The relation between town and country and the diaspora: How
memory links the globalized world of the Malayali
The Malayali lives in the memory of his or her garden. As
nurses, soldiers, teachers, engineers,
journalists, interior designers,
nannies, plumbers, masons, cooks, doctors and computer operators, they
are professionally motivated, learning the language of their host country. They
live with a respect for the conventions of the country that they are employed
in, and have been known to fan out all over India as well. Their priority is to
earn sufficiently for their families. The children, if lucky, accompany their
parents, living in cramped housing, and experiencing hardship which comes from
being alienated from their childhood memories. And yet, they bear no grudge,
because life in the Gulf or Canada or America or UK is completely acceptable,
and the children of diaspora workers get the best education possible. The ones
who stay home with grandparents get to play
in the rain, learn Malayalam by the rigourous standards of local schools, and
they wait for the summer holidays or winter vacations when parents will return
bringing home some really fancy clothes, perfumes, soaps… not to speak of
chocolates and luxury foods.
In these feast and famine situations, speaking not just of
material goods, but also of emotions, the Malayalis have been more than adept
at hiding the true nature of their work worlds. Life is immeasurably hard, and
working on oil rigs in the gulf, or in the army in Kashmir or Assam might mean that they retire early (at 50) or
possibly come home in a coffin. Oil rig work in the Gulf is so difficult, that
engineers get one month off, for every two months of work. In the case of fatalities in battle, the
interior village roads are emblazoned with the face of the victorious hero on colourful posters who while killed in
battle, and leaving behind a grieving family, makes the village proud of the
soldier’s patriotism.
What is it that these nurses and doctors, IT professionals
do? It is the narratives of discomfort at work, which are kept away from the
larger family, because returning home means enjoying the company of parents and in laws, and equally, being
available to them while they are ill or dying. If a nurse receives 10,000
rupees a month in a nursing home in Delhi, living in cramped quarters with
other women like her, constantly on the phone with a house husband and infant
child, she would automatically believe writing an exam which will take her to
the gulf or America, is a necessary alternative, as the salaries are good, and can
go upto a lakh of rupees a month.
The map of the world thus becomes immediately accessible
because of internet and mobile phone. Once they are in the gulf, they are able
to pay for house loans and open heart operations for parents or in laws. Faith
and reason go together, as many of these professionals are in situations where
their association with others is defined by the commonality of their prayer
group. They are immensely connected to one another, and exchange recipes and
share food together. If this camaraderie is disrupted by the gulf wars or by
retirement, they return home, and are blessed with collective life in
parishes or social work associations,
and work related clubs where other retirees gather.
Travancore as it is called, has embraced much of the gulf
returned populations into their modern homes, many of them have invested in
flats in Kochi or Palakkad or Tripunithra or Mavellikara. Living in a flat has
a tidiness to it, it can be locked and the retired couple can travel abroad to
meet friends or within the state. or the cities in the country where they
previously worked. Their spatial geography therefore embraces in conversation
many different nodal points.
This confluence of urban spaces is what the Malayali carries
with him or her. There are firstly, the intense experiences of growing up in a
village or small town. In Kerala, the tradition of a continuous experience
merging town and countryside is well known. Every small town which is now a
congested space with traffic jams and malls was once surrounded by paddy lands
or plantations or woods or gardens. The
Malayali is often confounded when returning to Naad or country after a couple
of years, and finds it completely transformed. This preoccupation with the past
as they knew it (banyan trees, sacred groves, lotus ponds, simple wooden
temples, churches and mosques with the Malayalam era inscribed on it) is a
metalanguage which they carry in their heads. The real picture is that Kerala has
succumbed to globalization, and the highways speed taxis rapidly through one
town to another, each somewhat identical with their small shops and cafes. The
Malayali sees this transformation as necessary and appropriate. He or she is
able to get into a Shatabdi or fast
train, from Trivandrum at 6 a.m which
reaches Kozhicode by 1 pm. These are no longer abstract or unreal, but
completely within one’s itinerary of visiting Wayanad for a few days.
The gulf worker thus mediates between being a potential migrant and member of the diaspora. Migrant implies that
the worker will be at his work place for several decades. Having enjoyed the
luxuries of imported food and textiles, and being completely absorbed by the
cosmopolitanism of the host society where people from many different countries
come to work, the problem is to adjust to the rurality of those who live in the
home state. Their food is still yams and tapioca, red rice and coconut. They
receive the processed food that the diaspora bring for them as gifts, but
it is with excitement and amusement,
which is shared with neighbours and guests. The inhabitants of the state view
these diaspora as aliens. As the possibility of living in the state are few,
unless one inherits a house, or builds one in the yam garden at the back, the
diaspora represent themselves not as migrants but as guests of their natal or
conjugal families. They thus look to buying houses in one of the metropolitan
towns such as Delhi, Mumbai or Chennai, and increasingly now, in Bengaluru and
Coimbatore. If their bank accounts are weighty enough they migrate to Canada or
Australia or UK or America. The children have already been educated in the
first world, and in time the parents follow.
