeper of law looked beyond the law and made a judgement beyond the penal code. a murderer being set free, sounds fair in this context. but a judgment that we face everyday in the society does not always sound fair, eg. the law not applying equally to the civilian murderer and the soldier. sounds unfair?! But then the problem is not with the law. it is with the notion of fairness we are tutored into. in the wild there no mercy. there is another kind of justice. a kind that is beyond our civic understanding. lion kills his cub and sit in the shade and lick clean the last drop of blood from its paws. for many conveniences we are not far from wild. the rule of chances, survival and fate applies to us.
Thus spoke Parashu, there should be law. then there are ones who follow it discreetly. those who bend it without breaking it. That judge who sits under the virtue of words that preach 'truth shall prevail',..even as he orders the house to be seated, knows deep in his heart that justice need not always prevail.

Charitrathinde niram... blackko? reddo? golddo?

In the future, I had started plotting to kill Parashu who in rage had put the axe against my neck threatening to slit my jugular vein, In times before those terrible days, Parashu was my guiding light. These are happy times.

We mostly talked about issues of the land and people. Kerala was the center our universe and malayalees, the chosen people.

Parashu had walked the times, like the vampire of the west, he had been there from the beginning. i asked him how life was then. he told me stories of the ages. stories of insignificant people whom history had no consequence recording. Parashu always called people and individuals insignificant. He had this macro view of events and time, it probably has something to do with the fact that Parashu was always there seeing everything, been there, seen all, done that.

Parashu said, "If i were to talk in the language you understand now, history is the point of view of the historian and a PR exercise of the people who commissioned the venture. It recorded certain words black and certain letters golden and certain sentences blood red. The histories have different tones. indian history recorded by british is of a different tone from indian history recorded by indians. Russian history recorded by Americans, American history recorded by europeans, different hues"

-What is the color of history then?

-True history is colorless, tasteless... it can never be recorded accurately. Because ink always has to have a color.

another earth another time

the earth had 4 moons.
and these moon were made of a different matter and were seen around the earth at around 90 degree distance from the center. the matter that filled them reflected more light which obviously meant that there was no nights. there was only one season. constantly. there was no concept of seasons or nights. there was one type of crop that shed leaves and bore fruits in unpredictable fashion. where a plant that dried up and died there was another which bore fruits. food was always there. so nobody bothered to calculate the months, days, hour, minutes or seconds.

As for time calculation, yeah time was calculated not using the solar or lunar way. Only purpose of recording time was for history reasons. So time became a notion calculated by the lifetime of ancestors. like the time that the milk tooth of king george the tenth fell, referred to a unique point in time that everyone in the country understood. Later when trade began to expand. the reference point in time was no more unique, this lead to a lot of confusion. Amongst tribes and later nations, there was a race to name the times, with their kings and leaders. after many squabbles even more wars and a few world wars which nearly destroying the earth, the leaders of the world decided upon a system where by a body like UN was constituted to amicably name the times. so that trade could progress.

the organization was in greenwich near london. Thus the concept of Kaalpurush or the time man was borrowed from the indian nation. the organization decided that they would nominate a 'time man' whose life would be recorded from the birth to his first procreation and every event would be marked. later as science progressed they discovered complex ways to device means to measure smaller units of the time man's biological clock. thus the unit became smaller. this helped physicists like einstein further the frontiers of science. but the common man was happy with the larger events of the selected time man's life. time of birth, first vacination, time of his first step. his first day at school, his puberty, and procreation, after which he is considered dead. and then his child would becomes new clock. the committee of time creation, in its constitution, took care of all conceivable unfortunate eventualities like the death of the person before procreation or the inability to procreate. Thus the life of time man was kept and published regularly for the entire mankind to see. first through print and then electronically. there were devices that transfered images of time man live on to the wrist pieces.

