Pic from Manorama Arif Mohammad Khan, the governor of Kerala, declared himself a Hindu yesterday while addressing the Hindu Conclave at Thiruvananthapuram. The term Hindu is not religious but geographical, he asserted with his characteristic disarming smile. ‘Hindu’ is a geographical term denoting the people of a region, the whole of India. I was excited. Patriotism surged in my veins. Goosebumps embraced my entire body. I am a Hindu, I said to myself. Now I can enter the temple which has been denying entry to famous people like K J Yesudas because of the temple authority’s ignorance about what ‘Hindu’ means. ‘No entry for non-Hindus,’ says a board outside that temple (and many other temples in Kerala). But my governor gave me hope. So I went to the temple. The board is still there. The temple looks slightly different from usual. The crowd is less and there are a lot of police around. Something is wrong, I can see. Maybe, Mr Khan has inspired a lot of other Indians like me and t
Title: Valli Author: Sheela Tomy Translated from Malayalam by Jayasree Kalathil Publisher: Harper Perennial 2022 Pages: 407 “It is not the creatures in the forest that we have to fear, it is the creatures among us.” An Adivasi girl named Kali sings those lines in Sheela Tomy’s debut novel, Valli . That is the central message of the novel. Kali is a daughter of the forest. The novel is the story of the degeneration of Wayanad, erstwhile abode of many Adivasis in Kerala. The so-called civilised people from the plains invaded the land of mist and mystery, forests and folklore and brought into it what is known in the mainland as ‘development’. A whole mountain vanished and tourist resorts came up in its place. Forests gave way to townships. “Brokers bringing booze, sex and other amenities into ‘homestays’ sauntered between the township’s grey buildings…” A whole culture that sustained the forests and the hills and the rivers died. It was killed. “Young women transformed themsel