Steaming in Kerala

I just got back from a trip to Kerala. The only way to describe it would be hot. Its not just a plain old heat – it’s a sapping, enervating sort of heat and I wonder how I managed to stay there for ten years but then I used to be a lot more accommodating then. You get up in the morning all in a sweat and it gets worse during the day. Your eyes sting and copious rivulets cause various parts of your body to stick to your clothes.

I don’t know whether it’s only my part of Kerala that is stuffy. Everyone there has a stuffy mindset just like the weather there. Of course I love the lushness of the greenery – the fields are a glorious shade of green that is like nectar to the eyes, the soaring coconut palms are a yet another shade of green and the numerous temple tanks are varying shades of green as well. The part I don’t like is the regressive attitude of the people when it comes to personal freedom especially for women. I don’t drink, smoke, wear revealing clothes or even anything less than full length stuff but I am considered a rebel because I think differently. I don’t see anything wrong in asking my husband to help with the children. I don’t see the point in bending backwards to satisfy the inexplicable demands of society. “What will people think?” is the overriding concern of my in-laws. I understand that both I and my children are a sore disappointment to them. I don’t work or drive (yet!) but when I did work, they were upset that I had to keep more hours than a government school teacher. My children can neither sing nor dance or in any way perform to crowds and I have honestly never sent them to be trained in that fashion. I will if they are interested but I simply don’t like forcing them. So they get no attention through my children and they find it difficult to connect with them which is of course understandable.

Restraint is always taught to the females – all girls should school their features into indifference lest they attract attention and definitely no running about. I find that even during a music show, people have constipated looks and they don’t applaud much or show any expression of enjoyment – of course the youth are different but it still seems forced to me. I’m sure one more generation will take care of that .
My roots will pull me back some day though. I only hope I would have regressed sufficiently to survive there by then!