It was probably a Malayali seaman, one of many who routinely plied the Arabian Sea between Kerala and East Africa, who piloted Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer and trader, to Calicut in 1496. (Da Gama, typically, was welcomed by the Zamorin, but when he tried to pass trinkets off as valuables, he was thrown in prison for a while. Malayalis are open and hospitable to a fault, but they are not easily fooled.)
In turn, Malayalis brought their questing spirit to the world. The great Advaita philosopher Shankaracharya was a Malayali who traveled throughout the length and breadth of India on foot in the eighth century A.D., laying the foundations for a reformed and revived Hinduism. To this day, there is a temple in the Himalayas whose priests are Namboodiris from Kerala.
Keralites never suffered from inhibitions about traveclass="underline" an old joke suggests that so many Keralite typists flocked to stenographic work in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Delhi that “Remington” became the name of a new Malayali subcaste. In the nation's capital, the wags said that you couldn't throw a stone in the Central Secretariat without injuring a Keralite bureaucrat. Nor was there, in the Kerala tradition, any prohibition on venturing abroad, none of the ritual defilement associated in parts of north India with “crossing the black water.” It was no accident that Keralites were the first to take advantage of the post oil-shock employment boom in the Arab Gulf countries; at one point in the 1980s, the largest single ethnic group in the Gulf sheikhdom of Bahrain was reported to be not Bahrainis but Keralites. The willingness of Keralites to go anywhere to do anything remains legendary. When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969, my father's friends joked, he discovered a Malayali already there, offering him tea.
But Keralites are not merely intrepid travelers. They also have behind them a great legacy of achievement. In the fifth century A.D. the Kerala-born astronomer Aryabhatta deduced, one thousand years before his European successors, that the earth is round and that it rotates on its own axis; it was also he who calculated the value ofπ (3.1416) for the first time. In a totally different discipline from another era, the first great modern Indian painter, the prince Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906), was a Keralite. (Ravi Varma revolutionized Indian art by introducing the medium of oil on canvas and incorporating into his style a distinctively Victorian European realism.) But a recitation of names — for one could invoke great artists, musicians, and poets, enlightened kings, and learned sages throughout history — would only belabor the point. Kerala took from others, everything from Roman ports to Chinese fishing nets, and gave to the rest of India everything from martial arts (some of which appear to have inspired the better-known disciplines of the Far East) to its systems of classical dance-theater (notably Kathakali, to which I will return, Mohiniattam, and the less well known Koodiyattom, recently hailed by UNESCO as a “masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity”). And I have not even mentioned Keralite cuisine and traditional medicine, in particular the attractions of Ayurveda, the great health system of ancient India, with its herbs, oils, massages, and other therapies, now revived and attractively presented at dozens of locations around the state.
All this speaks of a rare and precious heritage that is the patrimony of all Malayalis — a heritage of openness and diversity, of pluralism and tolerance, of high aspirations and varied but considerable accomplishment. To be a Malayali is also to lay claim to a rich tradition of literature, dance, and music, of religious diversity, of political courage and intellectual enlightenment — and of energetic entertainment. A visitor must look at Kerala life beyond the sandy beaches. One should not miss the vallomkali, or backwater boat races (which during the harvest festival of Onam are among the biggest mass sporting events in the world). One should also go backstage at a Kathakali performance, revealing the thiranottam (the prelude to a performance in which the dancer emerges from behind a handheld curtain) and reminding us of the stark morality of color in Kathakali, where characters clad in green, nature's hue, embody goodness and dharma, and those in black represent the darkness of evil. One should also enter the state's myriad places of worship — Orthodox Christian cathedrals, the oldest Muslim mosque in India, and the exquisite synagogue in Kochi's “Jewtown,” as well as the famous Hindu temple at Guruvayoor and a smaller village shrine. One could also visit students learning the ancient martial art of kalaripayattu, or depict the holistic Ayurvedic treatments offered at the Kottakkal Arya Vaidya Sala, or take in the wildlife sanctuary at Thekkady.
There is an old verse of the poet Vallathol that my late father loved to recite: “Bharatam ennu ketal, abhimaana-pooritham aavanum, andarangam; Keralam ennu ketalo, thillakkanam chaora namukke njerumbugalil” (When we hear the name of India, we must swell with pride; When we hear the name of Kerala, the blood must throb in our veins). It is, in some ways, an odd sentiment for a Malayalali poet, for Keralites are not a chauvinistic people: the Keralite liberality and adaptiveness, such great assets in facilitating Malayali emigration and good citizenship anywhere, can serve to slacken, if not cut, the cords that bind expatriate Keralites to their cultural assumptions. And yet Vallathol was not off the mark, for Keralites tend to take pride in their collective identity as Malayalis; our religion, our caste, our region come later, if at all. There is no paradox in asserting that these are qualities that help make Malayalis good Indians in a plural society. You cannot put better ingredients into the melting pot.
Keralites see the best guarantee of their own security and prosperity in the survival and success of a pluralist India. The Malayali ethos is the same as the best of the Indian ethos — inclusionist, flexible, eclectic, absorptive. The central challenge of India as we enter the twenty-first century is the challenge of accommodating the aspirations of different groups in the national dream. The ethos that I have called both Keralite and Indian is indispensable in helping the nation meet this challenge.
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“In the exceptional nature of Kerala's social achievements,” Amartya Sen has written, “the greater voice of women seems to have been an important factor.” The literacy of Kerala women has produced a lower birthrate than China's, without the coercion China needed. But there is a cloud to every silver lining, and as an expatriate male Keralite, I discovered soon enough that not everything about the lives of Kerala's women is ideal.
I have received several striking letters from disillusioned Malayalis attacking their own state's prevailing culture in relation to women. Two of these stand out. The poet Thachom Poyil Rajeevan put it bluntly:
It's true that Kerala women can read and write (and) are doing better than Bihari women or the women in the neighboring states in the professional and social spheres. There may be pilots, doctors, ambassadors, and Supreme Court judges among them. But they cannot come out of their houses after six in the evening. If anyone dares to do so, she is not safe outside in the dark. Any man she comes upon on the way is a potential intruder into her modesty. I don't know whether women in Bihar face a similar threat in public places. But I have seen girls in Madurai Kamaraj University in Tamil Nadu walk fearlessly and safely to hostels late at night after completing their work in libraries and laboratories. Yet I cannot expect [to see] a girl after six or seven on the campus of the university where I work. I have seen many Malayali women walk with confidence in Bangalore, Mumbai, and New Delhi. But when they come to Calicut or Trichur, they become timid. Kalyanikuttys, despite all their claims to literacy and empowerment, are not safe in their home state.