Second generation migrants thus represent new values,
language use, and food habits. They are familiar with their grandparents
through long skype conversations, and do not find returning to their parents’
home town as problematic. Predatory English is the language of everyday
communication between three generations. When it comes to an aged grandmother
who is trying desperately hard to communicate in Malayalam to her
grandchildren, there are always interpreters at hand. Interpretation is not
about a limited vocabulary, and insights into a twentieth century world view,
it is also about passing on the customs and conventions of the community in
question.
In Kalpathy, Palakkad, the annual rath yathra takes place in November every year usually around
the first week, culminating ten days later with a Carnatic music festival.
Since the agraharam of Tamil Brahmins
was the pivotal place for migrants going to the Presidency towns in the early
20th century, the retirees are from these towns. Their roots lie in the 14th
century migrations of tamils in search of water, patronized by the Palakkad
raja who gave them 18 villages to settle in. Their descendants in the mid 20th
century, migrated to America or to far
eastern countries such as Singapore.
Their grandchildren in turn,
migrated to where ever their work took them. As a result, the Rath Yatra sees
the coming together of different generations of globalized individuals, well
versed in tamil and Sanskrit, keeping their ritual obligations in the lands
where they have settled. Mobility is premised on the desire to survive. When a
place becomes closed in or parochial, hostile or unproductive, those looking to further their employment
chances are willing to migrate to new places.
Migration is thus based on the understanding that they will
return to the homeland. They feel great loyalty to this ancestral site. As a
result the American accents of the young children who visit the sacred sites in
their town. Palakkad, is perfectly
comprehensible to the older generation, or there arrives simultaneously the
interpreter.
All over Kerala, this mosaic of urbanism and cosmopolitan
culture has been co-existent with the rurality of those who have stayed behind.
The homogeneisation of cultural tropes is thus not available, because people
are living in different time frames, and are able to adjust to the lapses and
gaps created by non comprehensibility. A decade ago, Malayalis did not seem
hospitable to tourists, and rather like the French to decades ago, would turn
their faces away from people who did not read or speak Malayalam. Hindi has
been a great equalizer, since it has a Sanskrit base like Malayalam. Once the
pilgrimage trails reached Kerala, every station carried the logos “aaj ka hindi shabd” . Hindi music reached the
colleges rapidly, and soon school children were also singing Hindi film songs
with great clarity and joy. This shift to using Hindi, rather than learning it,
became the way by which the symbols of the North started to enter Kerala.
Sarees gave way to tailored ensembles, and young women started to experiment with
food through television-disseminated recipes.
If the urban is described then through the matrix of city
culture from abroad or India, then the sense of panic that was experienced
among elderly adults about the length of a skirt, or the use of halter tops was
mitigated by the insouciance of young people. Films like “Charlie” or “Kar wan”
implied that movie goers were now willing to accept the expat from metropolis.
Their eccentricity and their need to drop out of mainstream Kerala public
culture was certainly the focus of these cinematic productions. The map now
begins to change, as whether it is the urban or the rural, commerce as in
kirana shops or wayside tea shops or the colonial resplendence of tea
plantations, the diaspora is well able to travel across the boundaries of state
and nation. Everything is possible, and the weaving in of a myriad towns
becomes possible because the travellers are indeed from different places, but
know the grammar of each. Whatever confusion arises is only because the intentions
between subjects are blurred. It is the opaqueness of that shared grammar, that
while being versatile and multi pronged,
defeats the users as they banalise death.
Children are expected to leave home and make a living. In
turn, they too dedicate themselves to their own children, and are unable to
provide their parents with the personal satisfaction of their companionship
except vicariously through electronic communication. As professionals, they are
extremely competent and the Malayali worker is seen to be the most viable, so
much so that Dubai airport has Arabic, English and Malayalam on its signboards.
Come flood or famine, the Malayali is always ready to contribute to the manner
in which surcease is organized.
Since August 11th 2018, Kerala has been hit by heavy rainfall and
floods as 40 dams were opened simultaneously all over the state. Residents of
Wayanad were forced to leave their homes, and helicopters began their rescue
work on the morning of 11th August itself. By the 17th, the
towns of Aluva, Ernakulam, Kochi, Chenganoor, and Alleppey became flooded.
People, particularly those returning to their work places with families, were
cut off from Kochi Airport which became flooded, once the Mullaperiyar dam was
opened. As a result, they found themselves in homes which were inundated, and
had to leave for higher land, where relatives welcomed them in. As the whole
state was inundated, and red alert was sounded in Trivandrum as well, the
ability of people to cope depended on their immediate kinship and clan
networks. However, the number of those rendered homeless was huge, and the
panic continues, as the rain has not abated.
Having lost everything, families huddle together, hoping for
the rain to stop. One has to understand that the home once destroyed leaves
people without a sense of belonging, a
tragedy which persists all their lives, as human loss is irreparable, and
material loss is accompanied by nostalgia for the comfort and security it once
provided.
