Communists, Jews, and Heat: A Measured Discussion

It is time once again for me to move on to a new Indian state.I crossed the border from Karnataka into Kerala high in the Western Ghat mountains. The word 'ghat' means stairs, and sure enough descending from the southern tip of the Deccan Plateau to the Malabar Coast is pretty much the same feeling one recalls from being a small child who still falls down the stairs. One minute you're leisurely winding about on the road through the highlands, then all of a sudden the tree cover opens up and you see a drop of several thousand feet in what looks like spitting distance. You could probably jump from the top of the road to the bottom, though I opted to remain in the bus, clutching my seat as it swerved around one hairpin turn after another, narrowly avoiding striking smaller vehicles full force and launching them on an unexpected shortcut to the lowlands. It was absolutely beautiful though.

Kerala in general is a stunning place. It is also a strange place, exotic and enticing, seemingly created by a smug god to give American political conservatives nightmares. It is a lush, humid strip of tropical land - the most densely populated state in India - and it is chock-full dark-skinned multireligious Communists with tight financial ties to the Persian gulf. A land desperately crying for Our Freedoms.

I'm not exaggerating about them being multireligous. There are at least four major religious communities in Kerala; the Hindus, the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Muslims, and the Catholics. The Syrian Orthodox Christians are quite the curiosity. They trace their lineage here all the way back St. Thomas himself, while the historical record places them here at least as early as 400AD. More noticeable than Hindu temples in this state are the number of churches, and the odd, narrow tower-shrines that dot the countryside. These are slender towers topped by a cross, with a little shrine at the bottom, typically to Jesus, St. Thomas, or St. George. Seeing an Indian man in full Orthodox vestments is a very weird sight. You won't believe how many paintings of St. George slaying the dragon you see around here. I'm not that surprised they like him, though; Indians love a good slayer. But not Slayer. This land is incorrigible.

I'm also not exaggerating their ties to the Persian Gulf. They've been trading with that area since at least Greek times, and now a huge chunk of the state economy is based on money sent home from laborers in the Gulf. All those crazy buildings in Dubai? Built by Keralans and Pakistanis. Half the banks, tailoring chains, and jewellers here seem to have a branch in Oman or the UAE. I'm telling you, it's only a matter of time before the next idiot president we get sends Predator drones to Kerala.

And I am definitely not joking about them being communists. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has been in power here more or less constantly since 1957. You cross the state border and immediately you see little red hammer-and-sickle flags fluttering everywhere every street corner seems to have a union office affiliated with the Communist Party. In other states, political posters tend to be heavy on the national colors, lotus flowers, and frumpy-looking men with stupid mustaches being watched over by the subtly-haloed spirits of their political forebears. Here they have a row of frumpy men in little red stars next to a giant portrait of Che Guevara. It is at the very least an aesthetic improvement.

The thing is, the Marxists here have actually done a good job for once. Kerala, despite being the most densely populated state, has some of the lowest levels of poverty and is the only state in India to have achieved full literacy of its citizens. Perhaps having a higher democratic body to answer to has helped by restraining the party from committing the excesses so common to the governments of Communist countries. In any case, it's really a stunning achievement. And before you go thinking I'm just blindly cheering on the commies our of my childish affection for radical politics, I will point you to the example of the Communist Party in Bengal, where the same party's record in governance has been...less than entirely satisfactory. But hey, look at Kerala! You can enact land reforms, empower labor, and carry out a social revolution without killing 20 million people and throwing the rest in jail! Who'da thunk it?

Another great thing about Kerala is that they speak Malayalam, yet another incomprehensible babble with a beautiful script. Just look at this

കേരള എറണാകുളം കൊച്ചി മുന്

I just can't get enough.

On the other hand, certain things about Kerala could use a little improvement. For instance, if you are going to temporarily close your central bus station (*cough* Kozhikode), you should find a solution other than dispersing all out-of-town bus services to eight different roadside pull-overs scattered around the city, mmmkay? I've had yet another wearying travel experience that's left me a bit testy. The bus I finally caught was harrowing enough to put me on edge, driven by a man who had clearly spent his entire youth trying to master the shortcut on Koopa Troopa Beach and was still practicing this art using a lime green bus with an animated Ganesh pasted to the windscreen. Then I got stuck on this $%*#@! train which traversed a whopping 100km in 4 hours. I'm accustomed to things being slow here, but there were aggravating factors that contributing to a twitching, neurotic expression of my inner fury. For starters, it was ungodly hot. The weather in Kerala is sweltering. It was late February here yet my whole body felt like a nutsack after an entire night of slow, grinding sex waist-deep in a vat of unwashed laundry. Insects were crawling all over me, my skin was black with sweat-glued train filth, and it was late at night and everyone else on the train was either snoring or wheezing to death. Even reading the usually-captivating volume Philosophical Foundations of India couldn't keep me from noticing that this so-called "express service" had been stopped in the shithole town of Aluva for over an hour. Let me make one thing clear: if the town doesn't have a population exceeding 100,000 people or a Wikipedia subheading for "Culture", there is no reason for an express train to even brake for errant children playing on the tracks, let alone stop for an hour in the middle of the night.

I finally got to Kochi, the major city of Kerala, and I'm not sure it was really worth the trouble. Kochi gets rave reviews for its relaxed colonial heart and its setting on a number of islands and peninsulas that one traverses by allegedly endearing ferries. I actually thought the historical center was a tourist trap piece of crap and much preferred the greatly maligned modern quarter on the mainland. Probably the best part of Kochi is its Jewish quarter, not because it has a unique history of a now-vanished Jewish merchant community, but because it's full of cranky spice merchants and because they call the neighborhood "Jew Town". Jew Town is, predictably, full of Jew tourists. Jew tourists, and actually Western tourists in general, suffer from the impression that their own ethno-cultural group is the single most fascinating one on the face of the globe, and love stopping by heroic outposts of their culture in the teeming lands of the heathen masses. So the British traipse through Victorian Mumbai and cottage-filled hill stations, the Portuguese amble about Goa and Diu, and the Jews flock to Jew Town. Aside from Jews, Kochi (or Cochin as you may know it) apparently appeals to three types of people: rich Europeans who love going around the world to spend time in vaguely European-style towns with better weather, people who marvel at goats walking loose in the street, and people who find the idea of traveling across town by boat an inherently magical experience. Ghostface Buddha possesses none of these traits. If I found all these things in one convenient place I would drown the goat by dragging it behind the boat, give it an exotic name like "Maharaja Mutton Roast", and sell it at four times its worth to a rich European.

The boat ride wasn't even interesting, let alone magical. Oh look, we're in a bay. And what have we over here? Quick, honey, get out the guidebook! Do you think that's coal or bauxite? My word! Everything is so fabulous when you see it from a boat! And is that....is that the fabled mosque of the mighty Al-aud-Shah-al-Fazah Shahjah Shah kings?!?

No, it's a grain pier. Get me the fuck out of here. I feel like a scrotum.