Tharoor of Trivandrum

Ref bhairav #26

[It is like how could these dark southies achieve so much progress and development. It is like my college-buddy, Sharma from Punjab, who once said something like - "Yeh pencho kaale madrasi chamaar humse zyaada kaise sudhar gaye ?" Similarly most upper caste south indians, especially Brahmins (who have lived in South India all their lives but consider themselves culturally North Indians because they migrated from North 100's of yrs back), also cannot believe or appreciate Kerala's development. The attitude is - this cannot be true. This is all a sham. These frikking black madrasis could not have achieved so much progress. It is all going to collapse soon.]

The TamBrahms have no problem accepting or understanding the progress in education that Kerala has achieved.

It was mainly TamBrahms who were recruited by the rulers of the erstwhile princely state of Travancore-Cochin to run and teach in government schools. Many a TamBrahm I have met from Kerala (and I exclude the Palghat brahmins from this group) is essentially the desendant of a schoolteacher who moved to Kerala to teach and then stayed on, never returning to Tamil Nadu.

In the Madras Presidency too, TamBrahms were mainly schoolteachers. However, with the assault on Brahmins in Tamil Nadu, they have mostly been replaced by the illiterates who cannot pronounce the name of their mother tongue correctly.

I have always been intrigued by Kerala and wondered if there is a Kerala model that could be replicated in the rest of South Asia. With the exception of Kerala, the situation in India is far worse than the Human Development Index suggests. According to economist Amartya Sen, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on hunger, India has fared worse than any other country in the world at preventing recurring hunger.

In addition to its tremendous literacy rate, Kerala boasts one of the nation's finest healthcare systems, even for those who can't afford to pay user fees and therefore depend on government hospitals. Kerala's infant mortality rate is about 16 deaths per 1,000 births, or half the national average of 32 deaths per 1,000 births.

But even Kerala is plagued by hunger and malnourishment, just as the rest of India. The first India State Hunger Index (Ishi) this year found that Madhya Pradesh had the most severe level of hunger in India, comparable to Chad and Ethiopia. Four states — Punjab, Kerala, Haryana and Assam — fell in the 'serious' category. "Affluent" Gujarat, 13th on the Indian list is below Haiti, ranked 69. The authors said India's poor performance was primarily due to its relatively high levels of child malnutrition and under-nourishment resulting from calorie deficient diets.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

VK Krishna Menon:

Krishna Menon was Nehru's right-hand man for his leftist agenda. He was a friend of the Chinese and Russians and a vitriolic foe of the West and the US in general. He was the Defense Minister at the time of the China attack and refused to listen to the army generals' appeal for strengthening army. Nehru had to finally let him go after the China debacle.

Re: # 29

Yes you are right then who was VK Krishna Menon?? I have read the name but eludes me now.

Santani

Sanatani:

I think that you are confusing V.P.Menon, Patel's secretary, with V.K.Krishna Menon.

bhairav:

I have great Mallu friends and was with one of them (a Christian) for more than a week in Florida earlier this month. I was also in the backwaters of kerala (Munnar and Kumarkam) earlier this year and have been to Kerala three times in the last five years.
The point I was making was that communists can not take credit for the literacy levels in Kerala, most of the credit should go to the farsighted rulers of Travancore and Cochin who laid a great emphasis on education in their states.

Re: # 26

Bhairav Bhai

aap Keral main rahe aur apne Adi Shnakracharya ka naam nahin suna isi vaste aapne yeh bullshit likhi hai I will answer the rset of you posts later.

Sanatani

This has been circulating on the internet; i am sure most of you guys have seen it

HUM HINDUSTANI

Bengali

One Bengali = poet.
Two Bengalis = a film society.
Three Bengalis = political party.
Four Bengalis = two political parties.

Bihari

One Bihari = Laloo Prasad Yadav.
Two Biharis = booth-capturing squad.
Three Biharis = caste killing.
Four Biharis = entire literate population of Patna.

