Published on Substack on 30-Jan-23 -  https://utopiankerala.substack.com/p/flowers-fall-men-do-not A cousin was sharing the other day that she gets teased by Malayali men in the streets of England. Our brothers have migrated but without leaving their habits from Kerala. Vayanottam  (ogling at others from the street side) is a pastime for men in Kerala. From very casual  vayanottam  to stalking, men enjoy doing this mostly in their dhotis. Every morning I get to see a few men in my village who does this when other men and women are rushing to their workplace. It is not that these men do not have any work. They must be back from early morning rubber tapping, about to start their farming activities, or just starting the day with morning paper and tea. Given a chance they are back at the  kavala  (junction) for  vayanottam . They also do pass comments on themselves and others. Occasionally it will be loud enough for everyone to hear. Their most common subjects would be women and other men

Published on Substack on 17-Jan-23 -  https://utopiankerala.substack.com/p/28-leave-our-girls-alone Today's front page news on Malayala Manorama got me thinking about the times and the world we live in. Menstrual leave is being considered at every University in Kerala. As if women start menstruating when they do higher studies and stop when they graduate. Not long ago, I had a chance to look at a study done by a doctor among adolescent girls in a government-aided high school. One of the most important revelations was that many girls skip school during menstruation. Yes, they go through unbearable pain but that was not the reason for them skipping school. The school lacks good toilets for them to use. Girls cannot access toilets as they want. They do not have access to napkins and using clothes make their life difficult at school. Providing leaves to menstruating girls is not helping their cause. Leave them alone. They do not need such sympathy. Let the focus be on the infrastructur

Can you delete dog videos? My 5-year-old asked me the other day. She was showing YouTube on the phone which had dogs in videos after another. She is only seeing dog videos and she wants me to delete them and see something of her taste. My 9-year-old is fond of pets and keeps watching dogs and other pets on the same YoutTube and phone. The YouTube algorithm was yet to recognise that a different user with different interests is now using it! The same phone is used by my mother as well. She watches “Big Boss” videos one after another. There is something for all of us to understand here about how the algorithms behind YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and such, work and how that can shape our beliefs and action. Before that, let me share a true story from my extended family. Two sisters, one a housewife and the other working for the government live nearby. Gardening is a passion for the latter and does that as a small business. She goes on YouTube only to check videos related to gardening. The

The Malayalam film industry got national attention again with a woman (Y) accusing a man (X) of rape . The very same day, X revealed the identity of Y through Facebook. Quite naturally, supporters of X endorsed his illegal act. I do not support X or his act. But there is something here that needs our attention. Let it be made very clear that women and their concerns are something that I identify with very often. Let me share a recent observation by a bench in Karnataka High Court in a case “A man is a man; an act is an act; rape is a rape, be it performed by a man the ‘husband’ on the woman ‘wife’,”. That quite sums up my take on rape. In a rape case, the woman is identified as a victim or survivor. Because of the social prejudices, victimization and ostracization, special rights are granted to victims by law. ‘Noone should reveal the identity of the victim or survivor’ is one such right. It is a right that intends to secure the life of the victim or survivor. But, what if a woman dec

Kerala Rail Development Corporation Limited ( K-Rail ) is a Joint Venture Company under the Government of Kerala and Ministry of Railways, Government of India. SilverLine is their “ Thiruvananthapuram – Kasaragod Semi High-Speed Rail Project ”. The 529.45 km SilverLine corridor connecting Kasaragod and Thiruvananthapuram, with an operating speed of 200kmph, eases the transport between North and South ends of the state and reduces the total travel time to less than 4 hours, compared with the present 10 to 12 hours. The intermediate stations include Kollam, Chengannur, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Kochi Airport, Thrissur, Tirur, Kozhikode and Kannur. Most of you would be knowing all this and more as it is a hot discussion across Kerala. Some are for development and others are against development. Everyone has a point to make and so do I! Having decided to give part of the land for infrastructure development, what would a common man prefer on his land - a road or a railway line? A road means bett

That’s my 4-year-old daughter asking me one morning. It was not a silly question. It provoked me to think deep. I was sweeping my front yard that day. It is usually my wife or mother who does this, while I would be reading the newspaper. It is not that I don’t know sweeping. I just choose not to do it. If I remember right, the last time I swept the front yard was when I was a kid playfully helping my grandmother. It was her daily routine then. My mother started doing and now my wife does it. My wife fell sick and I was forced to share the workload of my ageing mother. There I started sweeping and the little one got up in the morning seeing me on the job instead of her grandma or mother. “Are you a girl?”, she asked and started smiling. I have not seen my father or grandfather sweeping the front yard. I think I know only one person who has been sweeping for years, not letting her wife do it. Who should sweep, that is not the subject here. We should know that we all have grown up with su

