Writings of Kerala Geek

India recently figured as one of the most corrupt nations of the world. Corruption is the one single reason why India is still a poor country. This is one area where Kerala can also boast substantial contribution. Almost all government departments in Kerala are neck deep in corruption.

My first experience with corruption was when I needed nativity certificate for engineering entrance exam. I had heard from my friends that Rs.100 is the standard bribe rate at the village office. So when i met village officer I gave my application with Rs.100 inside it. He opened the application,looked at 100 rupee note and then he put it in his shirt pocket. There was not even a trace of guilt in him. He told me to collect the certificate after 7 days.

After 7 days I met him again. He gave the application back saying that I live outside his jurisdiction. Yes, I had applied at the wrong village office! I waited for a few seconds thinking he will probably return the money. I was young and stupid

My father said - let us go and see Tahsildar. He has a bigger jurisdiction and can easily issue the certificate. He turned out be a bigger shark as well! I ended up cursing him at his office, and the entire staff came to manhandle us!

Finally I went to the correct village office and got the certificate after paying Rs 50.

Worst Kerala departments in terms of corruption

RTO (Regional Transport Office) - Corrupt officials with a set of agents out to collect money. Probably the most greedy!

Drugs Controller Office - They think collecting bribe is their birth right! If you go there you can see bribe collection happening openly!

PWD (Public Works Department) - They specialize in corruption and mainly target contractors. They are so powerful that they even kicked out big contracting companies(Pati Bel)!

Village office/Registration office - Another den of corrupt officials. They have started forming alliance with land mafia and have started generating fake sale deeds etc.

Health inspectors - Another set of corrupt officials who target mainly small establishments. If you don’t bribe them, they look for ways to make your life a hell (increase license fees etc).

Now the latest trend in Kerala corruption is to outsource bribe. You pay the agent and he will in turn pay the officials. For example you give money to plumber who in turn will bribe the water department. This is predominant in RTOs and corporation offices.

What I have mentioned above is from my personal experience. There could be other departments worse than the above. Also in some places there is no bribe because the official leading that department is honest and strict.

Unlike my hometown Idikki (or Idukki?), Thrissur (or Trichur?) has a flat terrain. But there is a small hill on the outskirts of Thrissur town which is very popular locally. This place is known as Vilangan hills and gives a panoramic view of the Thrissur city. It is located about 5KM from city centre.

After visiting anathottil at punnathur kotta, we left for Vilangan hills. At the bottom there is a check post and you have to pay an entry fee to the hills. The road from there to top is narrow and rather dangerous at some places. While going up we could see lot of couples coming down in bikes (Yes! it s a popular destination for young and old lovers in Thrissur who look for some privacy).

Towards the top we could see an open theatre on the left side of the road. This is now covered with high grown bushes and is home to crickets and frogs. When we reached at top we could see the Thrissur town in all its glory! There is a playground for children at the edge and it seems well protected from the cliff. In fact when we were there two school buses came there. There is an open room on the top to sit and chat.  There is also a small ice-cream shop below.

Check out the Vilangan hills photos below. If you are interested in a satellite picture, click here.

The whole Vilangan hills is covered with heavy grown bush. That is why there are lot of young couples who come there and disappear into the grass! What happens next is something national population committee or hindustan latex would surely be interested) When we were there we saw a couple being questioned by security (yes - the omnipresent moral police of Kerala). Reason: The girl is in school uniform and the guy looks like he is over 40. hmmm…

In conclusion, Vilangan hills (Vilangan kunnu) is popular with kids and those who wish to produce kids.

We just finished decorating the pulkoodu (crib). It was fun and we ended up putting over 1000 mini bulbs not to mention dozens of balloons. It is a modern pulkoodu made of flower pots!

There are two kinds of mini bulb sets (100 bulbs in a set) -  one which is white and transparent and the other with different colors. The blinking of bulbs is programmable via a push switch. Transparent ones cost me Rs. 60 per set while the colored one is Rs. 50 per set. Bargaining would have probably reduced the price a bit, but hey, who will bargain on a christmas hunt?

Now I got to go for the midnight mass. It is going to be cold out there

Wish you all a very happy Christmas.

The goonda menace in Kerala has reached such epic proportions that even current ruling party (which was against any such law before) is now implementing Kerala Anti-social Activities (Prevention) Ordinance! But unless there is genuine interest to curb the menace, this ordinance will be of no use.

What powers does the ordinance provide? First of all police can take the goonda on preventive custody upto 21 days without judicial review. It can be further extended with judicial review upto 6 months. Frankly looking at the current serious situation, I think even 6 months is not enough. Also Kerala has a unique problem of human rights activists who are ready to go to any extend to free even the hard core criminal (there was even a long running dharna to free Afzal, one of the prime accused in parliment attack). 