The people of the nation traded and their lifestyles evolved, but they did not have the stars to help them navigate. instead there was the four moons which they called a moon, b moon, c moon and d moon. they had lesser number of gods. because the natural phenomenon were limited. the mysteries of the deep dark sky was not there. the light always was blinding. so no one dared look beyond. since no one saw no one asked. troubles and war was always there since people were much like they were now. but just that the reasons to people's pain and misery were more innovative.

The wrath

Down the temple road, past the post office, the second shop on the right- painted on the yellow board in red and black, ISD, STD, Local calls.
Balamani collects coins from people who makes calls. Her late father had named her owner- manager of the booth. She was all of 18. On her forehead is sandal wood paste. On the way from home before opening to the shop she visits guruvayoor appan and collects her share of his prasadam. Daily without fail.
Only times she misses out that is on the day of bandhs like the one that happened yesterday. Most shops remain closed. She does not know why there was a bandh yesterday. She complies with all the bandhs the left calling or the right. She loses that day's income from the booth that her father left for the family. But that loss gets washed away by the collective helplessness of her society. She is not much bothered if she is not able to open the shop on that day. She is only too happy. She gets a day off to catch up on her life that she misses out on, laze around, watch television, catch up on some gossip... But the little Krishna in the temple missed her. He is a jealous god. The dark clouds rolled in at noon and it poured down very heavily.

Parashu warned that the parties should be careful about this little guy's wrath for lately they have been testing his patience a bit too much. For if his wrath falls on them they might not see the seat of power ever again.

reason for the unreason- a love letter

All human beings are creative and suckers for stories. A story is an illusion of order. To us humans, stories like dreams have therapeutic value. It numbs our minds and reality takes the back door.

We need reason because we strive to create order and make sense of the chaos around us; in doing so we end up creating more chaos. Ironic isn't it !!.

President Bush had to give a new story to the world to stay in power while catering to his country's needs. So Bush prioritized the problem of the world and decided the most appropriate action to save the world was war "Saddam is a danger to the world.... Weapons of mass destruction etc.." A new story idea, alongside Osama Bin Laden... since post cold war the Commies, Castros story wouldn't have any effect on the public psyche.

Human beings are a bundle of needs and the need 'monster' cant be reasoned with. Needs have to be fulfilled and like energy need cannot be destroyed but only changes its form. The need to justify the need does not kill the need. So why look hard for reasons and justifications.

There are identified needs and unidentified needs. The unidentified needs can be mistaken to be an identified need, in humans this mistake often sets in motion an unconscious repetitive behavior patterns leading to frustration and chaos. like when - need for touch manifesting as love, or smoking filling in for the need of silent introspections.
There is this an example of mistaken need that is particularly lethal and common in our worlds now; the need for unconditional acceptance fulfilled in a family scenario expected in a professional environment. You can only imagine the consequence.

Are the needs not reason enough?

When we try to justify the need we construct stories and then become a central character in it, we look around for villains and victims and drag the people around us and their emotions into our personal universes and created a chaos. It is when a lie is cooked up as a reason to justify the need and lull ourself to believe in the reason to act that i and you, suck the people around us into the self created black hole.

So I shall save the story of reason for my love for you. There is only a need, identified or unidentified. I Love You.

Title- Freudian sleep. with narration. without sub-titles. dur: 60 sec

Day/interior. Fade in from black. Sometimes there is a dream that looks so real as though it happened. Subject is in focus and the misc-en-scene radial blurred. Then when the dream moves and you can smell the musty smell of the dream and sweat. In the montage of unrelated shots and overlapping sounds, you can hear the creek of the bed and see the shut windows and zero watt bulb. You can hear someone in the other room and feel the dream's red oxide floor. You do not fall. You are woken up.

