(With thanks to MsInvisfem for helping to bring this topic to the front of my mind.)
Early this morning, while dressed in his field-work clothes (a dirty lunghi and short-sleeved shirt), Ajeesh introduced me to an old lady who is a friend and neighbour. She wore a dirty, stained and frayed saree and underskirt. Ajeesh asked me if their clothing gave away their caste status. (They're both brahmins but I think they're in different sub-castes.) Of course their clothing said nothing at that moment. (Repeated meetings so I can assess their usual clothing might say more.)
I think the implied lessons are
Brahmins are workers as much as any other caste, except that their duties include religious work on behalf of the other castes.
Members of all castes can be poor farmers.
Dhotis and nice shirts are only worn as office ('white-collar') dress. In all the films I've seen here, the politicians wear pure white dhotis and shirts.)
Also, allegedly, one of Ajeesh's relatives was surprised when Ajeesh told him that we had visited a tribal village and drunk the coffee they offered us. I'm told that this relative feared the tribals' food and crockery would be unhygienic and unsafe and allegedly opined that the tribals are a bit less than human. Well it appears to have had no bad effects on either of us (and you know I've received doses of Mughal's revenge from restaurants in tourist areas that should do much better). Also, as far as I could see the houses were clean, just terribly overcrowded and smoky because they didn't have chimneys. (I don't like to think about the respiratory diseases this might cause.)
Ajeesh implied that the tribal people are outwith the main priest-warrior-merchant-farmer caste system* and disparaged his relative's opinion. He wholeheartedly agreed with my opinion that they're humans, just like the rest of us, and as welcoming as any other Keralan I've met.
*He says that roman catholicism, orthodoxy and protestantism are 'castes' of christianity.
Later this morning I was introduced to Ajeesh's uncle, who apparently also arranged Jaya's wedding or at least introduced Rajesh as a potential husband. I was told he has a suitable match for me. I get rather tired of going through the reasons why I'm not interested and of having to appear grateful for this extremely unwanted favour.
I've often failed to charge my camera batteries sufficiently, leading to quite a few missed photo-opportunities. Today I learned one possible cause: India's domestic supply voltage is nominally 230 volts. However Ajeesh's area receives 30 to 40 volts. Ajeesh's family have a step-up transformer but it moans from time to time so is far from a perfect answer. To be honest, I'm amazed that electricity cables have been laid at all, considering the state of the roads to the house.
As you might guess from this over-long page, today I was back in Kattappana to blog (hey, they have the luxury of ISDN here!), research tickets and make contact with the outside world. It's ages since I've seen an english-language newspaper or seen more than a snippet of english TV news so I have almost no idea what's happening outside of this corner of Kerala.
I was on the bus by 9.15am: I can hear former colleagues gasping that I might be awake by this time. before this, Jaya served khardum chaya and banana- and jackfruit-chips. I wanted to bring home some jackfruit seeds and banana seedlings: I've never seen in the UK the 3-inch sweet and delicious bananas that are so common here. Nor have I seen the big red bananas that are made into bananas bhajis. I really miss these and Jaya's jackfruit-seed curry. She told me she'd like to come to the UK and start a restaurant there. I could be her accountant, she said.
A word or two about the local buses: they usually have two doors on the left side. Running from just above them are strings that lead to a bell near the driver. The conductors use this system to tell the driver to stop, start or that it's safe to reverse. (There are two three-point turns on the Kattappana-Nedumkandam route.) Where the strings are absent, they slap on the inside walls of the bus or shout 'va va va!' (for 'go, go, go!').
The windows have no glass but have rubber-backed metal concertina-style shutters held out of the way by metal gates. Pressing up on the base of the shutter allows the gates to spring out of the way and the shutters to fall closed.
Tickets appear to be of two sorts:
I've also seen both systems in Goa and occasionally had journeys where I received ticket at all. Yes I did pay!
In each town bigger than 20 or so buildings, I've seen at least one 'digital studio', usually offering photographic and/or videographic services and occasionally offering internet facilities. However, most cybercafs are stuck with Windows 98: it's relative a treat to find Windows 2K or XP. I've not seen a hint of Apple stuff apart from a closed AppleStore in Pune. I miss my Pismo so much it's not funny!
Yesterday I spelled out the options to the travel agent:
He asked me which option I preferred: I said I would prefer the cheapest overall way to get to Sumatra but that I'd decide when I'd seen the prices of all of these options so I wanted prices and availability for all of them. Today he gave me a price for the Calcutta-Singapore-Calcutta option only because that was my preferred (i.e. the cheapest) option. Gaaaah!
I didn't have time yesterday to do any research myself because I was in a hurry to get back to Nedumkandam and on to a 'social work' function.
Here's why I respect Ajeesh, his family and friends so much: you already know about their situation. Yet they take time and trouble to support people who are even worse off than themselves. Yet again Kerala has reduced me to speechless tears.
