Redefining Horizons

  “Veettil Oonu,” ( വീട്ടിൽ ഊണ് ), the board outside the roadside restaurant in the town screamed. The two Malayalam words literally mean 'home food’. Everyone knows that home food is prepared and served at home. The restaurant that screamed ‘home food’ was neither home nor homely. It kept the hearth going for its owners and workers. Such boards are common along the length and breadth of Kerala. How can anyone buy ‘home food’ in a wayside restaurant? Everyone knows it is a blatant lie.  If you walk into such a restaurant hoping to eat something homely, you could be disappointed. The food they serve is a ‘meal’ sold in all restaurants across Kerala. ‘Meals,’ for the uninitiated, means an unlimited supply of rice and curry, served on a banana leaf or plate. If you thought Veettil Oonu would be cheaper than normal meals in other restaurants, maybe if you are lucky, you could be right. Anyway, people still walk in knowing that the board screams untruth. The name sells. Why are na...

  “Pigs do not know they stink,” Manju, my friend, messaged me after reading my article,  Wrestling with the Pigs . The benign comment almost exonerated pigs from culpability for the stink. The thought, she said, was brought up by her husband when they sat down to discuss my blog. He had read somewhere that “pigs do not know that they stink.” They are a kind couple. It would have been easy for them to be considerate and pardon pigs as a class for “they (pigs) know not what they do.”  I was, however, elated on two counts.  The first, another article of mine, had found space in an intellectual discussion. It felt good. The second, I detected something profound in her statement. It raised two socially relevant questions. How would pigs know they stink? What would happen if pigs knew they stank?  How would pigs know they stink? There could be two ways. Either the pig itself realises that it stinks, or another pig calls it out. Both can happen only if pigs themselves...

  Wrestle with the pigs?  Yes. What happens if you do? “You both get dirty, and the Pig likes it.” George Bernard Shaw.   Would anyone do that? Most of us do.    Why would anyone do that? Well, it is in our nature to do that. Despite my resolve not to, I almost got into the pit yesterday.    My school had a piggery. The place had an offensive stink that reached far beyond its walls. It was there that I saw pigs for the first time. The piglets looked cute, ate a lot, and grew up into huge pink pigs. I knew they would end up on our plates sometime and felt bad for them. Nevertheless, I relished pork.    One fine day, I came across George Orwell ’s all-time classic, The Animal Farm , and read it. Unaware that the book was a political satire about the Russian Revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union , it led me to consider pigs as ruthlessly manipulative, cunning, and wily. I visited the piggery once or twice after that and tried to identify N...