At Alice's home...
"The contradictions of trying to grow itself prejudice"
Published on June 23, 2010 in La Voce di Romagna first page
Simone Mariotti
Appu was a lovely child of eight years since I arrived in
Manippara I almost never let go.
Manippara is lost in an area north of
Kerala, south
India it outside of any tourist route. There are no hotels or restaurants, there is not even a village, to tell the truth. It 's a remote area in the district of
Kannur. The bus dumped me in Iritty, the nearest town, twenty minutes by car from where it spread in the silence, plantations of rubber trees, coconut and cashew nuts. I arrived there almost at the end of my journey to Alice's house, although she does not live there anymore, moved to Delhi a few years. It 's a girl not much older than me who introduced me to a mutual friend some time ago, but we felt only over the phone and via email. A small letters that continues to this day, every so often.
His brother, Robert, forty years, still lives there with his wife and two children (Ammu and Appu), and like many other Indians in the past has done a little 'commuting, working in Nigeria and the Arab countries, "but Nigeria earns more, "she said. Now he is a farmer and bought a house with land and, like his friends to turn over those days, would put on a small plantation. But also wanted to start a kind of B & B and now has remedied a van to begin scarrozza for plantations and the surrounding areas of future visitors.
Tourists, however, still there are none. One day, while I was strolling along at home, a local police patrol stopped me and started to make me a friendly but insistent, third degree about who I was, that I was doing there where I was going, where I lodged. They wanted to know all the details of my work in Italy and luckily I had a business card with my company logo. Robert's wife, warned by Appu, who was a bit 'alarmed, came out to give me manforte and everything was resolved without problems, but I took a shot, "not only run down the street, could be taken to a plantation worker abuse . However, if Ricapito always tells the story of Alice. "
Another feature of that area was to be a small Catholic enclave surrounded by deep Hinduism that permeates the entire south
India. It was still a form of very devout Catholicism centered obedience of the rules. Every evening at about 19.30, after the soap opera, in the family for half an hour praying the rosary, reading the Bible and various prayers. I watched it all with a moderate interest, and when I asked him why they did every night, Robert said, "we must do this because we are Catholics, is what the bishop said." He said that all the families in the area did the same, who knows ... who knows as yet.
Kerala is also this, the only place in the world (along with West Bengal, apart from the recent electoral defeat), where the communists were elected Marxist government with the Socialists and 60 years, and has produced a state between cultural most advanced of the Indian federation, with the highest literacy rate and the most concerned with protecting the environment. The reforms have re-distributed land in the sixties have created fewer inequalities than elsewhere, but few industries are tourism and agriculture are the main sources of income, although it is still alive and well, and the state economy stumbles was excluded from the recent boom in
India. Alice told me:
"I like being in
Kerala, but it is difficult to find work, because we are many, and Delhi, there are more opportunities. But my dream is to return to
Kerala and do something for women and children. There are many women nurses because there are so many job opportunities both abroad and inside. But many of them go abroad to work, so they can help their families, and then have the opportunity to earn something for them. "
I had also confirmed one of the friends of Robert, who after two years as a taxi driver in Chicago, was due to return to visa problems, and even now he cultivated the land. He told me also of the many contradictions in
India, such as the communist state strongly, however, where the caste system is almost stronger than elsewhere and that was rampant in private healthcare, so it was a constant staple of clinics and dispensaries.
But the place looked a bit 'to the situation of serenity that I had found in tea plantations in Munnar, a week before, and I told him long ago in the series "5 stops to the paradise of you" ...
"I read what you wrote," said Alice, "and it's true what you said, the workers there are more serene. Because they live every day with their work. And if they get sick they're doing quite well in
India because the state does not help us for medicine. But when they get sick, sometimes caring for the house and sell the land if they have it, and then you can imagine ...
India is very poor but there is so much wealth. There are so many rich, perhaps more than in Italy, only that the wealth of
India is in the hands of some wealthy (like Tata, Birla, etc.).. But the poor remain poor, as you said, especially in the city. All are in town because they find some kind of work and can live in any way. The problem is that they work and maybe in the evening drinking alcohol with what they have earned. There is still too much confusion in
India, but at the same time there is an order of life in families, schools and everywhere there is still a beauty of life, a joy, and many people are in ... Appu tells me more about you, you know, is very intelligent, says it all. I'm glad you felt like family. "
Alice does not live there anymore, but I think you will return. He wants to try to improve and change things without changing itself and its culture, a little 'what is happening to
India, even in this anomalous compared to the recent development of other emerging countries. A major challenge, the Indians, united and divided, impoverished and enriched by a thousand languages and cultures, winning half hour Stano.
To contact Alice to go to: www.simonemariotti.com