Punjabi

One Punjabi =100 kg hulk named Pinky.
Two Punjabis = Pinky with his bigger brother Twinky.
Three Punjabis = assault on the McAloo Tikkis at the local McDonalds.
Four Punjabis = combined IQ equal to one.




Mallu

One Mallu = coconut stall.
Two Mallus = a boat race.
Three Mallus = Gulf job racket.
Four Mallus = oil slick.


UP Bhaiyya

One UP bhaiyya = a milkman.
Two UP bhaiyyas = halwai shop.
Three UP bhaiyyas = a fist-fight in the UP assembly.
Four UP bhaiyyas = mosque-destruction squad.


Gujju

One Gujju = a share-broker in a Bombay train.
Two Gujjus = rummy game in a Bombay train.
Three Gujjus = Bombay's noisiest restaurant.
Four Gujjus = stock market scam.


Andhraite

One Andhraite = chilli farmer.
Two Andhraites = software company in New Jersey.
Three Andhraites = Naxalite outfit.
Four Andhraites = song-and-dance number in a Telugu movie.


Kashmiri

One Kashmiri = carpet salesman.
Two Kashmiris = carpet factory.
Three Kashmiris = terrorist outfit.
Four Kashmiris = shoot-at-sight order.

Tam-Brahm

One Tam-Brahm = priest at the Vardarajaperumal temple.
Two Tam-Brahms = maths tuition class.
Three Tam-Brahms = queue outside the U.S consulate at 4 a.m.
Four Tam-Brahms = Thyagaraja music festival in Santa Clara

Bombayite

One Bombayite = footpath vada-pav stall.
Two Bombayites = film studio.
Three Bombayites = slum
Four Bombayites = the number of people standing on your foot in the train
at rush hour

Sindhi

One Sindhi = currency racket.
Two Sindhis = papad factory.
Three Sindhis = duplicate goods shop in Ulhasnagar.
Four Sindhis = Hong Kong Retail Traders Association.

Marwari

One Marwari = the neighbourhood foodstuffs adulterator.
Two Marwaris = 50% of Calcutta.
Three Marwaris = finish off all Gujaratis & Sindhis.
Four Marwaris = threaten the Jews as a community.

RE # 20 Posted by dost_mittar

Firstly, I really don't care much about Kerala. I can assure you I don't have a theka with Kerala people to defend them or promote them. In fact I am very jealous of them and in a way hate them. I think I understand the dilemma of the North Indians being one myself. It is really hard for any North Indian to appreciate what Kerala has achieved in past few decades. It is like how could these dark southies achieve so much progress and development. It is like my college-buddy, Sharma from Punjab, who once said something like - "Yeh pencho kaale madrasi chamaar humse zyaada kaise sudhar gaye ?" Similarly most upper caste south indians, especially Brahmins (who have lived in South India all their lives but consider themselves culturally North Indians because they migrated from North 100's of yrs back), also cannot believe or appreciate Kerala's development. The attitude is - this cannot be true. This is all a sham. These frikking black madrasis could not have achieved so much progress. It is all going to collapse soon.

When I first started my college at REC, Calicut, Kerala, I hated the place because nobody spoke Hindi which I believed every one in India should know because Hindi is India's national language. I was 17 and kinda immature too. My command of spoken English was close to zero though my reading/writing skills was good. It was like going to school in foreign country except this was supposedly India. The food was different with too much coconut, local people spoke funny, they wore lungi differently, everything was different. The Mallus put coconut oil in hair and in food. The Hindus ate beef and did not celebrate Diwali. We outsiders, especially northies, hung out together and our Northie seniors help us settle down. Our window to locals was a local college-mate, Iyer who spoke some Hindi, lived in the hostel and wanted to hang out with us. We, outsiders, mostly northies, ate, drank, had fun together but inter-action with locals was minimal because of language barrier. But towards our 3rd and 4th years when we had lived there long enough and had become mature enough, we began to appreciate and love the place and enjoy the experience we had there and we went sight-seeing to different parts of Kerala and also, tried to learn the language but gave up pretty soon(I think Malayalam is the hardest language to learn in India). We buddies pretty much saw the whole length and breadth of Kerala, had really fun times and appreciated the love and affection we got from locals. I think it was our own maturity after 4 years that made us appreciate the place. Now looking back and having traveled to pretty much all corners of India, I can see and appreciate how different and developed Kerala is when compared to rest of India. I think what Kerala people have achieved is remarkable.

