Oxygen, rain and development

By John Cheeran
On Saturday's Indian Express, a Soma Wadhwa (Express could not even get her byline right...)has lamented the way Malayalis fritter away opportunities for development.
Badhwa must be one of the finest journalists in New Delhi and is lucky to paste her thoughts on the Op-Ed page of the paper.
I happen to be a Malayali. I read her enlightened effort but I'm not enraged. I send my sympathies to her as well as other journalists and politicians who are obsessed with dragging Kerala to the paradise of development.
For Wadhwa, development is Nokia and BMW. She writes that both these industrial giants intitally scanned Kerala for setting up plants but pitched tent in the neighbouring Tamil Nadu eventually.
She has tried to argue that Kerala is not making use of its literate youth. Is that so?
May be or may not be. But she makes reference to Bengal (which is a bigger geographical reality than Kerala and hence should not have been picked for comparison) and points out that Buddhadeb's state has 259 private projects under implementation while Kerala has only 115 projects in the pipeline.
Thank you for the information. So what's wrong with less number of Industrial ventures?
Some Malayalis might share this concern for development with Badhwa.
But the whole point is just that.
Kerala 's secret is that it can be the No.1 in Human Development Index ranking without opening up for the miasma of huge projects and pollution. I know Malayalis who have various blueprints up their sleeve to convert Kerala into another Mumbai, New Delhi or Bangalore, the melting pots in contemporary India.
And I shudder at their foolishness.
Please spare Malayalis the urban angst and the crime syndicates.
Ten years ago while getting sloshed at the Delhi Press Club, a young bureaucrat, who was on an official visit from Kerala to the capital, told me and another friend that the most precious thing in the state is its oxygen. That friend from Andhra told me that if you want to breathe pure air in India you have to come to Kerala.
No industry but lots of oxygen. Lots of H2O that cleans up not just the landscape but mind as well.
I prefer to go to mountain rather than waiting for mountain to come to me. In the age of globalization why should one insist that the so called development (read job employment opportunities) should come to us (Kerala)?
Malayalis have gone in the past to the ends of the earth in search of job opportunities and prime place being the highly inhospitable New Delhi so that they can preserve the silent valleys of Kerala.
So that every year, like the banished King Mahabali, Malayalis can return to Kerala to have their annual intake of oxygen.
To fellow Malayalis, who thirst after development, let me say this. More industries do not necessarily mean more job opportunities for you. Jobs are meant for those who are skillful and competent. If you are skillful and competent every job is yours provided that you are ready to flee from Kerala.
So that, one day you can come home..
Thank you Wadhwa, but spare us the development...