Every day all Kerala newspapers carry fresh news about Goonda attacks. Today is no exception. Only this time I know the place where it happened since I take the route daily. It happened on the aakulam NH 47 bypass which goes to Kovalam (Trivandrum). There is a toll bridge on the way and most of the time there is a queue on both directions. Even if you have a monthly pass you will have to be in the queue. It is all up to the whims of the people at the toll booth.

I think most of them at the toll are rowdies and goondas. I myself had seen a few instances of abuse and goondagiri at the toll. One day a fellow on auto (a gulf malayali I guess) who was going to airport was stopped and verbally abused. Last line I heard from the goondas was - “gulf modayanu kettaa..”! Poor fellow.

So it was waiting to happen. Today Malayala Manorama carries the news - “Toll pirivukar  kudumbathe aakramichu. car thakarthu” (Toll goondas attacked a family and destroyed their car). Is there going to be any action? I doubt it since goondas invariably enjoy political protection…

First thing government should do is to remove that damn toll there. They have been collecting money for too long!

Check out the news clipping below (click on picture to read).

What I cherish most about my childhood is my early school days. It was fun time and there was no pressure to perform. I don’t remember carrying a heavy school bag at any time! There was competition between children but it was at a healthy level.

But things have changed drastically over the years. Now the work load at school is unbelievably high. My daughter is too young to go to school, but I do feel sympathy thinking how hard it is going to be for her.

I see only one group to blame for all these nonsense - parents. It is written infinite times, but I can’t help it. Everyone wants their child to be an engineer or doctor because of the social status it gives to the family. But maybe because she is too young, I don’t have any such expectations for my daughter. I want her to do what she wants (but not sure how I will react if she says she wants to be a model!).

What prompted me to write this was the photo I took last week. I was going to office and at a signal (Pattoor junction) I noticed an auto rickshaw on my left side. I felt really sad for the child sitting behind (look closely - there are 3 children one on top of other!).

These days I am doing a lot of train travel. My wife is from Irinjalakkuda and she goes home once in a month. So this means I have to travel to Irinjalakkuda almost on a weekly basis. There is a saying in Malayalam - “… bharyaveettil anchaam naal pattikku samam” which means if you stay more than 5 days at your wife’s place you are equivalent to the dog there. Moreover I do have a job so I keep shuttling between Trivandrum and Irinjalakkuda.

It is tough getting reservation on the main night train(Trivandrum express 6348 from Mangalore which reaches Irinjalakkuda at 10:45PM). I don’t know which idiot extended it from Kannur to Mangalore. You need to book atleast two weeks in advance to get a ticket in it and I was religiously planning my travels for it.

But on one occassion, I had to book ticket at the last minute. As usual Trivandrum express reached WL 200+ so there was no chance of getting a ticket. When I looked at the trains only other option was to get on the Amrita train which leaves from Thrissur at 00:30AM. Yeah , it is too late but was the only option so I took it.

So on sunday I said bye bye and took a local train from Irinjalakkuda and reached Thrissur by 11:30. Even at that hour Thrissur station is crowded. There are 2 special trains from Chennai which transits between 01:00 AM and 02:00AM.

Finally Amrita arrived half an hour late around 01:00 AM. I was dying to sleep and immediately jumped in and started looking for my birth. It was S7-05 and to my horror another guy was sleeping on it. My adrelanine levels were quickly increasing and I called the fellow. He was deep asleep so I called louder and finally started shaking him. After a bit of prodding and kicking finally he was awake.

Me : I  have reservation for this.

Other Guy (confused) : But.. but. I have reservation

Me (getting aggressive)  : Here is my ticket. Show me your ticket.

Other Guy (after searching a while) : Here is mine.

I looked at his ticket and I was shocked! He also had the same seat. What the hell? I looked at my ticket - same again! Then it struck me, the dates are different. I looked at the watch - oh no! It is Monday!!!!!!!!!!!

I immediately gave the ticket back to him and disappeared in a flash ( You see, he was a strong guy and was recovering from his sleep).

Loosing money on a train ticket is not too bad. But standing on the train till Trivandrum is hardly enjoyable. So I approached TTE (Ticket Examiners - some are friendly and some look like having a piles problem) and told him about my predicament. He said nothing can be done. So I approached head TTE  (an old and helpful guy). He told me that I can stay in the train  till Alwaye and probably should try the Malabar express for a ticket.

So I ended up on the door waiting for Alwaye. Suddenly from nowhere a well dressed but completely drunk fellow appeared. He was cursing TTE and had only a day time ticket. TTE came and started cursing him back. Thankfully Alwaye station came really fast and I got down there.

