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Many yell-jay posts for the price of one!
Apr. 14th, 2008 08:54 amHappy Vishu.
Vishu is the traditional harvest festival back home. However, we've also been hearing that harvests are rarely worth celebrating for most farmers of our country. Although we're all really busy learning about the latest on Paris Hilton, everyday state of the stock market, flamboyant lifestyles of the rich and famous, greedy pigs in cricket and elsewhere, India shining and leaping and jumping with joy overall, and various such matters of importance from the English language press. We've been hearing about this farmer stuff also.
I'd like more people to read Kousik Nandy's story of a farmer far away. And follow P Sainath's series on agrarian crisis in Andhra Pradesh, Vidarbha, Wayanad and elsewhere.
***
If you happen to see a little Nokia cell phone limping along on Mysuru-Bengaluru route, please tell him that I'm worried about him, so please hurry home.
***
Been to Bylakuppe. I must say I'm mightily confused by our Tibetan friends (still) selling made-in-China water guns and such. Survival is important, and there's really no metaphor in this, I guess. How is our position (= that of the political leadership of our country) any different?
Vishu is the traditional harvest festival back home. However, we've also been hearing that harvests are rarely worth celebrating for most farmers of our country. Although we're all really busy learning about the latest on Paris Hilton, everyday state of the stock market, flamboyant lifestyles of the rich and famous, greedy pigs in cricket and elsewhere, India shining and leaping and jumping with joy overall, and various such matters of importance from the English language press. We've been hearing about this farmer stuff also.
I'd like more people to read Kousik Nandy's story of a farmer far away. And follow P Sainath's series on agrarian crisis in Andhra Pradesh, Vidarbha, Wayanad and elsewhere.
***
If you happen to see a little Nokia cell phone limping along on Mysuru-Bengaluru route, please tell him that I'm worried about him, so please hurry home.
***
Been to Bylakuppe. I must say I'm mightily confused by our Tibetan friends (still) selling made-in-China water guns and such. Survival is important, and there's really no metaphor in this, I guess. How is our position (= that of the political leadership of our country) any different?
While we were doing the bum thing in Khatia's village market and around, a man walked upto us and introduced himself as Ghan Shyam Prasad Yadav. He works as a cook in a resort. (Incidentally, a small-scale tourism-dependent economy thrives in Khatia, thanks to the national park. A lot of the houses here has one or two Gypsy vehicles for the safari goers. People drive them, get trained and work as guides in the park, and tend to visitors in many of the resorts. All good good good.)
( no-papaya )
Khatia posers.
Feb. 7th, 2008 11:10 pmYou're walking in a village in the close neighbourhood of a major national park. You've been inside the forest for some days, but by now you've been quite suffocated by the restrictions in movement and monotony in there. In fact you're happy and relieved to be out in the sun, walking among people while they get on with their business. And the people, while friendly, are quite used to wildlife enthusiasts and regular urban slickers with bigger cameras walking around. They are not curious about you, they are not even remotely interested.
And then you meet a colourful bunch of young folks. You know you've just met your photographs. You point the camera at them "just to see" how they will appear in the viewfinder. And they spring up to a pose in a moment. How can you ever resist that moment?
I admit I could not.
( +5 )
And then you meet a colourful bunch of young folks. You know you've just met your photographs. You point the camera at them "just to see" how they will appear in the viewfinder. And they spring up to a pose in a moment. How can you ever resist that moment?
I admit I could not.
( +5 )
Green empires, blue inland letter cards.
Dec. 26th, 2007 11:49 pm
This was what we saw, looking halfway from the climb to the top of Karalam Kotta. Paddy, coconut trees, pepper, coffee, rubber, cassava and of course a lot of other things, and a tea estate on the other side. Faraway blue hills. Taller, far less convenient to climb hills close by. A rabbit shot off from the bushes on hearing us. The only thing I could think of was "agricultural empire" (or however you translate karshika samrajyam - S K Pottekkatt used this term to describe Ilanjippoyil, the ancestral village) references from Oru Deshathinte Katha.
See the elephant-shaped blue thing faraway there? That is Kolagappara, favourite suicide destination for heartbroken souls. Climb up there, drink all the pesticide from your bottle, and jump off the cliff to be doubly sure. Scrawl the girl's name on the rocks before this if you are particularly vindicative. Whenever situation permitted (not a bankrupt farmer, but more likely a failed love, for example), stories and wild gossip would stir several villages' collective souls, eventually to be buried deep down in their collective memories. But only after the majority were suitably entertained, and after some lives were forever ravaged.
Living in a city now and the living with the shocking discovery that all my thoughts are in English these days (this, despite the thorough Malayalam medium education in the poorest, most backward districts of Kerala), remembering mightily entertained by Oru Deshathinte Katha and other works, I wonder about the vividity and earthiness of Pottekkatt's narrative. He kept going to see the world, and always came back with a travelogue to cast his spell on many a dreamy teenager.
Karalam Kotta has taller neighbours, and we surely are going back there someday.
