Between Kayli Mundu and Levi's

The Past quarter of a century or more has seen a new breed of Indians being born. The Arabian sands witnessed the liquid gold erupt changing it into an Arabian paradise of crude oil, the modern synonym for luxury,wealth and fief(It is ending). It began a transformation of the entire Asian continent marked especially by the changes in the Indian subcontinent. The Indians, Pakistanis and Bengali flocked to this modern paradise to sweat under the scorching heat and earn some gold for their families. The sixties were the beginning and seventies and eighties saw them coming in large numbers.

Kerala was one of the beneficiaries of this boom and it saw the gulf phenomenon spread viral across every nook and corner of the state. Dubai or 'Dhubei' as pronounced by the Malayalis, was the paradise for every ordinary Mallu. Soon families settled , children started growing on the desert land alien from the Mallu land until they finish high school and go back for college and higher studies.The Levi's are sold out for the blue and green checks of the lungi (kaylimundu). This is one big transformation for them. A mindset is being changed when one leaves the luxuries of the Arabian paradise and reach the tropical warmth of the coconut land.

People tend to try and find out the pros or cons of each lifestyle but both has its own merits and it is seen when passing through life period as well as places of different culture and scope. The cultural soup in which children grow in the gulf is different from the life back in the villages and this collides as well as fuses at different points of time. This is an interesting aspect of  the expat children and their life. The Namesake Mallu is abandoned in his homeland while branded one in the gulf.

Children in the middle east meet different cultures and form a unique one combining all. But it sometimes fades one's own. It all depends on the way he or she is being brought up and may vary from place to place. While they are 'Malabari' in the middle east, they are called 'Saaip/madaama'(sir/Madam a term used to mock at mixed culture or English influence) in Kerala.... confused between the kayli and  Levi's.

The flow of the stream...

Life thoughts are something that amazes our mind since it is a sort of introspection of ourselves, our lives and environment we live in yet it isn't a complicated set of logical statements found in reports published after an analysis of a system

The simile that life could be attached to is a stream.A clear stream of water flows down the hills. Life is indeed like a body of water not too large but flows continuously through a large variety of terrain. It flows slowly among the grey and black pebbles taking some small ones along with it. The clear water of life is similar. We start slow and clear. We feel things and grasp them. Thoughts are created, seeing through different views,new things sprout up like shrubs and at a later stage, the tall grasses grow at the sides of larger stream. The stream then flows down a sudden and comes up through brown rocks forming a different path. We learn bigger things, we learn the base of life and we start thinking differently. The stream slowly inherits color. It absorbs the color of the light green grass that grows at the sides. It gets the colour of the grey slates of rocks and it embraces the yellow and crimson of the sun. We take in the good, bad and those are in between and try to understand the course.

But we walk the journey along with the flow. We move ahead in a track that we did not plan at the beginning; rather we flow with the landscape. The stream is now heavy but it flows with greater pace. It cuts through the large rocks and flows with a massive force. White froth and foam arise as it falls with great speed and mass. The water gushes forth and is whitish blue. It is alive and bubbling like a young man who is eager to conquer new avenues. The water paves its way through huge boulders of sand and rock taking the silt and sediments banking at the sides along its way.

The youth is powerful, implementing ideas, exploring and fearless. It bursts with tremendous power and can create further ways when channeled. Youth is the prime of ages and it is when you can show the world what ‘you’ rather than for whom you are. It is the time to show the identity, like the stream that shouts out loud what it is. Then the stream slows down being a rivulet. It moves with a large amount of water. It is big, sluggish and takes in any amount of deposits whether it is material or energy.From this stage on the stream starts dying. It moves into a body of countless streams being one of them losing character and energy. It rests in peace. It passes away.