KERALA IN SALALAH
ANCIENT CONNECTIONS AND MODERN HOPES
I had rented a car, in fact it is the best way to
get acquainted with Salalah and Dhofar. Driving along the coast, just outside
the city of Salalah, the scenery, the trees as well as the architecture change,
slowly, going back a century or two.
Coconut trees in dense batches, banana plants adding to the greenery and
papaya trees and add to the tropical mélange, the sugar cane reeds! This in the
middle of the desert, where the impassable Rub il Khali (the empty quarter) is
just a short hop away. The vernacular buildings, houses and mosques, exhibit
their crumbling nature, had a dreamy character to it, the shadows of the Omani
figures darting in and out, scurrying into the mosque in this holy month of Ramadan.
I stopped at one of the many stalls along the road selling the produce from the
farms: coconuts, banana, papaya and sugar cane. A very healthy looking young
man comes over.
I asked him, are these coconuts from here?
Yes indeed, so are the other products.
Where are you from, I asked him.
India, Sir
Oh! You are from Nagaland?
He smiles and he gets my irony, India is a
multicultural collection and identifying with the whole you tend to erase the
uniqueness of the culture you belong to.
No, I am from Kerala.
Please, I begged him, the next time someone asks you
where you are from, please answer, Kerala and not India.
I explained, here in Oman or other Gulf States,
India is without context, it hides the detail about you. Kerala and Omani coast
has had contact for centuries, not Rajasthan or Uttar Pradesh or Bangladesh
If you say you are from Kerala, I know immediately
that I have something in common with you, that special something I do not share
with any other citizen of the geographical entity called India.
I told him I was from Cuba, he knew about Che and
also we discussed the recent elections in Kerala where Communists were freely
elected to office.
In Oman, it is better to look for a
Kerala (the same applies to other Gulf states) if you have a query or need
directions. It seems that the workers from other parts of India or Pakistan or
Bangladesh are less educated, almost always without any proficiency in English.
It also depends upon the job they are doing, but most of the workers are
labourers and construction workers, those who work in Hotels and other
establishments do speak some English. It was interesting to observe strict
segregations among the Asians, Filipinos joyously ignorant about the customs of
India and vice versa. If I stop someone in the streets of Salalah to ask where
the Souq is, the answer almost always is, No English, please find a UK (United
Kerala)!
One things I have learned from the Other
Indians (“red”) is that we must show respect for the “other”. I was genuinely
interested to listen to what Ginesh, who is a Hindu from Trichur, had to tell
me.
He is a farm worker, with one other
person he attends to this farm of an Omani, works 9 months and gets 3 months
off in Kerala, he has to pay his airfare which is about 150 OMR. ! OMR is close
to 2.75 US dollars. He is paid 550 OMR of which under the sponsorship system
which is common in the Gulf states, he pays 250 to his sponsor. He is very
happy, he is provided with rudimentary accommodation, the food is cultivated
including chicken he keeps in a coop, for eggs and meat. An Indian Budget
airline, AI express flies once a week to Cochin from Salalah, he along with
hundreds of others from Cochin and thereabouts, take advantage of this short
flight
Centuries or even a millennia or two
ago, sailors from these shores did go to the Kerala coast and trade. Amitav
Ghosh, the Indo-American writer has chronicled the story of Abraham Ben Yiju, a
Tunisian jewish trader who went to India from Aden in Yemen in the year 1298
CE. So the connection is an ancient one, and the cross cultural fertilization
is evident in the faces of many a people in Cochin.
He showed me a picture of a 18 month old
infant, clad in the traditional Kerala costume, his son. I can understand the
pangs of loneliness for him and the little boy, as I have experienced both,
because of my nomadic lifestyle.
In Kerala, I can make 800 INR (about 5
OMR) per day, but I am responsible for food, accommodation and transport and at
the end of the month I am left with nothing. Here I am able to save every
single Baiza they pay me.
We continued our conversation.
Do you wish to see our farm?
What a lovely invitation for an
anthropologist!
Rows of planted bananas, he showed the
bananas from Kerala, and those of Oman (did it arrive centuries earlier from Kerala
as well?), coconut trees standing guard, along with papaya trees as well as
bunches of sugar cane. Neat irrigational ditches spread out, I can see that
this is a productive farm, he has no idea of the economic aspects of the farm.
A very basic room with two fans,
steaming hot inside, a blaring TV showing some melodrama in Malayalam (he
proudly said they get six channels in Malayalam, a rudimentary kitchen where
they prepared their meals, a well to draw water(slightly salty he said). While
at the kitchen, I saw an older man brewing tea, Kerala style. He is my father,
the younger man said, he has been here for 13 years, and proudly pointed out to
a dilapidated vernacular omani building, he sleeps there , with one other
person, Ginesh informed me
They seemed genuinely happy.
His father offered me the sweet tea of
Kerala, offered a plastic chair. I thought fondly of the Teawallah of Balaji
tea stall in Ernakulam, Vijayan and Mohini, the travelling tea wallah!
We talked some and took photos of each
other.
Thinking about the story of Kabuliwala
by Rabindranath Tagore, I said, Ginesh, I want you to do me a favour?
What, sir?
I will give you one OMR which is about
165 INR enough to buy a new outfit for your son when you go to Kerala for
holidays in two weeks time
He grinned and said, thank you.
Tell him that it is a gift from his
Cuban Uncle!
When you come back to Salalah, the next
time, please come by sir, I will be here.
I certainly shall, I said, as he
directed me to reverse the car from the compound.
I felt it was a nice encounter, a little
bit of Kerala in Salalah.
To celebrate this encounter, I decided
to have dinner at Silver Diamond restaurant, a Kerala eatery. It would have
fitted well into Fort Cochin. I ordered Malabar Fish Curry and Paratta, both of
which tasted good.
The flavor of Kerala keeps on giving me
some affections and friendships.
Topped the evening with a nice cup of brewed tea, Kerala Style!
ONE OMANI RIYAL IS ABOUT 165 INDIAN RUPEES. IN MANY OF THE TOURIST RESTAURANTS IN FORT COCHIN, THE BILL WOULD HAVE BEEN SIMILAR..
As if by coincidence, the Khadi shirt I was wearing was bought at a store in Ernakulam recently, a gift of my young friend, Paul, about to leave for Colombia University in New York to continue his studies in Pubic Policy.
