24 chapter
It is useful to think of the states of India as analogous to the countries of
Europe. Th e borders of Indian states are generally determined on a linguistic
basis, which often corresponds to signifi cant cultural and historical distinc-
tions, and as is the case with Europe, there is no language that the major-
ity of people in India speak. Th e international borders between India and its
neighbors Pakistan and Bangladesh reveal the ironies and contradictions of the
contemporary nation-state. While border patrol personnel who speak the same
language and eat the same food face each other from both sides of the India-
Pakistan border, people in far-fl ung regions within India, such as Kashmir,
Kerala and Nagaland can struggle to fi nd much that they have in common. As
one crosses the border from Kerala to its northern neighbor, Karnataka or its
eastern neighbor, Tamil Nadu, one sees changes, sometimes abrupt, in language
and culture. Just as someone familiar with Europe would not expect comments
about social and cultural issues in Spain to be also true for, say, Finland, so
one should not expect comments about life in Kerala to apply necessarily to
practices in, say, Gujarat or Kashmir. Having emphasized the internal diversity
of India, it is important to acknowledge that there are ideologies and prac-
tices that transcend regional and state identities. While this observation has
unfortunately been used to disenfranchise non-Hindu citizens, many in India
note that the practice of Hinduism extends to almost all regions of the nation
while Sanskritic philosophy and literature has spread through, and plays a sym-
bolically signifi cant role in, much of the country—and, I will argue later, aff ects
people’s phenonemological orientation to experience in Kerala.
Th e natural fertility of the region, the availability of rice, spices and fruit,
and an accessible location on the trade circuits of the Arabian Sea has attracted
settlers and traders to the Malabar Coast for thousands of years, but currently
resources are strained by Kerala’s large population. Coconut trees are ubiquitous,
yet there is a coconut shortage. Th e state is covered with rice paddy, but Kerala
must import rice from neighboring Tamil Nadu to feed itself. Th e region has one
of the highest rates of rainfall in the world, but there is often a shortage of water
and rationing of hydroelectric power. Agriculture continues to be an important
part of Kerala’s economy, and the region continues to be enmeshed in overseas
trade. Indeed, the so-called global economy is nothing new to this area although
its specifi c features change. Whereas entrepreneurs once came to this part of the
Malabar Coast from the Middle East and China to expand their trade networks
and increase their wealth, today many Malayalis fl ock to the Persian Gulf coun-
tries in search of economic opportunity, with mixed success. Several of the men-
tally distressed Gulf migrants I spoke to attributed the onset of their problems to
their experiences as migrants. Having traveled to Abu Dhabi or Dubai with the
pressure of knowing that a good portion of the family wealth has been invested