Night/exterior. Sometimes there is reality that feels so dreamy as though it never happened. The star lit sky and the full-moon and salty smell, the creaking sound of anchored boats and feel of sand. The narration is about a trip from Howrah country to a Mumbai beach side house. The background score is missing, the co-actor along side you is missing, a can of memory is missing and you are looking around. You climb the spiral stairs and see reality and you begin to realise the mercy of the Goddess. She makes you believe that you are dreaming. Right there you close your eyes and go to sleep. Fade to black.

And thus Parashu was enlightened

The news spread like a 'camel' ink blot- sisters have begun a hunt...

Back in the dorm, he is applying 'cuticura' power on the mark on his forehead, It is changing color, from a darker shade of his light brown skin to a shade of pink and now it is becoming maroon and eventually it would become a mark on his forehead like a small pox scar and there remain for the rest of his life. His blessing and his 'third-eye'.

It was an hour back that Matthew Kurian, the senior from 2nd standard gathered 9 first standard boys and cramped them into one of the small toilets of the hostel. Matthew elevated himself by climbing on the upturned bucket over the indian closet to be seen and heard clearly. He was a towering 5 footer, as the 3 foot somethings looked up and listened with open mouths, he began instructing" With your thumb rub the middle of your forehead, up and down, a hundred and one times, chant the name of siva and you will get a vision of the lord" Matthew starts to count "1, 2, 3, 4, ...99, 100,101." and when the chorus of counting and chanting stopped, nothing had happened.

For next minute there was silence. The boys looked at each other. Everyone looked blank. Little Parashu's protest broke the silence "where is siva?". Matthew didnt have an answer. Murmuring the murmur of disappointment the group dispersed. It was Sivaratri of 1981, junior hostel of Sarvodaya Vidhyalaya, Trivandrum.

The warden sister came to know of the incident and a hunt began for the boys with mark of the third-eye. Those who were caught were caned, amongst them was Matthew. Fortunately, Parashu was not caught. That was the first night Parashu had the vision of the Lord in full glory on top of icy kailasam, parvati was beaming alongside. The serpents seemed excited to see Parashu and winked at him. That wink contained knowledge of life.

Eventually Parashu learned the art of visiting the divine by feeling his 'third-eye' scar. He met them again on every public holiday, sometimes siva would not be around, but parvati was always home. She was nice to him.

Since his hostel days, Parashu has been visited by many other Gods and Goddesses of his times with the help of his 'third eye' scar. Each encounter making Parashu more enlightened.

song of a confirmist- ver. 1.2

media. history. constitution. communication. geography.
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my society has its own little software encoder and decoder
and a social consciousness of social rights and wrongs.
they record it on white pages, printed in black and white
and taught me and you about our's and their's
and all the societies write their own laws and protocols
their imaginary lands and lines.

now can we have a right society or a wrong society
or
is it even required to have a knowledge of what is right. what is wrong.

song of a confirmist- ver. 1.1

eye. nose. ear. tongue. skin.
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each one of us have our own little encoding and decoding softwares in our little heads
we all are wearing distortion lenses in front of our eyes and other senses
and we all judge our own rights and our own wrongs.
so so conveniently.
i do that all the time.
do you know someone who does not.

now can we have a right view of clear and real
or
is it even required to have a knowledge of what is clear. what is real.

song of a confirmist- ver. 1.0

Sight. Smell. Sound. Taste. Touch.
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My senses are open to stimuli. by millions every day.
Receive signals, decode them.
Encode and memorize or encode, memorize and respond.
This memory is used to decode future stimuli.
There is a software in my head that encode experiences
and creates responses.
all this when i thought that i was in control

can we have a right view of reality
or
is it even required to have a knowledge of what is real. what is right.

advertising in kerala. prt-2

Word of mouth rules in Kerala. Advertising in the way the rest of the world thinks is paralyzed in Kerala. The uncrowned kings of kerala advertising: the real people who have helped shape the identity of kerala as the best test market in india. Please welcome into our midst Saboo Coloniaa, Gayatri and Rehman and their predecessors- the film poster designer.