There has been substantive criticism about Kerala government
not accepting the Madhav Gadgil report. However one must understand that
settlement in Wayanad goes back to the 12th century and even
earlier. The border with Karnataka meant that Jain traders harnessed a slave
trade as far back as the 8th century. Today, the settlers have
arrived on the invitation of the government to pursue cash crop agriculture
which has transcended political parties and religious affiliations.
Local communities have for long believed that they own the
right to life and occupation. When land is sold at cheap prices by the
government, people often relocate, because where they are born, may not provide
them with optimum chances of survival. It is because of this, that whole
villages in Palakkad and Wayanad emerge as fully formed entities, with the same
layout of streets, shops and residences as those hamlets from which the
people originally came from. The
settlers represent a new aristocracy, bringing with them the cultural ensemble
of their previous homes and villages. They reduplicate the churches, temples,
mosques and the gardens as well as bakeries and restaurants that they are
familiar with.
As their gardens flourish, and their stakes in cash crop
farming increases, they become more affluent. They are able to participate in
life endorsing green activities which involve curtailment of desires, including
accepting of veganism, organic farming or rearing of free range chickens for
the table. Between hobby, passion and occupation there is a thin line. As they succeed,
they are able to encourage tourism in these small towns, based on their
activities such as bottling passion fruit juice, or growing organic red rice.
Tourists descending in Wayanad or Palakkad thus provide impetus to new
occupations such as kayaking festivals, tours into the higher ranges of the
Western Ghats and enjoying the company of the local population. Bed and
breakfast places mushroom, providing clean beds and toiletries to overnight
guests who arrive in their SUVs and Land Rovers from neighbouring states,
or are most often, Malayalis working in
the Gulf. These individuals derive tremendous comfort from home cooked meals
and visits to the local sights such as rock temples and scientific institutions
with allied gardens. The landlords of these rest houses have to have licenses,
and if in the radius of a highway can sell liquor to tourists. Safety is
provided by the security officers of private companies and local police, and
the good manners of a new class of professional hosts.
Rain came early in 2018, in April instead of June, and raged without
appeasement by August. Karkaddam is referred to as “pattini massam” (the hunger
months) as fishing is prohibited, because
of dangerous waters, and protection of spawning fish. What vegetables are available
come through the Coimbatore Pass, loaded with chemical fertilisers and
pesticides. Ofcourse, tourists still arrive, as guest houses describe it as
“non-season” and lower their prices.
Children continued to go to school, offices were open,
housewives were at their wits end right
through the long monsoon, as to how to dry clothes and make houses free of that
sepulchral damp which enters all homes in India. When the rain does not stop
for days on end, the dams fill and go beyond their safety point. Panic rises,
and administrators and politicians take time to think about what is the best
policy before sending people into rehabilitation camps. Usually poor people, or
first generation settlers tend to live near the dams. Tribal communities are
the first to be isolated and at risk, since their dwelling of tin roof and
cloth curtain cannot possibly withstand the velocity of continuous rain.
When the sluice gates of smaller dams are first opened the
effect is immediate. When Mallapuram and Iddikki follow, the settlers lose
crops and property. In a larger context, the possibilities of famine follow, as
the rice, bananas, sugar, ginger, pepper, tea, coffee, cinnamon, vanilla,
rubber, grown in the ghats and its hinterland, are part of a larger economy.
Those who are able to get away do so in time, but for the rest, everything is
left to chance.
We don’t have a solution for natural disasters. but
climatologists and planet watchers and naturalists, do give us advice. One of
these is to keep river beds clear of construction, the other is to clean the
beds of long rooted grasses, and wind blown seeds which produce trees over time
in the river. When artificial islands form as a result of sand mining, and water hyacinths proliferate, thereby creating stagnant pools, the river is
already showing signs of dying. When the dams are opened, the quantity of water
dispersed per second is so voluminous that it clears out everything in its
path. The larger the dam, the greater the damage to people and property.
Animals. like humans feel fear, and die unwillingly. Every life lost is a
calamity which money can never recompense.
The border between Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu has
always been osmotic. People crossed over, as did ideas, languages, crafts,
food, currency, labour. The Mullaperiyar has always been a contested territory
between the two states. It’s now time for a more concerted dialogue between
Tamil Nadu and Kerala, as the dangers of a 19th century mortar dam
dissolving in the possible context of a heavy Retreating Monsoon is not to be
discounted.
The settlers in Wayanad always referred to Travancore as
Naadu. The settlers have remained endogamous and truly devoted to their
religious roots. Pulpally in Wayanad is believed to be the place where Sita
gave birth to Lav and Kush. Here too, she disappeared into the earth when Rama
caught her by the hair, having come to look for his aswamedha horse which his
sons had caught. The legends are a way by which we can understand the primacy
of the authority of the forest. Everything else is built upon this palimpsest.
The floods become the way by which new vocabularies whether of science or
religion will be interlocked in due course.
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