kurian's New Age Blog

It was last year in December that I visited Poovaranthode, a hilly area 45 Kms from Kozhikode. I am here again.When u compared to the last visit,we are more in number, with Praveena and her three kids added to the group.Like the missing 20th hijacker, the person missing from our group is Praveena's husband, Siby, who landed in Mumbai last night. We set out at 9 a.m; five adults and five children, in a Chevrolet Trivera. We stopped at Mukkam for breakfast. The food and the hospitality are commendable, and there is a wide variety of items to choose from.We had some Parottas packed for our destination because the place is sparsely populated, and there are no hotels around. The journey up the hills after Koodaranji was a test for the driver, to manage the hairpin curves and steep ascend.At some stages,the road is damaged. Anyway, we reached Poovaranthode on time. Ajay's uncle, Kariachen lives near the road He and his family had left for Kanoor the

The   characters 1 Kunjan  (45)  :  a  jobless  rubber tapper  2 Ammini  ( 35) : his  wife ( Kunjan's   modest home  at Paika. Ammini  is  sweeping  the yard. Enter  Kunjan )                           Kunjan Ammini, arrange  my  bag . I'm   going on a trip tomorrow.                          Ammini What trip? Where to? Why  go on a trip when we don't  have any money and when you have to find a new job.                       Kunjan The job-hunting  can wait. There are other priorities. I'm  on a trip to Trivandrum, to take part in the LDF's  Secretariat march to force Oommen  Chandy to step down.                  Ammini Are  you crazy? A Secretariat  march  at this eleventh hour? What  are you going to achieve? How many Secretariat marches have you undertaken, with little or no impact?                Kunjan This time it's different. This time Oommen Chandy will be ousted.It's  a foregone conclusion. See what happened to KM Ma

In   Kerala, when  there's a bus accident, the people  flock to the scene, set  fire to the bus , and beat up the driver, or ,if he is lucky, he  flees to safety. The people jump into the conclusion that the driver is 'guilty' of reckless driving. They act as investigators, judges  and executioners. They  overlook the fact that, the accident may have been caused by lack of maintenance by the  owner of the bus. Also , in Kerala, sometimes the relatives of a patient who dies in a hospital, vent their grief  and frustration and beat up the doctor, accusing him/her for negligence. In  a hotel  , if  cockroach  is found in the sambaar, the 'patrons' smash the hotel. In  South  Africa, when  trains arrive too late, the commuters set fire to the trains and the station. All these are  symptoms of  a  ' banana  Republic'. A  Banana  Republic  is a kind of Republic  where anybody  can say or do anything, unchallenged. The  detractors

Education   has been a hotly  debated issue  in South Africa for a long  time, and  there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. It was the student uprising in  Soweto in 1976 , which was triggered  by the imposition  as  Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in Black schools , and  which spread like wildfire costing  about 600 lives , that  brought the apartheid problem under the international  spotlight, and  served as a catalyst to the speedy downfall  of  apartheid. About  40 years  have passed since the  historic  uprising , but the problems in education  haven't been  solved. Despite  huge spending  on education since  1994, when  South Africa became a free and  democratic  country, millions of  black people, especially in the rural areas and in the townships, have been excluded from the fruits of  the new dispensation  due to the  lack of quality  education.  The   discontent  among the poor  occasionally  erupts in the  form  of  'service  delivery

Today, Kerala has a good  story  to  tell, unlike the usual stories of gloom  and doom.The  Kerala  police  has done a sterling  job by  tracking down the most elusive, most brutal and most cunning and  heartless  criminal, "Aadu  Antony'' , whose name and images used to send shock-waves  down the spine of every  law-abiding Malayalee. This latest feat of the Kerala  Police has added another feather to its cap, only two weeks after the tracking down and  arrest of the killer of  Sister  Amala. Both  these achievements of the Kerala Police have boosted people's faith in the Force,who are increasingly using  scientific methods to track  down criminals. This  raises the Kerala Police's reputation to international  levels, comparable to any Police Force in the world. The arrest  of  Aaadu  Antony  can be seen in three perspectives. First, it gives a strong  signal  to hardened criminals  that they have nowhere to hide,in India or abroad.The long

