From: jose@csd.uwo.ca (Jose Thekkumthala)
Subject: The Rise and Fall of the Kerala Empire
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Western Ontario, London
Distribution: alt.culture.kerala
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 17:07:38 GMT



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		=    THE RISE AND FALL OF THE KERALA EMPIRE		   =
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			------ PROLOGUE ------
			
      It is like a breath of fresh air this emergence of the Kerala newsgroup.
      This article is meant to symbolize the celebration of this event.
      
      The following is meant to be a tribute to Kerala, the land that Gods
      and Goddesses	 would love to inherit.
      
      If Wordsworth were to read the following, he would interpret this
      as poetry because it is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.	
      	
	

			------ A TRIBUTE TO MALANAD ------

	The pristine beauty of Kerala adorned by ocean on one side and mountain 
	range on the other makes it a paradise in India, where Gods would love 
	to come and stay. This beauty is amply extolled by poets of all the times 
	in the Malayalam litrerature. 
	
	It is a privilege to be born as a Malayalee, to inherit one of the most 
	beautiful pieces of the Mother Earth, to blend into the heavenly beauty 
	that the sunset over the Arabian ocean provides every evening,
	to be part of the coastal Kerala carpeted with coconut trees and to 
	enjoy the evelasting summer. 
	
	When the creator ParasuRaman threw his axe over the Arabian Ocean, l
	ittle did he know that he was going to give rise to a gem of beauty, a
	beauty that Gods and Asuras would probably fight over to inherit, a 
	beauty that would outlive the flow of history, a beauty that makes Kerala 
	stand tall in India. 
	
	The Western Ghats that stands as a faithful sentinel from the time immemorial 
	is the benefactor of Malanad, its patron saint, jealously guarding its 
	immaculate beauty from the outside world and sustaining its identity. 
	
	It is as if the eastern mountain range, disappearing into the infinite sky, is 
	conspiring with the stars to preserve and perpetuate the celestial beauty of Kerala. 
	
	The Arabian Ocean has been a playmate of the Kerala coast from the beginning 
	of the time and their love affair is as old as history, renewed day by day. 
	The multitude of the rivers that bathe the rich soil of Kerala are just 
	messengers sent from the heaven. 
	
	This is the land you can spend an eternity without getting bored.
	
	MahaBali even today cannot resist the temptation to emerge from the underworld 
	once every year and visit this piece of beauty on the Onam day.
	
	It requires a supernatural poetic genius like that of Kalidasa to comprehend
	the breath-taking beauty of Kerala and immortalize that in the golden
	archives of poetry. Kalidasa was intrigued and mesmerized by the awe-inspiring
	beauty of the Himalayas which made him write:
			"Asthyustharaswyam Disi Devathathma
			Himalayo Nama Nagathiraja" etc.
	I wonder what he would have written if he saw the mountain range spanning the 
	eastern Kerala. MahaKavi Vallathol comes close to doing some justice in 
	capturing the beauty of Kerala in his poetic gems.
	
	It requires a novelist's genius like that of Thomas Hardy who immortalized 
	the Essex county in his novels to write stories about Malanad, stories
	narrated daily by the Arabian Ocean and echoed off the Western Ghats, 
	stories that fill the Kerala skies, stories that can be told to
	the end of the eternity without ever getting you bored.
	
	Kerala is a joy for ever, because it is a thing of beauty, as per Shelly,
	(or is it Keats?) the great poet.
	
	
			------ WHY KERALA CULTURE IS UNIQUE ------
	
	The disintegration of the Indian newsgroup into a number of regional newsgroups 
	is only a precursor to what is going to come in the real history of India, 
	where it is bound to dissociate into a multitude of regional state-nations. 
	
	India is a creation of modern history, necessitated by a shear desire to survive 
	after an outside rule. The richness and the magnanimity of the enigmatic
	Bharatha civilization is not in the recent history, but it is in the long past, 
	when there were hundreds of distint cultures. Resurrecting this past scenario
	would be a first step in correcting the misdeeds of history that India was 
	unfortunate enough to encounter. 
	
	We, Malayalees are uniquely blessed by Mother Nature to have a covetable and 
	distinct culture and it is only fair and justifiable that we live to inherit 
	and cherish this privilege. It is natural and logical that the India-wide 
	patriotism will yield way to regional patriotism and we Malayalees will be 
	behind noone to claim our heritage. We are after all remnants of the Chera 
	Empire, assigned by destiny to be the sole inheritors of the beautiful Malanad. 
	Language, culture, history and geography make us distinct and distinguished 
	in the Indian context and in particular, in the Dravidian Culture. 
	
	If anyone is outraged by this resurgence of the regional patriotism, think of 
	this: Kerala is and has always been the most underprivileged daughters of the 
	Mother India. If the privilege is inversely proportional to the distance 
	from the Capital city Delhi, Kerala is a perfect example of it. Kerala has 
	always received the short end of the stick and sometimes no end at all.
	
	
			------ EMERGENCE OF THE KERALA EMPIRE ------ 
			
	What is the potential of Kerala in forming an empire of its own? Truth is that
	it already has an empire of its own. You can see Malayalees in every nook and
	corner of the world. Colonies have been formed in the Middle East, in Africa,
	in Europe and in North America. This is an empire where sun never sets, which
	is just the solution we need to control the Malayalee population. 
	
	
			------ DISINTEGRATION OF THE STATE ------
	
	An independent mind and a free spirit are the hallmarks of a Malayalee character.
	It is hard to find unity among Malayalees thanks to the critical outlook we have
	towards everything. This is bound to lead to the disintegration of the Kerala
	empire. This is going to lead to the formation of multitude of Kerala empires or
	Kerala nations. This miniaturisation is going to be bad so much so that every 
	Kerala household might declare a nationhood of its own. The backyard of every
	Malayalee family will attain a national status. When this status has been attained,
	disintegration of the state is complete. 
	
	
			------ WITHERING AWAY OF MUNDU ------
			
	When the Kerala empire dies down, the national dress mundu takes a decline.
	Mundu is ideal in a hot and humid climate of Kerala. But how about we Malayalees
	here in Canada, who encounter the most inclement of the winter climate?  We even
	know the polar bears by first name. If we dare to go out in mundu in the winter,
	we are going to end up with frozen meat balls for dinner. Pretty soon, you will
	see a new breed of Malayalees here near the North Pole, growing long hairs and
	rubbing shoulders with Polar bears. Mundu is a no-no in the Canadian colony of 
	the Kerala empire.
	
	
			------ EPILOGUE ------
	                    		
	When the Kerala Empire reaches demise, I for one will be too overwhelmed
	with grief to be a pallbearer. I will take consolation in reading Thomas
	Gray's "Eulogy in a Country Courtyard":
		Full Many a gem of purest ray serene
		The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear
		Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
		And waste its sweetness on the desert air
	
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	 jose
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Newsgroups: alt.culture.kerala