Welcome to Kochi: The New Sodom !

In these times of Anna Hazare pulling a 'fast' one on the Union Government, I believe a lot of local and perhaps quite important issues are getting marginalized or trivialized. Well, if Anna has managed to obscure Team India's abject surrender in England, anything can happen. After all this happens only in India.

Again almost ad nauseum; I am talking about the roads or rather the lack of them in God's own Country that is Kerala. My own poor little Kochi is struggling to cope with multiple problems. The influx of Bangladeshis masquerading as people from West Bengal is the worst threat to this coastal town. We never know who is an Indian today. The migrant labor might be cheap today, but it might cost us dear in future. I shouldn't considered xenophobic or a Bal Thakre clone; that I am not. I have reasons to believe in what I have stated here. I just hope I am proved wrong.

The other problems is the burgeoning middle class on a rat race that can be called 'Car Wars'. Anyone owning a small car or just one car is a small fry here. Most middle class families own two or even three cars today. Everyone is on a car these days, I repeat everyone. So where do we park all these cars ? I believe we might have to push the backwaters backwards to form a reclaimed parking lot for the Kochi middle class.

Two-wheelers are the new 'Plague'. They are here, there and everywhere. I am scared to stand with my legs apart for a short period anywhere in Kochi. There are fat chances that some smart Alec might park his bike between my legs and leave before I realize. All those who are not on cars are on two-wheelers. The worst thing about these bikes is they cover 200km with one tea-spoon-full of petrol. They come in easy installments and every youth must have them.

These bikes take away young lives thanks to accidents. But they also kill insidiously. Most of our youth hardly walks except to go to the toilet. They step out of house, hop onto the bike and go to office or any place they want to. They park their mean-machines at the nearest possible spot and finish work and are back on bike and then back home. They practically live on bikes. Thus a big section of the youth hardly has any exercise and develop obesity, Hypertension, Diabetes and Heart Diseases at very young age. We might soon become the nation with largest number of bikes and even larger number of young heart patients.

All these and many other problems we face are not unique to Kochi. They are common for every developing place. Bad roads, infrastructural malformations, drinking water, electricity and so on. But what is unique to Kochi is there never was an honest attempt on part of the rulers to even make a cursory attempt to solve the eternal problems with the roads.

The rulers change. But the rules, the policies, the contractors, the workers and the roads never change. I don't remember a single road constructed by the Kochi Corporation lasting one monsoon. No soon the monsoon announces the arrival, the roads begin to break. By August, we have a few roads in a town filled with potholes. A sham of filling these potholes with gravel is conducted every three months till April. Then the potholes are filled with a lot of crushed stones, gravel and exactly 2mm layer of tar in the month of May. The Monsoon is a lot more sincere and arrives mostly in time by end May !

Today, Saturday 27 August 2011 we are in a piquant situation. The roads are completely ragged. The much talked about Thammanam - Pullepady road widening and total revamp of Kochi roads was never taken up. But the Metro Rail is being taken up in a big way. Demolition of the North Railway Over-bridge is taken with utmost zeal by the local government.

So what do we have ? For a 'Castle in the Air' that is Metro Rail, we have a town being devastated. The already congested traffic is going to be redirected through the doomed Thammanam - Pullepady road and many other such under-privileged roads. These roads are already in bad shape and bursting at the seams. The added traffic is going to totally demolish Kochi.

The Traffic Police don't help at all. In fact they make things worse. There are no right turns or 'U' turns in most places in the city. No 'U' turns for long stretches on the highway. At the most strategically placed Kathrikkadavu junction, you can't even go straight. We are sent into a quagmire through the under-bridge and then almost half a kilometer distant 'U' turn that is unmanned and becomes a flash point for outraged drivers to vent their fury on one another. What do these 'patently stupid' measures do ? More and more vehicles are on the roads for longer periods to cover same distance and that means the traffic turns further congested.

So what are we witnessing ? This might sound a tad crude simile, but this is unfortunately true. This is quite like sodomizing an anus already ravaged by piles, fistula and fissures. Our rulers are perpetrating sodomy on my beloved Kochi.

Henceforth the catch phrase for Kerala tourism can go thus, "Welcome to Kochi, the New Sodom"


Dr. Punned-it

The Boy Farmer and the Malgoa Tree !

I am returning to my Blog after a hiatus of 3 weeks, thanks to some personal problems and some more at home. All things are taking their own time to settle down. But life still is beautiful to keep me away from "Live, Love and Laugh" any longer. 

Ajay Pai, a Facebook friend and a real life friend updated his status "Only a few people can feel the rain, others just get wet! :D". I replied with, "I feel, I live and I breathe rain ! I am Rain !"

My relationship with rain is an affair for a life time. A Blog-post can never aspire to do justice to this topic. Hence I wouldn't attempt it here. Some day I might try writing a novel if I get that far. Today, let me narrate a story. Well, two in fact.

