This Place is Taken

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Dry Chennai



The trending news in my part of the news cycle is the utter shortage of water in Chennai city. People are struggling without potable water, private companies have asked employees to 'work from home', and clashes have erupted. The government does what it always does; it has gone into denial mode, asking people not to spread fake news, and asking temples to arrange for special prayers for rain.

Typical Chennai.

I should know, because I have lived in that hell hole for 3 years. Even 10 years ago, the sight of bright , colorful, plastic pots arranged in a line in front of public water taps was common sight. It rained only for a few weeks in a year, and people and places are not used to rains. The slightest rain would cause roads to flood up. But a few soon drying rivers supplied the city with much needed water. The apartments we lived in , on the east coast of the city, was too close to the beaches, so the ground water was brine. Undrinkable. Unfit for cooking, but maybe usable for some cleaning and washing. Fresh water

Uncontrolled population growth, and lack of planning has led to the water tables in the state further depleting. But this never stopped the uncontrolled 'development' in the city. Finally , after decades of negligance,  the city is now dry. Harsh reality.


In the past, the city used to fight for rubbishness like jallikuttu, and 'superstars' of movies, and even language.

But it is now a dry city.







Monday, June 10, 2019

Migrant story


Kerala was a net in-migrating state till 1930s. The state's rich natural wealth of spices, coconut, teak and ivory brought foreigners to the state from as early as third millennium BCE. Different merchant communities from within the country also came to the state from 19th Century onwards.


Though Keralites are regarded as a highly mobile class of people, the migratory movements from the state are of comparatively recent origin, according to KV Joseph, who studied the pattern of migration from the state. In his study entitled 'Factors and Pattern of Migration: The Kerala Experience', he said that census reports till the end of the 19th Century had portrayed Keralites as home-bound people who don't stir out of their village moorings.


"Simple mode of life with the bulk of the people meeting the bare subsistence needs formed the style of living in Kerala for centuries. At the same time any urge for improving their living conditions by acquiring new goods, or by exerting more effort seemed to be missing among Keralites," the study noted.


Joseph has attributed this to the absence of favourable conditions for migration such as frequent droughts, famines, poor economic conditions and population pressure. When these conditions forced millions of people from rest of India to move out under 'indenture' and 'kangani' systems of labour recruitment, Keralites stayed put in the state.


According to the study, 1.36 crores Indians crossed the borders of India and migrated to various parts of the world between 1824-25 and 1896-1900. Most of them were from Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Andhra regions where conditions of abject poverty and misery prevailed.


Historians believe that Keralites did not prefer the assisted migration because of their great sense of independence and higher levels of literacy. They started migrating only when semi-skilled and quasi professional jobs became available in early 20th Century. However, it acquired the characteristics of a stream since then leading to different waves of migration.


Large-scale migration from Kerala started after the World War II, when the army and other defence forces started recruiting large number of young men. This gave educated Keralites employment opportunities. More than 1.5 lakh people joined the army and civilian labour force from Travancore alone in the initial phase of the recruitment. Hundreds of thousands of young men were enrolled in the army from Cochin and Malabar regions also.


Demand for labour came not only from army but also from other sectors of the economy connected with the war. This, along with massive development programme launched soon after Independence also opened up huge opportunities for educated Keralites. The surge in industrial activity led to huge demand for skilled workers and educated persons in various states of the country.


According to Joseph, this served as pull factors to the migratory movements from Kerala which was in the forefront of educational development. This transformed the state from a net in-migration area to net out-migration area. Out-migrants from Kerala as a percentage to state population accounted for only 3.69 percent in 1961. This went up to 4.44 percent by 1981. The state accounted for 4.74 of the total inter-state migrants in the country in 1981.


Though migrants from Kerala can be found in almost all types of occupations, their presence is more conspicuous in the "employment of' office personnel as typists, stenographers, accountants and clerks".


After breaking off the initial inertia, there was no stopping for the home-bound Keralites. They started exploring opportunities everywhere. Soon, educated young men started moving to the West as well with the US becoming a favourite destination for engineers, doctors, business executives, accountants and paramedical professionals like nurses. Keralites, who started moving to the US after Independence, formed roughly 10 percent of the Indian population there, according to studies.