Rural poverty here and in other parts of India can be roughly assessed by the number of debt-related suicides amongst farmers. It's a topic that bubbles under the headlines and occasionally surfaces onto the front page. Local banks have been encouraged to write off loans but I have no idea if this is yet making any difference.
To make things even worse, corruption appears to be a big issue. As you may have read in earlier entries, Ajeesh needed to find Rs200,000 for Jaya's dowry. He told me that he couldn't borrow this from a regular bank because they only give business loans so has to go to a private bank. (I think it's the Idukki Co-operative Bank.) However, to get his loan application approved, he had to bribe certain officials with around Rs10,000. This 5 percent 'rate' is apparently half the usual rate.
The officials were, allegedly, gram(a) panchayat(h)* councillors who are also somehow in charge of the bank. No bribe was mentioned when Ajeesh saw the actual bank staff but the need for (and amount of) a bribe was made clear in a separate meeting.
*I've seen several variations of the spelling of this phrase. Later on I learnt the corruption went higher - the chief bribe-taker was an MLA (a member of Kerala's state government).
I offered to accompany Ajeesh to future meetings and record proceedings on my camera and/or mp3 player, then demonstrate these recordings and my NUJ membership to the bribe-takers. I hoped either to get them to drop this request for a bribe or (preferably) expose them completely and get them out of office.
Ajeesh was doubtful about this: the request has already been made so why would a further meeting be needed? (I then thought I coul record and photograph the hand-over and stop the process at this stage.) Also, he was afraid that he'd just end up being 'black-balled' in this area and so have to move somewhere else where he doesn't have his network of friends and relatives.
Personally, I was and still am furious that this state of affairs appears to be normal practice. My fury is exacerbated by hearing that the officials who have demanded the bribe are members of a communist party! Well it's a sure way to annoy people enough that a second bolshevik revolution can't be far away. In fact it's already going on: google for 'naxalites' and see for yourself.
(I'd like to place on record my huge thanks to the people in the UK who responded to my original blog entry. I don't criticise anyone else because I know you all have your own lives to lead.)
I may have mentioned that Ajeesh, Shaji and DS (and maybe others) planned to miss a meal each week and divert what they save towards social projects. I intended to follow suit and asked my blog-readership to help me in one or more of the following ways:
After a fair amount of waiting for DS to arrive, Ajeesh, DS, Shaji, Anish (another journalist) and I pooled some money and collected further amounts from some other folk. (I saw one bloke hand over at least RS200.) They then went to buy food for a local orphanage. DS told me that they do this 3 or 4 times a year. Apparently they get most of what they need by leaning on wholesalers who they know have avoided inter-state import taxes. Shaji and Anish are journalists for a malayalam newspaper, Deepika, and so can threaten to expose the wholesalers if they don't cough up. I can't say I totally approve of this system but I guess it works.
At the orphanage, they kids were fed vegetable rolls, bananas and milk. It didn't seem a big meal but considering that the place is only half-built (gaps in the walls of the building that's inhabited and another part under construction but still without a roof) I guess anything is better than nothing. Ajeesh and DS fed two children who were in an 'infirmary' bedroom: one has polio and the other severe cerebral palsy or similar. Then Ajeesh led a singing session: he has a good singing voice, IMHO, and the children appeared to enjoy it. I think there were about 16 children and four staff, led by sister Anna Rita Maria.
Afterwards we all returned to Shaji's office. I have some (hopefully wonderful) video of the four of them singing in harmony. I can't say how often how much I like the people in this corner of the world: despite some terrible problems, they are often laughing, joking and singing with each other and appear far happier than I do most of the time. Shaji seemed terribly affected by this visit - he became silent and moody when normally he he very up-beat and witty.
Ajeesh drove me halfway up the hill to his house: he stopped to visit a relative who is getting married today and I walked the rest of the way up the hill.
I didn't think I had the budget to do all that I wanted and so I decided to give Assam a miss. I had been told that it's very similar to the tea-growing areas of Kerala and Tamil Nadu and was now likely to be severely monsooned, making travel next to impossible. This morning Ajeesh again invited me to stay until I need to go to Calcutta to then go on to Sumatra.
Again, I was very tempted but I don't like free-loading. Ajeesh wouldn't accept any money for me staying there, even though it was saving me at least Rs350 per day, because I was a guest (and hence a god) and he felt that I was his older brother. I pointed out that I can't be both a god and his brother, and that if I was a guest, I felt that I'd overstayed already. I said that if I was his brother, he had to let me pull my weight domestically and/or in the fields.
His mother seemed delighted at the potential of gaining an extra son. They all wanted me to stay on for Jaya's wedding (31st August, dowry issues permitting) but since my visa expired on 27th August and my flight home was already and irrevocably booked, I couldn't.
© (except the blatantly ripped-off bits) Random Bozo 2006