Looking back I could see the TTE kicking him out of the train. He probably got hurt as well.

I took a ticket from Alwaye (counter was open even at 2AM) and luckily got a berth in Malabar Express. Finally at I was able to sleep at 4AM and man, that was the best sleep I had in a while.

Before joining my current company, I was working for a top software company in Chennai. The word Chennai brings up an image of thousand demons all trying to eat you alive. Yes, I am talking about the Auto rickshaw guys there. But that is for another post. In this post I will talk about an interesting experience I had at my office.

It was about three years back and my company was implementing a security initiative (BS 7799 - which stands for British Standards but I think BullShit is more appropriate to describe it) at workplace. I am not a fan of these initiatives since most of it is stupid anyway. It only restricts the freedom of employees and gives a false feeling of security.

One of the initiatives as part of the security drive was to classify all documents and company information into groups. For example - public documents, confidential documents, secret documents etc. So one day I posted the following joke to our company bulletin board (What is given below is a shortened version).

——————- BEGIN JOKE ——————-

One day our Vice president was visiting our canteen to see the facilities. He overheard the following conversation between two software engineers,

First guy: “Man, my project manager is a moron. He doesn’t even know ABCD of programming. He doesn’t know anything about software. This is pathetic.”

Second guy: “True man, Same with my manager.”

Next day the first guy was called by the company security group which is headed by the Vice President. Software engineer stood before the security committee.

Vice president: You are fired. Please talk to HR regarding your termination formalities.

Software engineer: Sir, sir, What did I do? (Almost beginning to cry)

Vice president: I overheard your conversation yesterday. You called your manager “Moron”.

Software engineer: Sir, I am very sorry. I will never repeat it.

Vice president: No excuses. You are fired.

Software engineer: Sir, sir, why are you terminating me for such as small issue. I will never repeat it sir…

Vice president: Son, you are not getting the seriousness of the issue. What you spoke about was classified as “Company secret”. We are terminating you as per BS 7799 for discussing a company secret publicly.

——————- END JOKE ——————-

After a while this joke became quite popular at our office. After a week or so I got a mail from HR asking me to report to the HR head. I went to the HR guy who turned out to be a Malayali,

HR guy: You need to remove your posting about BS 7799.

Me: Why?

HR guy: Someone at the top complained about it.

Me: But it is a joke!! Any way why should I remove it?

HR guy: You are ordered to remove it as it violates BS 7799. If you don’t, security committee will be forced to take action against it.

I was speechless. The irony of the whole thing struck me after sometime.  I removed the post on the same day.

I had spent most of early childhood in Kannur district of Kerala. I stayed there till I was 11. After that we shifted to Trivandrum since my father got a transfer. Kannur life was pretty interesting. We had stayed in NGO quarters where I had lot of friends. One of the early things that I remember very vividly of Kannur life was a trip to Mahe.

Mahe (Mayyazhi) is a union territory directly administered by Indian government. It is in Kerala and is adjacent to Kannur. But different set of rules apply there. There is also difference in taxes. More importantly there is a difference in tax for alcohol. In Mahe alcohol is considerably cheaper than other parts of Kerala. This automatically means a lot of alcohol is smuggled  between Mahe and Kerala.

My family used to go to Mahe to visit St. Theresa’s church. One day we were returning from one such trip. The bus was jam packed and I was sitting at the rear of the bus with a plastic bag. It contained 2 water bottles we were carrying. My father and mother were in front and couldn’t see me due to the rush in the bus.

When our bus reached Kerala border, a police jeep stopped it. The sub inspector(SI) was standing beside the jeep and he sent two constables to check the bus. They were looking for alcohol smugglers. To be precise, they were looking for bribe from alcohol smugglers. One of the constables came near me and asked - “What is in the bag?”

I replied - “Bottles” (I was too young and wasn’t even aware what he was looking for!)

Suddenly I could see terrorized looks on the face of passengers near me. The constable told me to get down with my bag. I was wondering what is happening and looked for my father, but he could not be seen.

Constable took me to the SI. Now the entire bus was watching the proceedings with a surprised look. SI asked me the question again, “What is in the bag” again came the same reply - “Bottles”. He looked surprised and took my bag and looked inside. I would  be underestimating if I said he looked surprised. He suddenly turned angry and gave the bag to the constable who had brought me there.  He also peeked inside - Man, if somebody could photograph it - It was a Kodak moment!

I returned to the bus. Passengers also had a look at the bag. There was a loud cheer from the bus and they started booing the police. The SI and his team suddenly disappeard. The rest of the journey was interesting with everyone cursing the police.

PS: Kerala has the highest alcohol consumption in India. You can find queues all through the day in front of the alcohol shops. Ironically Kerala society in general considers alcohol as a devil

PPS: Personally I prefer Fosters beer.