The Boy-Farmer 

Once upon a time, there was a little boy in a small town. Let us name him Raju because he was very fond of Raj Kapoor. And let us name the town Karkala. Like all boys, he was full of mischief, fun and zeal for life. Raju did two years of his primary school staying at his maternal grandfather's house with his elder sister and cousins. That was because his Mom had difficulty managing a precocious little boy and his baby sister.

Raju subsequently moved to his father's house along with his elder sister when he was 7. Though these places were just 2 km apart, culturally they were totally different.

Raju father's house was a busy, bustling and big place with over 20 people and a lot of workers. This place was always brimming with activity. They had three shops right in front of the house and there never was dearth of action. Though the paternal grandfather was a disciplinarian, the general atmosphere still was jovial. There were movies, music and masti. The boys and girls grew up on Mukesh, Manna Dey, Mohammed Rafi, Lata, Raj Kapoor and Bachchan.

But the maternal home was different. Grandfather was an award winning farmer. Uncle had a small hotel that was famous for the onion uthappa. Grand-mom was an angelic lady who took care of everyone around till she fell ill. There were paddy fields, coconut and areca farms and a lot of vegetable was grown all over. It was brown and green all over. On the negative side, but for the fantastic Mama, there was little to cheer at home.

Living in such a place inculcated in Raju an early love for plants and gardening. He loved to look after the farms, water the crops and helping with odd jobs. But the grandpa being the tough guy he was, never allowed the boys to meddle with his flora. Into Class 3, Raju moved to his father's house and settled down with a new school and new set of friends.

They had an acre of land adjacent to their house with a lot of coconut trees, mango tress, cashew trees and a small flower garden. Once the boy saw this, he started attending the garden. Gradually it became a routine for the 8 year old. Every evening, he spent at least an hour with his 'friends'. The little boy started talking to his friends and they did listen to him.

Within next three years, Raju planted and 'brought up' butter beans, brinjal, several different types of Dahlias and many more vegetables in a small patch of land close to the well. He and his cousin made use of the farm and even had their own cozy little tree-house on the branches of a tall mango tree. Apart from this, Raju did a lot of gardening at school too.

And then tragedy struck on a fateful winter day. Coming back from school in the evening, he rushed to his garden to see the whole place decimated. Parbu, the man hired by his grandpa to clean the garden had completely weeded out his garden of flowers, vegetables and cotton plant.

Raju was shattered. He cursed and scolded the dirty old man and complained to elders about carnage. Parbu had left the weed in other parts of the farm to stand and demolished his garden of Eden brought up with 3 years of hard work in just one afternoon. But the elders were totally insensitive. The Grandpa even admonished him for being rude to the destroyer.

The little farmer was devastated. He couldn't swallow the tragedy of seeing his friends lying there mowed down to earth. Adding insult to injury, the old man got away Scott free. It was murder, in fact mass genocide. But he had no sympathizers. Those people who had gorged on his vegetables conveniently preferred to forget all that and looked away.

His Mom did commiserate with him. But she couldn't have done anything more. With a broken heart and a sulking mind, Raju decided never to plant another sapling in his life; he never did ! May be, a passionate farmer or a gardener or an agriculturist was assassinated that day along with his beloved plants.

A depressing tale is not all I have to tell. There is a beautiful sequel to this story. That is the story of... 

The Malgoa Tree !  

The boy grew up with his love for the greenery intact. Though he never owned a plant, he never allowed any harm being heaped on trees or plants. As we already know, they had many mango trees in their farm. One of them was a Malgoa tree. It was a unique tree because the mangoes it yielded were huge. They were as big as coconuts. Though the number of mangoes were 125 - 150 every year, it was a sensation for the size and the taste. Every year, relatives and friends used to wait for their share of the wonder-fruit.

Malgoa: What we had were much bigger than these !

Raju moved to a barren place in 1988 for his studies, aiming for a greener future. Perhaps as a coincidence, the Malgoa tree started to dwindle in yield. The numbers had fallen to single digit and by 1990, it was completely barren. It yielded not a single mango for next 6 years.

In 1997, the family decided to cut it off and clear the area because it was a huge tree and was now becoming nuisance. Raju was now working and living away from home. With time, he was now known as Raj. He had to voice his opinion now because it concerned his love for the tree. He pleaded with everyone at home to spare the tree for one more year, just one more !

The summer of 1998 was a windfall. The tree yielded over 180 huge and lovely mangoes. Everyone was surprised but not Raj. He knew that would happen. Knowing the nature of humans, the Malgoa tree decided to end it all the next summer and succumbed to ravages of time. But it did so after a last hurrah.

The little boy turned Doctor was convinced of one thing. Jagadishchandra Bose was right.

The plants do have life. Why, they even listen to, understand and love those who love them !



Dr. Punnedit