They design poster that foil warp kerala. Over the years their posters helped shape the mallu's dismissive attitude towards advertising and publicity. Flop film posters consistently claim superhit status, numbing the senses and trust of the market. “ You cant trust these printed words “, says madhu- who sells among other things lolly-pops from his rickety pavement shop near chittor road in Cochin. He had over heard our plans for the matinee show of ‘taskaraveeran’ , the just released mammooty flick . The poster is screaming ‘SUPERHIT’ in the fifth colour. These posters are mostly final struggle of a sinking producer trying to keep nose above the waters. (These guys are overlooked by watchdogs that are on the look out for false claims in publicity materials.)

These people are not seen in the award functions or the seminars of Cochin advertising club- the official union of the advertisers. Rahman or Saboo or Gayatri have no clue about the theories of advertising. These guys follow their gut. They have their protocol, their set of rules and process. Family posters- to woo the family audience, title poster to announce, action posters mend to curdle the young’s blood, ‘glamour posters’ with the mandatory ‘A’, ‘the class posters’ done in white space… these rules have set the ground rule for advertising in Kerala. Any one at Cochin Ad Club listening!

Coming soon- IMAGES that set the rules.

advertising in kerala. prt-1

Did you know that? Kerala is considered to be best product test market in India. That is the reason why many products are launched here before the high decibel nationwide commercial launch. The legend goes that if the product clears in the litmus test in the kerala market, it will succeed any where in india. The critical ‘force’ of Keralites is not entirely useless!.

But finally when commercials are made for a nationwide launch, kerala is not considered an important market worthy of a tv commericial with its regional sensiblities. So they dub the north Indian sensiblity into Malayalam often ends up being not understood in the most literate state.

I am told if there is enough budget, then a single commercial is made of the consolidated southern states mostly taking into consideration the tamil/ telugu/ kannada cultural backdrop. They know that kerala is a totally different cultural consciousness, but it is not considered a worthy enough market to spend precious tv commercial budget on!! We should not be fighting about cultural endangerment posed by globalization when ‘Hindisation’ of Malayalam is happening through advertising and films. I shall talk about fear of the ‘inevitable’ globalization in another post.

The Mumbai advertisers fears are not entirely baseless. When greeted with a commercial the ‘who are you trying to fool’ sense is triggered in the mallu brains.
Since the ad filmmaking community is virtually non-existent in kerala the blame of nuking 2 generation of malayalees trust on advertising falls on the print campaigns. The agencies in kerala have being bombarding the mallu brains with functional advertising with false promises and claims. Image advertising/ branding is non-existent.

Kerala is a word of mouth market. The Malayalam film industry will vouch that claim.

To be continued….

art for art sake/ word count 175

This is a blank post. I have already written nine words. By the time I would have written whatever this article turns out to be it would be irrelevant and 'nine words' would then seem stupid. The page then would no longer be blank for I have written by now fifty words already. I think have succeeded in writing out a post and filled out a blank page for which I am happy. But I have not said a word. The page is still blank and the word count zero. For real, have i said something, Parashu? I have said nothing!

In desperation to communicate, we in the media fill out blank pages. And keep word count in the name of art. If the audience does not understand, what is the point? Would it not have been better to leave the page blank, than scribble gibberish?

I turned to Parashu and asked him, ‘given a choice between gibberish and a blank page what would you choose?’
Parashu replied ‘ gibberish, any day'.

I kept quiet for 2 weeks.

a theory of evolution, monsoon etc...

A group of apes that ate magic mushrooms began to think differently, their perception evolved, abstraction became a faculty of their mind, they created music, they began painting. They evolved and became human beings.

"What do you think?" I asked
"Possible" replied Parashu. Parashu was busy reading the mind of a girl who thought she was committing harakiri. I left him alone.

