F or a village boy like me, Thiruvananthapuram was the maximum city, the promised land. My father who had spent two years in a college here late in his life was impressed with the opportunities in the city and decided to send me here for college education. The newly found freedom and the dazzle of college life appealed to me. The rigours of learning English and my outsider status were impediments, but my good performance in college gave me confidence.
The only role models I had were the brilliant teachers in the English Department of the University College such as K. Ayyappa Paniker, G. Kumara Pillai, Hrdayakumari, K. Srinivasan Santhakumari and I aspired to be one of them. There was no world beyond Thiruvananthapuram.
pic for MP_ IFFK
My father, however, had bigger ambitions for me and he told me about a young professor, Shankara Pillai, who was preparing for a career in the Indian Foreign Service. When Pillai joined the IFS and got posted to exotic places, I learnt more about diplomacy as a profession, set my heart on it, and got selected. Sadly, Pillai fell victim to the gun of a mad man in Ottawa, when he was India’s Deputy High Commissioner there.
My heart was in Thiruvananthapuram, but, like the Biblical prodigal son, I set sail for my 40-year Odyssey which took me to many countries and gave me the experience of a lifetime. I had with me a piece of Thiruvananthapuram in my wife Lekha, who was born and brought up here. We decided that we would return to live in Thiruvananthapuram one day.
During my frequent trips to the city in the 40 years I spent away, I noticed the slow but steady development of Thiruvananthapuram, which strengthened my resolve to return to it. It had developed a modern skyline and a good health-care system without destroying its traditional features like the Golf Links, Museum and the palaces. On the one hand, a quaint golf club was there for fitness and on the other, a multi-speciality KIMS Hospital if fitness failed.
As we were packing to return to the city, we sounded out others about our plans to settle here, but most of them discouraged us. They felt that we would find the city dull and lacking in social life, entertainment, and intellectual stimulus.
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Ideal weather
But 15 years later, we have no regrets. There were moments of disappointment but not discontent. The best part was the weather which did not dictate change of clothes to survive. Having lived in temperatures ranging from -40 degrees to 40 degrees Celsius, a mean temperature of 25 degrees seemed ideal. Initially, we decided to live in a suburb, without realising that 18 kilometres was a long way off because of the poor roads. We also tasted the deception of a builder who built a house at half the price we paid him. Later we learnt that what he did was the rule rather than an exception.
The Technopark is the institution that brought Thiruvananthapuram to the modern age. I had met G. Vijayaraghavan in New York when the project was only a twinkle in his eye. I knew then that his vision would become a reality soon. The glistening steel and glass structures and restaurants with international cuisine are the offshoots of Technopark. No other institution has changed the city as much.
Religious places ‘grow’
A new phenomenon in the city is an explosion of religious faith. What were small temples, churches, and mosques have grown into gigantic structures and new ones have sprung up. There has also been a proliferation of rituals. Perhaps the feeling that humans cannot be trusted has led people to hold tightly to gods and goddesses.
Cultural events also have multiplied. Apart from the Soorya programmes, which are held virtually round the year, there are government-sponsored events to mark every national and State festivals. The International Film Festival of Kerala and the Mathrubhumi Festival of Letters have become regular features. The city’s residents have developed more interest in national and international genres of music and dance as evidenced by the fact that artists from other States and countries are performing more frequently here.
Noise stays intact
The proliferation of public meetings has made the city more noisy. The city must formulate a code of conduct about the number of people on the dais and the length of their speeches. The massive use of electricity for illumination and expenses on flowers in plastic and glass monstrosities which are given as souvenirs are wasteful. Noise pollution is as acute today as it was when I learnt driving in the city many years ago. My trainer insisted that I should keep my hand on the car horn so that it sounded continuously like a fire engine. Sounding the horn is still a ritual here, while in other countries, it is used most sparingly.
Mercifully, the trees in most of the city have been saved, mainly because of activists like the poet Sugathakumari. In the climate change debates at the UN, I used to plead for development as against environment, but I found that the Western argument for environmental protection seemed to appeal to the intelligentsia in the city. We must strike a balance between environment and development and should not become environmental fundamentalists.
The invisible waste
Thiruvananthapuram is still a conservative, largely bureaucratic city, as distinct from a more cosmopolitan city like Kochi. Public services are fairly satisfactory, but it does not have a waste disposal system. In some mysterious way, the city remains free of accumulated waste as it happens in other cities when the system fails even for a day.
The one thing that does not change about the city is the acceptance of Sree Padmanabha as its presiding deity. The revelation that the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple holds immense wealth has vastly enhanced its value. But there is no consensus as to how to put the wealth to productive use. Proposals range from exhibiting it to turning it into bonds and using the money generated for the development of the State.
I believe there were plans for leaving the ancient city as it is and to build a new city as was done in the case of many world capitals. But the decision to merge the new with the old has given the city a charm of its own. Glitzy jewellery stores surround the ancient temple, the spires of the Kowdiar Palace add a royal touch to the skyscrapers, and modern wax models coexist with metallic statues of the Maharajas.
The writer is a former ambassador of India