Are you political? Are you interested in politics? Which party do you support? These are some common questions that we all come across. People do ask me. More so after they read me. Let me make some disclosure. I am interested in politics. I do have my preferences. Most of the time I find myself casting vote in favour of a particular party. But I definitely do not endorse everything the party does. I find all political parties to be good. As I cannot pick and choose portions from each, I find myself prioritizing the options. I do not use this medium to further any political party. I just reflect on the world around me, particularly Kerala. Now, are you political? Are you interested in politics? I believe, everyone should be deeply interested in politics. It does not matter which party you support. It bothers me when someone says they do not care about politics. If you do not care about politics or find yourself in doubt, please do read further with an open mind. It is undoubtedly clear

It is not often that the common man in Kerala rallies behind a “ muthalali ” - an entrepreneur. But that has been happening for the past 2 weeks. Kitex Garments and the promoter Sabu Jacob has been in the thick of things. The Vazhipokkan in Mathrubhumi sums up a lot that I have to say on this. Let me add more. Twenty20, the political party formed by Sabu Jacob, has been an experiment that took national attention. I had written the below lines in September 2020. The political scene in Kerala took an interesting turn with the arrival of Twenty20 a few years back. A political party with corporate-style functioning, backed by capitalists, in Kerala! Heady Mix! Twenty20 won the last panchayat election handsomely. Now they have plans to contest in neighbouring panchayats. The interesting experiment has enough backers and critics. Nidheesh M. K. has an interesting article on Twenty20 which can be read  here . I was wary of predicting an end to Twenty20. I would say now that the experiment wi

How good is the startup ecosystem in Kerala? Where do we stand? What do we lack? What can be done? These are some questions for us when we see the startup frenzy happening elsewhere in India. The question hits us hard when we see the growing success of Byju’s. Why Byju’s did not happen from Kerala? The State Of Kerala Startup Ecosystem 2019 published by Kerala Startup Mission [KSUM] details a lot about where we are now. You can read that here . An analysis of the startup ecosystem can be found here . A guide on how to startup in Kerala can be accessed here . Clearly, the government is doing a lot to get the ecosystem to work and nurture a potential unicorn from Kerala. The central government has even recognised the state as a leader across all pillars of the startup ecosystem for the 2nd time in 2019. It seems like we are doing everything possible and we just have to wait patiently for a success story. It is not that simple. Indian startups seem to have received $10.14 billion in fun

We ensure 100% of children are enrolled for primary and secondary education in Kerala. As per the ASER 2020 report , all children up to 14 years are enrolled in schools. What are we teaching them? How can they be politically motivated to kill others? Why are they not able to disagree and still agree to coexist? Political killings are not new in Kerala. Haven’t our society progressed or developed enough to keep our children away from political violence? Let us look at our political leaders. The Association of Democratic Reforms published criminal, financial and educational details of candidates in the recent Kerala Assembly Elections 2021. It finds that 355 of the 928 candidates have criminal cases against them. A 10% increase from 2016! 167 candidates (18%) have serious criminal cases (murder, dacoity, sexual assault etc) pending against them. The same number in 2016 was 138 candidates (12%). A 21% increase! 22 candidates face murder or attempt to murder cases! 54% of Congress candida

MG George Muthoot, the chairman of the Muthoot Group since 1993, passed away recently. Aged just above 70, he helmed around 20 businesses. As per Forbes Asia , he was the richest from Kerala and the 26th richest Indian family in 2020. He was a trustee of the Malankara Orthodox Church was a member of the national executive committee of FICCI. A towering figure in Kerala, the news was covered widely by the national and regional media. But the print media handled the news differently. There was an intentional suppression of the reason for his death in the regional media. Regional media lazily conveyed that he had a fall in his house in Delhi and was brought dead to the hospital. National media was more specific. The Hindu wrote this , M.G. George, 72, died on Friday evening after he allegedly fell from the fourth floor of his house in southeast Delhi’s East of Kailash. A senior police officer said a crime team visited the spot where the incident happened. They have scanned all CCTVs in th

We have always been told by our parents to choose friends wisely. Friends determine our destiny! A friend from 10th class, an average student, had scored excellent marks in the final exam. He shared recently that the turnaround was when he became friends with class toppers. He went on to excel in his life and career beyond his imagination then. Such is the impact of friends! Friends can impact our thinking too. What we think is what we are! Hence our friends determine who we are as an individual. Let us do a counting exercise. How many friends do you have who are atleast 20 years older or younger than you? How many friends do you have from other gender? How many friends do you have from other religion? How many friends do you have from other castes of your religion? How many friends do you have from other states of India? How many friends do you have from other nations? How many friends do you have who call themselves atheists? How many friends do you have who are politicians, lawyers,

