Kerala in the time of Clinton

The first thing I did when I went back this time was to inquire about Lyotard’s successor. But there was none. Are Malayalis getting tired of Western thinkers ruling over their imagination?

The general feeling is yes. Kerala is trying to evacuate post-colonial gods and trying to install their own gods. After all, Kerala is God’s own country. So naturally our god is expected to be a Malayali.

When I was living in Kerala, the state was not “God’s own country”. Indeed all sorts of gods lived there in innumerable shrines and temples. But they were reduced to mere idols. The souls of the gods were elsewhere. People, in particular the youth, ceased to go to temples. My mother used to place every day at sundown an oil brass lamp with seven burning wicks in the verandah of our home and as children we used to pray sitting in the lengthening shadows of the imminent night. One day the lamp was not there and we stopped praying. Other homes followed suit. And then we found that the Theyyam shrines were being discarded during the festival by the youth. Only the drunkards and the old attended the festivals. Some temples stopped the festivities altogether. People were turning atheists.

But now, if the sandal paste adorning the foreheads of the girls and boys on their way to college is any indication, Kerala is again going God’s way.In the land of communism and atheism, when the Department of Tourism publicised Kerala as “God’s own country”, I was somewhat mystified. “Workers’ own country” or “Peasants’ own country” should have been more appropriate because that would have reflected the true revolutionary spirit nurtured in the state.

The very day I landed in my home town near Kannur this time, I encountered a Red Army marching on Kannur’s streets. The youngsters taking part in the march were dressed in the style of commissars, all in red. At each nook and corner, even in the paddy fields, you could see the red flags fluttering. For sure, Kerala is the only place in the world where you can still find a Red Army marching in the streets. While everything changes fast, the red flag alone lacks in mutagen.

Close on the heels of the Red Army there loomed large the images of Bill Clinton. If everywhere in India it was Clinton mania, in Kerala it was Clinton phobia. Graffiti such as “Playboy Clinton go back” could be seen on the moss-green city walls. Clinton’s effigies were being burnt with war cries. The day he arrived in India saw Kerala paralysed by a bandh called by the Leftists.

Two years ago, the veteran Marxist leader and chief minister of Kerala, E.K.Nayanar, visited the USA. At that time, no one in the US called for a bandh. No one asked him to go back. If Comrade Nayanar could visit the USA, why cannot the president of that country visit India?

Evidently, Malayali women understood this logic. Forgetting for a while their favourite soaps, they sat glued to the TV and avidly watched Bill Clinton, the most handsome and charismatic ruler on the globe, make his way through India. They seemed impervious to the worn out revolutionary slogans being raised by their men on the streets.

God’s own country thrives on ungodly contradictions. Resurrected gods, a refrigerated revolution and raw fantasy continue to coexist.