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...

  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...

  “Kundil Veena Chundeli” is in Malayalam and means “mouse that fell in a ditch . “History repeats itself” is an idiom that finds frequent mention nowadays. Both sides, especially in animated television discussions that become no-holds-barred debates, use it at will. The events that unfold daily across the world somehow give me the impression that the contemporary is often a repetition of the past, and we, in our own little ways, are all part of this great drama. To make things clearer, let me share a Malayalam story I learned as a child in the second or third grade. The story seems to repeat endlessly, though the characters keep changing. Let me narrate the story, giving it a contemporary flavour. The story Once upon a time, a mouse landed up in a kitchen in search of food. Without much problem, he found two “ neyyappams ” (a Malayali sweet and my childhood favourite) wrapped in a newspaper. Without waiting to eat, he picked up the packet and walked. He wanted to reach h...

  It was a beautiful morning that day, way back in 2008. Then, I received that call from my friend in Mumbai. A Malayalee born and bred in Hyderabad, married to a Malayalee settled in Mumbai, she speaks a unique tongue. Our friendship had gone past the necessity of starting conversations with a good morning or good evening. The telephone calls between us were not very regular, but when we spoke, we picked up from where we left off last. We talked about small things in life. Most of the conversation was reserved for pulling each other's legs and laughing. There was happiness in our conversation, always. It has been like that since we met for the first time in 2005. But that call in 2008 was different.    “Arey, do you know something?” she asked. She sounded dead serious.  In the normal course of conversation, I would have said something funny or pulled her leg. “What happened?’ I asked, sensing something wrong in her voice. “I have breast cancer,” she said. I was stun...

Defining India-China Relationship  India’s War with China started on 20 October 1962, when China launched simultaneous attacks in Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh, then called NEFA. The war ended on 21 November 1962, when China unilaterally declared a ceasefire. China withdrew from all areas it had captured, but not from the Aksai Chin area. Official details of the month-long conflict remain largely opaque to this day in India, locked away in classified documents. However, we often come across bits and pieces, carefully curated for political returns.  The shroud over bilateral relations between India and China notwithstanding, the two most populous neighbours remain locked in distrust and domestic denials, despite growing trade between them. The occasional glimmers of hope in the relationship often end up being extinguished by disappointments, and every photo opportunity, from the “ Hindi-Chini, bhai-bha i” days to the contemporary “riverside spectacle,” eventually turned out to b...