Kerala has lot of similarities with Sri Lanka. Both are advanced societies as far as human development index is concerned. Answer might lie in Buddhism. Kerala was a Buddhist country till Brahmins went there and converted them to Hinduism which was pretty recent. Christianity, Judaism and Islam reached Kerala before Hinduism. One way this becomes plainly apparent is when you look at the Ayyapa Swamy (Harihar) temple whose legend has the Muslim friend (Vavar) of Hindu god Ayyapa helping him kill the demons. Ayyapa Swamy was Buddhist deity whose legend was appropriated into Hinduism by Brahmins along with Ayyapa's Muslim friends legend. There is a temple dedicated to Vavar alongside Ayyapa's temple. Other thing is most Keralan Hindus, who are not Brahmins, are avid meat and beef eaters. Some of the biggest cattle slaughtering abattoirs are right along Kerala's borders with Tamil nadu and Karnataka. And besides being the biggest beef eaters Kerala also exports beef to Malaysia and Gulf. All these cattle come from Andhra, Karnataka and TN. Kerala Hindus also don't celebrate Diwali and don't follow lot of other pan-India superstitions. My theory is the Buddhist ethos amongst converted Hindu Mallus along with the forward thinking Christian minority propelled Kerala into the forefront of equitable development amongst its population which makes them a darling of political sociologists worldwide

pucca harega..

I had put this in post no 7 but it did not get registered as I was banned.

Harimau,

You are mistaking VK Krishna Menon for KV Krishna Menon. VK was a patriot of the highest order who was the only non ICS officer in the States department and the one who performed the best including nipping in bud the mischief that was being caused by the Nawab of Bhopal to get the Rulers of Jaisalmer and Jodhpur to agree to join Pak and thus if he could get J&J he could pressurise Kotah and Bundi to do the same and voila Bhopal is part of Pak.

As many other heroes like Shyamji Krishna Verma, Madan Lal Dhingra and Veer Savarkar he has not got his due as he was not Nehru or Gandhi.

Sanatani

Testing

Re: # 21 Dost Mittar:
I don't think that one should exaggerate the unique importance people of any province or state. They all have special contributions in their own right. How about Bengalees, Sardarjis or Marathas.........? Can you compare flowers and fruits ?

Kamath

further to #20:

If any state government deserves a credit for high literacy rates, they are the successive governments of the tiny Himachal Pradesh, which have brought the literacy rate of their state from the lowest to one of the highest after the formation of the new state.

For high literacy, Kerala has to thank not the communists but the solid foundation laid by the earlier Maharajas of Travoncore and Cochin. They put a lot of emphasis on literacy and laid a solid foundation, so the state of Kerala was way ahead of any other state when the Kerala state was formed.

As for the communist government, the record of West Bengal in the matter of literacy is no better than of other state governments.

#18 NKG,you go to Kerala, and you go to Tamil Nadu, and you can and will see the difference. I suspect Tamil Nadu's divisive caste policies are responsible for driving out large numbers of Brahmins, unfortunately that does change a society as well.

Re: # 16
bhairav...
this is very stupid argument...
In non-reserved category, what is the intelectual output from Kerala? Good Engineering college or medical college? No...Good university? No....this literacy rate of Kerala is skewed figure....when you take the figure of higher education, mallus at most land up in JNU...

Southern Karnataka and Tamilnadu is much ahead of Kerala....