Friday, June 02, 2006

sachara keralam


In as much as it may appear, I do not intend to mock at the disabled - may them be brave enuf to overcome the limitations- but just thought I would use this rather unpleasant looking chart to laugh at myself

The chart shows the numbers per lakh of.. you know what.. It should have been 273 , 195 , 133 etc .... but then, now that I am not in Kerala anymore ....

Am reminded of two incidents after seeing this

1. It was the time when my lab (in US) used have regular tea and snakes (as some of my friends wud put it) meetings on Thursdays at 4 pm. At 3.58 pm a friend of mine calls me in the lab- muct have been some urgent matter for if not I do not encourage people calling me in the lab in the middle of a working day. Two minutes later, announcement about the tea came, and I cut my friend off right there "Hey, can I talk to u later ? Its tea time in the lab".

She could not believe what I did .. kept complaining for days after that "How can u cut your friends off for the sake of tea?" .. until she got used to the Malluness ! Even now, what I did makes perfect logic to me - I can always call my friend, but the tea.. hey thats once a week. Why don't u understand ?!

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2. This was when we as a family visited the Athirapally waterfalls in kerala. there is a board there whcich says "1569 people have died trying to swim in the river. Do not attempt", near the "police aid center".

My father asked us "what do u think the police can do if someone falls of the falls ?" . My uncle coolly replied "Guess, change the number to 1570"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The numbers are shocking. isn't it ? Kerala average is almost 3 times National. Any thoughts on why ? Your title seems to be a mockery on the high literacy of Kerala .

Anonymous said...

Any connection to literacy ?

drisyadrisya said...

pradeep,

frankly, I donno, for I haven't studied the issue in detail, but I have always maintained that secular education is not a measure of ethics, culture and so on and so forth

One thing I can point out from my experience is that the land of shankaracharya is running low on spirituality.. I remember once I was at a small temple in the nite, discussing something with my friends - this is outside kerala mind you. There were dailywages workers , stay put at the temple, discussing something.. we happen to listen to what they were talking, and they were talking spiritual stuff

Contrast this with kerala- one can hear politicalk debates, movie debates,.. many times even the "intellectual debates".. but spiritual discussions .. too less..

thats my feeling - totally personal