Leaving Kerala

Malayalam graffiti, Fort Cochin

We've arrived in Bangalore after having spent more than two weeks in Kerala. I have to admit to a certain regret at leaving Kerala, even though I'm glad to be moving on. It's a laid back place, and despite the rolling blackouts (the result of a poor year for the state's hydroelectric power network), it seems to be fairly well put together. Some of that is no doubt attributable to Kerala's enviable human development indicators - while it's not a rich place, it has first-world standards of life expectancy and literacy, the result of policies pursued by the left-wing parties that have dominated the state government since Kerala was founded in the 1950s (it was born from the merger of the old Malayalam-speaking states of Kochi, Travancore, and Malabar, during India's post-independence reorganization along linguistic lines).

The leading party of the left-wing coalition is the Communist Party of India (Marxist) - not to be confused with the Communist Party of India, from which it split in 1964 in a dispute over China. The CPI(M) is not without its critics, and I don't pretend to know much about it, but Kerala has emerged in recent years as a model for those who observe that "development" should refer to something other than simple measures of GDP.

At any rate, it's election season in India (for the Lok Sabha, India's national parliament - not for state governments) and CPI(M) posters and banners are ubiquitous. I thought it was sort of interesting, in this day and age, to see the hammer and sickle displayed everywhere:


The script, in this picture and the one above, is for the Malayalam language of Kerala - which, to be politically incorrect, sounds really strange when spoken, but looks really cool on a banner or on a wall.

More from Bangalore and more pics of Kerala in coming days. We fly to Rajasthan on Saturday.