Last week I came across an interesting blog written by Alexis Leon. His post on memories of golden years was touching. I was thinking why his blog is named as “Reflections of a Survivor”. Then I came across his story page and his homepage. In Alexis’ own words,

I am an Industrial Engineer, but after practicing Industrial Engineering for nearly two years (at Pond’s India Ltd.), I switched to the software profession. I joined Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and was working in the Mainframe environment for nearly 3 years. Then I had an accident, which resulted in Spinal Cord Injury and paralysis from chest down. My mobility is restricted and I use a wheelchair for my ambulation.

For any ordinary person such an incident will be completely devastating. But what Alexis went on to achieve is truly inspiring. After the accident he rejoined TCS and worked there for a year. He later established two companies and had written over 30 books. He is also the webmaster for Pegasus Book Club. People like him give meaning to the word “survivor”…

In any city, there are dos and don’ts. Trivandrum also is no exception. For example, I won’t dare walking alone through any small roads in Tampanoor or roam around sanghumugham beach after 10PM. In Kerala, women in general normally don’t walk around the streets after 8PM. There are places that are safe and there are places that are not safe. You need to be aware of them.

When we go out to other places, we tend to be ignorant and foolish. I will tell you about a foolish thing that I did long time back ( I was 24, and at that age, guys are expected to be foolish).

It was about 7 years ago. I was sent on a short deputation to London from TCS. It was an exciting time. Our client office was at a plce called Maidenhead outside london. I was staying at a place called Marlow (the rent was dirty cheap there) which was about half an hour by train.

There were only two guys at the client office from TCS. So soon we became good friends. He was staying at Maidenhead itself (he was a party animal!). On every friday we used to visit the local pub and then after a while I used take the train to Marlow at around 9PM.

One day as usual we were drinking beer and watching football (The guys there are ready to die for football) at the pub. My friend normally drinks 5 times more beer than me. This day due to some reason we went on drinking till 11PM. Then suddenly I remembered that the last train is at 12! So I hurried home with my laptop (It was company given a laptop).

[Now you would be wondering what made me continue drinking till that time? I had a bad moment at office. My boss (client manager) had caught me accessing porn site. Trust me guys, I wasn't accessing it intentionally! But when I closed the browser I saw my boss standing behind me laughing. He was a middle aged british guy from manchester. He was very cool, and became very friendly from that day, which ofcourse helped me when our code bombed on the production server.]

So coming back, I was at the Maidenhead station around 11:30. The train is yet to arrive so I wait there. It was pretty cold and I could see some white guys coming to the station. All drunk like me. Then I noticed another guy (politically correct term : of african origin) sitting beside me. I smiled at him (”Fosters” makes you a very friendly personality).

Train came around 11:45 and I occupied that last seat on the compartment. I wanted to avoid the drunk fellows who were getting inside from the front. There is always a slight risk of getting kicked by racists in UK. I kept the laptop on the window seat and was sitting on the aisle seat.

Suddenly the guy I smiled at before appeared beside me. His both hands were inside his jacket (quite common due to cold) and was saying something to me. Fosters were having more impact on me and I was wondering what the he** he is saying. Then I guessed - He is probably selling drugs. So I tell him “man, I don’t do drugs, Thanks”. You see, in england you should suffix every damn thing with “Thanks” and “Please”. He seems adamant in selling drugs. He is not going and I repeat my words.

Then he points me to his pocket. “Oh, man I don’t want drugs” and I look at the pocket. To my horror, I see a shiny little knife there..

Ok. Now it is better to listen. So I listen - he was saying “Gimme ur laptop, or i’ll stab yaa”. Immediately I look at my laptop. It is not my laptop, it is company’s and is probably worth over a lakh. Damn, I am not going to give it and loose 1 lakh from my pocket.

So I tell him back. “It is not laptop, it is a bunch of computer books” (You see, this is why I love Fosters - It decreases your IQ by 80% and makes you a common man). Now it was his turn to become confused! He waited there for a few seconds and seeing that some white guys were coming in our direction ran away.

Slowly Fosters effect was going down and I became scared. I was thinking what if he is on another compartment? What if he chases me when I get down at Marlow (I had a 20 minute walk from station to home). I could hear my heartbeat for the first time (It beats pretty fast guys!)

So when the train reached Marlow, I waited at the door for the last minute. Just before automatic doors closed I jumped out of the train and started running at my top speed (Still I could see the weird expression on the face of the guys who were standing at the train door). I think I covered the 20 minute walk in around 3 minutes flat.

From next day I never took the laptop back home.

PS : The laptop was insured. The guys at the office told me that I am pretty lucky not to get stabbed (probably the guy was an amateur).