SORRY ,SISTER    (  This poem is a tribute to Sr. Amala, who  was found dead in a  convent at Pala, Kerala) Sorry, Sister Amala, very  sorry to mothers,wives, sisters, girls, That   are  added  daily,  To the statistics  of the murdered, Added  to the never-ending list, Of the innocents   slaughtered  daily. Victims  of unspeakable  brutality, Victims of newer and bolder methods of killings, Experimented successfully, with impunity. Battered,mutilated, tortured, burnt alive, Strangled, stoned,abused,shot, Traded  like cattle, as slaves, Showered  with scalding acids of hatred, Abducted,gang-raped, impregnated, abandoned, Chopped and stuffed neatly in suitcases, Baked in ovens,thrown down from skyscrapers, And killed to preserve  'family honour', The saga of bloodshed goes on. Nowhere is safe, home, school, bus ,nursery, Nowhere, the agents of  Death  wait,   Under  the shadows,unchallenged. Sorry, Sister,the long  arm of Evil, Reached  your holy

The   characters 1  Kunjan ( 40)   :  A  worker in the rubber log loading and unloading  industry. He is well-built and very strong 2  Ammini ( 35)  : Kunjan's  wife 3  Achu  ( 3 )   :  Their  daughter 4  The  Criminal : ( 25) 5  Human  Rights  Activist  ( 50)  HRA Police Inspector, policemen, neighbours  etc                      Scene  1 Kunjan's  modest house at  Paika. It's  10 a.m. Ammini is busy putting clothes on the line. Achu tries to help her. She likes to play with the water in the bucket.                  Achu Where's  Pappa  gone? When is he coming back?            Ammini Pappa  went to Pala, in search of beef. You know, there's a shortage of beef in the country. Your Pappa can't eat rice without beef. He says beef is essential to keep fit.         ( enter  the  Criminal. He has a strange look, with unkempt hair and dirty clothes)              Criminal Chechi, can I have  some  water

 The   characters 1   Sam   ( 55)       A  Malayalee teacher  living in  South  Africa  2  Anne (50)         Sam's   wife   Three   armed  robbers, in their  twenties Scene  1  (  A  big, colonial-type  mansion . It's  8 p.m. Sam  and Anne are  relaxing ,watching  Malayalam  Channels. )                     Anne Did you lock the small gate ?                   Sam Oh,no. I forgot it.               Anne Then   go  and  lock it.               Sam No. I'd rather  leave it like that.It's  too risky to step outside. Besides, it won't  make any difference.         Anne Why ?        Sam Nowadays nothing can  prevent  armed robbers from entering  a compound  or  from breaking into a house. High walls, barbed wire, alarms, vicious dogs, security guards, police, you name it, nothing is effective against  thieves.. nothing.. This is  thieves' own  country.             Anne But  let's  

The    characters 1   Navya  (17)      Higher  Secondary  student  2  Divya   ( 17 )    Navya's  friend 3  Mithun    ( 21 )   Navya's   Facebook  friend 4 Old  man   ( 80)   (partially   blind) 5  Mithun's  grandparents                                SCENE 1 The  garden of a Higher  Secondary  School. The students are relaxing during  break. Navya  and  Divya  are sitting on a bench under a tree. Navya  is holding a mobile phone.                          Navya Divya, what should I do ? That young man has sent me another friend  request. I'm  going to delete it.                                                    Divya Let me see. ( takes the phone ) Who is he ?                       Navya One  Mithun  from Bangalore. This is his third request.                    Divya I think there's no harm in accepting him. If he oversteps the limits, you can just unfriend him.                    Navya   Ok.Let m