I could already smell the monsoon in the air. The spirit of my ancestors within me rejoiced. My genes react to the smell of rain. Today is 30 th of May. Yesterday, It had rained in Kochi i believe it is part of Kerala. Man always is trying to predict God's next move, but God is happily playing in the puddle.


trivia:
What is the difference between genius and stupidity?
Genius has limits- Albert Einstein

Silence on mount kailash

Gowri Chandrashekar a.k.a Jomol better known to malayalam film watchers as Janaki kutty called a press conference where she alleged her parents of having cheated her off her 'cash'. It was not shocking since it looked like a rerun of incidents that unfolded after 17 october 2004.

At a facilitation ceremony during a public function held at Cochin, Meera Jasmin cried. The bad blood between her and her parents was material for prime time TV news. TRP rating hit new highs, Kerala discussed Meera into the night onto the pillow.

Next morning stale headlines in the leading newspapers - photo of the crying star, the glycerin free tears flowing down her famous cheeks. It had one generation shell shocked and the other found expression.

The stereotype of the suffering parent watched shell shocked, they had witnessed the birth of a retribution- The tyrant parent and the suffering children. One whole generation's muted scream had found voice.

Now a few old question will be re-examined 'Why are old being pushed into old age homes?' Magazines will re-analyse. Stories on the subject will have new twists.

"Hope that this will not become a new vocabulary for justification of cruelty towards parents"- said Parashu.

A report during that week in the inside pages of Cochin edition of newspapers went largely unnoticed, a father had hacked his only son to death as he threatened to kill him and his wife.

A couple sat silently atop a mountain as their rather cute elephant like son, circumambulated them. Today there was silence.

Propagating equality of sexes- a blueprint for the media

Parashu defines woman thus-

"Woman is female of the human species. The male is called man. Like in the case of most mammals it is the woman that bears the off springs and nourishes them" . All the differences between a man and a woman begins and ends with reproduction function, in all other ways they are similar, or to phrase it in a politically correct manner- they are 'equal'.
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The real position of equality of the sexes therefore rests on one factor - impact of reproduction function on the the physical, psychological and spiritual aspects of man and woman. Assuming that a human being is body, mind and soul.
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Victimization. "The weak is victimized by the strong".
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When we in the media propagate the issue of victimization there is an implication of assumed weakness of the victim. When we pump the messages of woman as a victim, the task of reinstating woman to her rightfully equal status becomes very difficult.
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In case of Regina (of Kunjalikutty fame) media not only lost an opportunity to shred the popular stereotypical victimized woman mould instead they twisted the truth to play to the gallery for monetary gains. After all in this case she was not the prey, she was the hunter. Showing the reality of Kunjalikutty being the victim would have been a step in the right direction towards portrayal of woman as the one who victimized the 'lost to lust' man.

Parashu says to us in the media, 'Nevermind there is always a next time'

meals ready

Once on a lone trek to the himalayas i met a person who owned a lodge on top of the mountain. He invited me over to his house for dinner. Amongst other things this man in his late 20s told me that the luc besson film 'the 5th element' was his concept. We talked some pseudo philosophy. I forgot all the gyans he spoke that night but for one. He asked me if i knew the mother of all philosophies. He elaborated animatedly waving his four fingered left hand "food is the greatest philosophy in the world, when the stomach is full there can be great thoughts and philosophizing"

Food in Kerala is probably the cheapest in the world. Saying that no person in this land will ever go hungry, would be an understatement. Rephrase it appropriately- no person in this land will have less than full stomach. True. Courtesy the serving traditions in the hotels in Kerala. A second serving of rice, or the side dishes is not charged. And if you are ordering 'parotta' which could cost you as low as Rs. 2 to 4, gravy comes free. (the system popularly known as 'parotta and paint'). This is similar to the buffet arrangements in star hotels. Pay a huge sum and eat and choke yourself with food. Only here you pay a pittance to fill full-tank. God forbid, if at any point "The hotel-owner's Association of Kerala" decides to change some daily buffet rules, Some folks would understand that work is worship and respect the costumer.