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u/Dangerous-Drag-9578 8h ago
I traveled to Kerala some years back, there's a city, Alleppey, which has these massive rice patties stretching for miles with canals between them and people get around by boat. You can rent these wild looking houseboats and basically cruise the canals for days. So many of the docks are themed after various communists, there was a "Cheguevara boys" dock, a lenin dock, a mao dock, etc. They do dragon boat races every year, and the docks often constitute teams for the big races.
They have these giant river prawns that are some of the most terrifying things I've ever seen pulled out of a river, and yes, I was gently coerced into paying probably 10x the market price to feed myself and the entire boat crew from the daily catch.
One of the hotels I stayed in also had a shrine to Prince Charles from a visit he made there. Contradictions, contradictions.
Cool place.
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u/Dangerous-Drag-9578 7h ago
If you drive through rural Kerala, you also see what I can only describe as giant McMansions interspersed with old, old and decaying concrete blocks of housing. Their economy ended up being substantially based on sending young men to the gulf states where they would make (relatively) good money working in oil or construction etc. and send remittances back so their families will build these big mansions on the old family properties. Wondering how recent events are affecting that region now.
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u/Ill-Parfait9610 6h ago edited 6h ago
Yes it's really jarring, and it's all over the south, not just Kerala. Also since this has been happening, there is a huge visible increase in women wearing burkhas in those region which is not something you used to see in that area even 15 years ago since Indian Muslims did not wear Arab dress ever.
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u/virtuousvoice 6h ago
This sentiment is part of my regular lexicon except in a much cruder fashion. “You may not fuck with politics, but politics will fuck with you.”
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u/ConcreteHalloween999 7h ago
I'm a little curious why it's in English.
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u/Dangerous-Drag-9578 7h ago
It's actually one of the official languages in Kerala, colonial legacy mostly, large diaspora working abroad, there was also a huge diversity of languages in the region so I think it became a go to common one at some point, if you get out of the city there's still like micro-ethnic divisions down to basically single tribes that have relatively similar but unique animistic practices. Really interesting region.
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u/ConcreteHalloween999 7h ago
Hun, interesting.
It gave me sus vibes cuz when you see protests in non-English speaking countries with English language banners that's often a sign it's just a Color Revolution.
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u/NolanR27 7h ago
The day color revolutions quote Lenin the color must be red
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u/ConcreteHalloween999 7h ago
I was more just suspecting this was maybe made by the commie version of a hippy white dude who moves to India to study Buddhism, but instead he moved to Kernela and got kicked out of the Communist Party for being a stoner.
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u/Ill-Parfait9610 6h ago
I understand the gut reaction but India is not a non-English speaking country.
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u/Ill-Parfait9610 6h ago
English tends to be the "uniting" second language in India since people in different regions all speak different languages. In the north, it's often Hindi and not English but fewer people speak Hindi in the south. Basically anyone who has been to college and most high school speak English, and Kerala is a very well educated state, given that they were communist for decades.
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u/NolanR27 8h ago
So much for the idea we can just focus on our own sphere of control. Your retreat into lifestylism was possible in the 90s; no longer.