However, the discovery of oil in the Gulf in 1966 was the major trigger for the biggest stream of migration from Kerala. This came when potential migrants from the state were put in a predicament by the shrinking employment opportunities in other parts of India. The massive construction activities spurred by the oil boom in countries like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and United Arab Emirates also attracted the migrants.


The ethnic connections between the Mappilla Muslims of Malabar and the Arabs (the former is believed to be descendants of Arab merchants) and the maritime trade relations Kerala had with countries in the West Asia since ancient times made matters easy for the potential migrants in Kerala.


The migrants made best use of these favourable conditions by working hard without complaining about the working conditions, said S Irudaya Rajan, who has done a number of studies on migration from and its impact, dispelling stereotypes associated with Malayalis being lazy and complaining.


While a Malayali considers manual job inferior to his status and always fight for their rights in Kerala, he transforms completely once he steps out of the state, says Rajan, who is the chair professor of the research unit on International Migration under the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs. Once he is outside, the Malayali is ready to do any job, including the manual jobs without complaining about the remuneration or his rights.


Apollo Tyres chairman Onkar Kanwar, who is struggling to keep two tyre manufacturing units running in Kerala in the face of frequent labour struggles, is amazed by this transformation; "If Malyalis are ready to do half the work that they do in Gulf, Kerala can easily become another Dubai." This observation made by the Apollo group head at an investors' meet at Kochi a few years ago is perhaps the best testimony to the goodwill enjoyed the Malayali Diaspora.


The migration to the Gulf has left a deep impact on the socio-economic front of the state. Though the remittances they brought has helped the state in reducing poverty, unemployment and relative deprivation, its fallout on the people depending on the migrants both directly and indirectly is huge. The Gulf migration has adversely affected one million married women, two million children and four million aged people, who have been left behind by the migrants.

Sunday, June 2, 2019

Deluge.


Cold. And wet. Not the best of seasons, but the cities here are better equiped and designed against such extreme weathers. When the majority of the planet is suffering droughts, it is fortunate that it rains here.

One part of the city NOT designed for rains is…the public transport. Specially the trains. Today morning too, there are cancellations and breakdowns, and thousands of commuters are stuck on the way.

Surprisingly, one of the best places online to keep upto date on Victoria's public transport system is Daniel Bowen's twitter feed.

Great quote: "Interchanging is a transport planner's dream, but a passenger's nightmare.

A few more months of this and the sun will shine again.


Closing thoughts: Here is the corrected map of Australia.


Uyare


2019 has been a rough year so far, with all the elections, and politics in multiple countries. Even the movies which came out this year in India had political tones, political agenda disguised as entertainment. So any movie which told a true-to-heart story in its time box , with capable actors playing convincing characters, would easily win and stay with the crowd. I found the first of such movies this year. And it was a super-hero movie.

The Malayalam movie Uyare.

Side note: I got to watch more movies, if good ones like these do come out. Honestly, I am sick of those superheroes.

Uyare is smartly written , seamlessly weaving the story of an ambitious wannabe pilot, who also becomes the victim of an acid attack. The wikipedia page of acid attacks is shocking and heart-breaking. Low-esteem men and dejected lovers throw acid onto women to permanently disfigure them, and in recent years there are increased occurances of such attacks around the world.

Parvathy effortlessly and convincly plays the lead, starting the movie with high spirits and confidence, and then breaking down to the helpless woman in the middle. The scenes where her character , Pallavi , is attacked and the treatment scenes are the closest one could come to actually understant the pain of being attacked in such a way. Never ones is the illusion of cinema broken. It looks so convincing, almost unreal.

The ending, and climax is predictable, and a few more twists could have helped. We don't see anyone thanking Pallavi for her bravery and presence of mind. We don't see the bureaucratic nightmare which usually follows such an air-accident. We certainly do not see it getting the media coverage such acts of bravery usually gets.

Shout out to Asif Ali for playing another negative character, I really think he should stick to these kind of roles. I have never bought his act as a romantic or comedy actor. The audience is definitely going to hate Govindhan for his atrocious act, and that is the highlight of this role.

Another triumph of Malayalam movies, Uyare has to be watched.

And once you have watched it, go read this.