ENTE KERALA ETHRA SUNDARAM???

Ente keralam.. ethra sundaram...usha uthuppu's famous song is hurting my nostalgic feelings. 18 years ago i landed in UAE. The changes i see in my gods own country is very hurtingl.. In my child hood any festival in kerala is our festival, let it be vishu, Ramadan, or Christmas.. we celebrated it with much enthusiasm. The evenings after school are our golden moments. My friends, Anas, anzila,nazila, Rafi, sushil, sushanth everyone is ready to play. we play till the prayer from the mosque is louder. If it is a sunday evenings it is like a football final competition. Now I can’t see any such gatherings. All are either behind TV, play station, mobile or internet. The evenings in our village used to start normally with the devotional songs from the near by temple, followed by the news from the library and so on. No more libraries in the villages. When there is a marriage or housewarming ceremony the entire function is carried out by the native people and friends. The friends make this occasion a remarkable one by the hard work and unity. They will do the entire effort and preparation which eases the family from hectic man power charges and responsibility. The hard fact now is that you won’t find any one at a marriage house or any such occasion except the very close relatives till the lunch starts. You need to hire people for every thing. The worst part is that if you want any help from the neighbors or friends is you need to serve liquor like a mini bar. Even a death happened in your neighbor hood, now the new youth ask for liquor to be served in order to help the families for the burial ceremony.Liquor is the only magic that brings people to form a group now.
There used to be festivals in our village like sports day or library related functions where the participation of public used to be with full heart. Now you find politics every where and lack of trust.
Earlier our evenings are filled with old Hindi songs from the near by cinema theaters before the shows. But no more theatres and even second shows are any more there. The theatres are converted in to go downs as the TV. Internet and pirated CD‘s killed that industry. Earlier the towns and village streets are busy till mid night. Now most of the Kerala towns are almost empty by 7 or 8 o clock. Earlier after the business hours people used be sit together and chit chat which made unity and exchange of ideas and allowed a friendly co ordial atmosphere. These unity and brother hood is no more even in villages. Everyone is busy with there own things. They don’t have time for anyone. No body is bothered to look at your bed ridden neighbor and check his welfare. Politicians are equal culprits in converting the public with such attitudes as they know very well unity of villagers make their effort harder in order to rule them. So they bring cheap politic stunts to separate them.
Within these 15-20 years our generation lost lots of such golden memories, such very important qualities, and good behavior of our state. our own kalaripayatu, daffumuttu, or oppana, thiruvaathira kali can be viewed in some television reality shows. We can’t find any such cheerful faces any where. We cant find any social service by public any where like making a bus shelter for the public or expanding the road or cleaning the drainage except for the politics stunts now a days.
Our new generation doesn’t have any such good things to remember. Our memories about the games that we played in our child hood, like marble throw, police and thief, hide and seek etc. will be remembered as stories. They don’t celebrate onam by going out and fetch the flowers from the neighbor hood. Instead they buy ready made flowers from the shop if they still want to celebrate.
They don’t know there neighbor hood. They don’t know their friends names. The new generation is all alone by them selves and hence they are all under depression and lonely. They lost love for everyone and the result is a negative attitude leading to crime, depression, suicides and all lot.. The results are even big. They throw there parents after an age to old age homes or on the street. Be cause they don’t have any concern for anyone. They don’t have patience.
We lost all these because of the carelessness of our own generation. We are going through a period of modernization and electronic era. Mobiles served the purpose of a personal visit. Television take you from the radio at a tea stall, Internet take you from your friends circle and library. We lost our identity now and we passed all these friendship killing modern amenities in the name of trend and fashion to our next generation.
Our children will never forgive us for all these. If we could not pass any of our golden memories to our children what will they share with their next generation?
We need to wake up before it is too late and help preserve our identities as Keralites. This is possible by sharing our cherished memories and evokes a wave of changes to go back to our roots. Our roots, where we stand for our people without any prejudice and pride, we share our friendship, our care for our village, our next generation which will make a Sundara keralam. We Pravasi’s should take the initiative as we feel these nostalgic memories much more than our compatriots in Kerala where they all are part of a fast life cycle. When we sit here and look at them we feel like we lost all those good things of our state more than anyone as we lost more of our social life.
“keralam enna peru kettal abhimaanapooritham aakanam ennantharangam. ...…..” LET US ALL HAVE THIS FEELING IN OUR NERVES AND ACT TOGETHER..