What is truth beyond facts? Aren’t truth and facts one and the same? Facts are facts. We do not argue over them. Facts can be checked and verified. When many of us concur to a fact, we find the truth. Truth requires facts to substantiate. Imagine we have two groups of people arriving at some truth from some facts. Both have truths substantiated by facts. But, what if one group’s truth is in conflict with the other? Whose truth is the better truth?! We have a disagreement. The easiest example is those who believe in God and those who do not. In the movie Twenty:20, there is a court sequence with Mohanlal as the murder accused, Suresh Gopi as the policeman and Mammootty as the lawyer. The court was presented with the fact that the policeman saw the accused with a knife in one hand and the victim on the other hand. The fact was not disputed. But the lawyer asked the policeman, whether the accused was seen stabbing the victim or pulling the knife out? The truth was under conflict and the a

When it is time for elections there is always a call for technocrats to contest. Most of us want them to win an election and run public offices of the highest order. These technocrats have excelled in their professional life and positively impacted many lives. We expect them to be successful in politics as well and bring the much-wanted change in our life. Does that happen? Technocrats operate in a microcosm of society. It can be an organisation or institution. The organisation is a collection of individuals who have agreed to work together for a common purpose or goal. Exemplary technocrats, with their ability, regularly achieve much larger goals from the individuals around them. They are good at working with people, delivering greater results for the organisation. They make life better for everyone around them. It is not just their colleagues, they make life better for the extended stakeholders of the organisation. The beneficiary can be the supplier, the investor, the customer and s

Caesarean section (C-section) deliveries are very common in Kerala. Women make the choice between a normal or c-section delivery much before they are in the labour room. The thought of caesarean itself has been normalized by society. It is no wonder that studies and surveys repeatedly find Kerala on top of the % of births delivered by C-section. World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that the rate of C-sections in a region should not exceed 15%. All districts in Kerala records a rate much higher than 15%. It is also worth noting that the share of C-sections is much higher in private hospitals than in public hospitals. You can find the details here and here . Women chose C-section for multiple reasons ignoring possible future health risks. Hospitals promote C-section for monetary gains which is understandable. Doctors suggest C-section so that they can bring the deliveries in their working hours and thus can avoid late-night visits. But women need not fall for it. It’s high time that

Let’s assume that we have to travel from Kochi to Bangalore. We have multiple choices. We can drive down at an expense of around ₹5,000 in a personal car. We can take the train which would cost around ₹1,500 in 2nd AC. We can take a seat in A/C bus that would cost around ₹2,000. We can also take a flight that would cost around ₹3,000. Kerala Road Transport Corporation [KSRTC] also operates an A/C bus that costs around ₹1,000. We are spoilt with choices at varying comfort and costs. The service providers are also happy catering to the demand. Among the options available, KSRTC is the cheapest but definitely not the popular. Why? Why don’t we have the best buses available for local transport at varying comfort and costs? Why do we see more entrepreneurs leaving the local bus service business than entering them? Why do we have policemen and road transport officers running private buses under ‘benami’? Why A/C local buses are not common in a humid place like Kerala? Don’t we like A/C buses

Anoop Menon, the actor, is well known in Kerala. He is also the ambassador for multiple brands. Dhathri is one such brand which rides on the bandwagon of Ayurveda. The advertising and business fraternity in India got their attention on them because of a very unique order passed by a consumer court in Kerala penalizing both for misleading customers . It could be a beginning for brand ambassadors to be more cautious in the advertisements they appear . Where else in India could such orders come other than Kerala. An aware citizen from Kerala holding the company and the celebrity responsible for their claims! It is another matter that the mainstream media in Kerala gave the news a miss. Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM) had issued a notification allowing Ayurveda doctors to perform around 58 types of surgeries on some conditions. Since then, doctors from modern medicine (allopathy) and Ayurveda have been on each other’s throat. Modern medicine doctors do not want to lose their van

Local body elections are underway in Kerala. People will elect their representatives to grama panchayat, block panchayat, zilla panchayat, municipalities and corporations as per their place of residence. Kerala is one place in India where the Panchayati raj system of election and local self-governance works in a well-oiled fashion. The local governments deliver and the public has belief in them. This became evident whenever we have crises like natural calamities and lately during the COVID-19 pandemic. Reservation in terms of gender, scheduled caste and tribes ensure wider representation of people by the elected representatives. Everything is good but we still find some deficiencies that can be addressed in the Panchayati raj system. Delimitation is an exercise to assess the changing socio-economic demographics in a locality to continuously graduate them from a grama panchayat to a corporation. The exercise ensures that an area is categorized correctly so that a capable self-government

Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board [KIIFB] has been drawing news headlines for a long time. It was mostly for all the good that it was doing. But recently it is all for the wrong reasons. Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board [KIIFB] has been existing since 1999. In 2016, the current government reconstituted the organisation to a corporate body enabling it to attract investments to the state to fund infrastructure development projects. Kerala government is guaranteeing most part of the payments to KIIFB. It’s like, if KIIFB funds a road project, Kerala government will return the money to KIIFB in instalments over the years. KIIFB will attract investments globally at competitive rates making the cost of funds to the government much better than what is otherwise available from financial institutions in India. The need for such a novel financial intervention was the debt pile Kerala was carrying. The fiscal norms in India were not allowing the Kerala government to take more