Life is beautiful

Malayali entrepreneur Suresh Varma, and journalist Danny Geevarghese who have spent several years in Beijing says things are fine despite the India-China border clashes  

Photos: Suresh Varma and his wife Karthika; Danny Geevarghese 

By Shevlin Sebastian  

On a recent Sunday, a group of Malayalis along with their families got together for lunch at the ‘Indian Kitchen China’ on Ritan street in Beijing. They had rice, sambar and a vegetable curry. And during a discussion, they all agreed they wanted to carry on staying in China. 

 “You develop a sense of belonging,” says entrepreneur Suresh Varma. “This is not only for Indians but for other foreigners too.” 

Even the Chinese feel this way about their country. Around 150 million Chinese travel out every year on business, studies or tourism. And they all come back. 

“China has the largest number of students who study in foreign universities and after their graduation, 90 per cent come back,” says Suresh. “They want to be in their motherland. It is not like in India, where out of 100 students who go to the US, 90 per cent stay back.” 

Meanwhile, the India-China clash at the Galwan Valley in the Himalayas has fast receded from their minds. 

Journalist Danny Geevarghese says he was not unduly worried about the clash in the Galwan Valley. “Although this time tragically there were deaths on both sides,” he says. “During most summers, there are skirmishes. But this time it became serious.” 

Interestingly, the coverage was far less than in the Indian media.  

“Some like the People’s Daily, the PLA Daily and China’s public broadcaster CGTN did not cover it at all,” says Danny. “Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are banned.”  

More than the India problem, the Chinese are obsessed with the Americans, and the Japanese who colonised parts of the country,” says Danny. “India does not appear in the news often. Plus, COVID-19 was the big issue.” 

But India’s soft power does have an impact. “All of Aamir Khan’s films are a bit hit in China,” says Danny.

Suresh says that many of his Chinese friends did not know about the incursion into Indian territory. 

In fact, only one Chinese colleague said, “Because of this problem, I hope you are not planning to relocate out of China.” Suresh replied in the negative. As to how the Chinese colleague came to know about this, Suresh said that nearly everybody can access international news websites like BBC and CNN. 

Suresh has been living in Beijing for eight years. After a long professional career, he has been doing business in supply chain consulting for the past three years. 

Asked to describe the plus points of the Chinese, he says, “They are very hard-working and dedicated to what they do. They are warm and helpful. There is a clear demarcation about what they are doing and what the government is doing. They are focused on earning money, ensuring their children get a good education and have enough money for their retirement.”

Chinese are similar to Indians, says Danny. “They want their children to go to good schools,” says Danny. “They are very family-oriented. Grandparents look after their grandchildren while their children go to work. When my son goes down to play, in our gated community, a grandmother will ask one of her grandchildren to play with my son.” 

One of the negative traits is that the Chinese have a compulsion to ape the West. “People have beautiful Chinese names with nice meanings to it, a lot of historical significance but just because they want to be accepted by the world outside, they will call themselves George, Harry or Sally,” says Suresh. 

Suresh gives an example. The actual name of the martial art form Kung Fu is Gong Fu or Wushu. Suresh asked his Chinese friend why they were using the wrong name. He replied that since Westerners find it difficult to pronounce Gong Fu, they use Kung Fu. 

As a result, they are losing a lot of their heritage. This is happening in India, too. “The number of people who know Sanskrit or Malayalam is decreasing,” says Suresh. “The next generation of Chinese may not know how to write the alphabet.” 

As to the stories in the world media about people being upset about the way they were being treated, during the COVID-19 crisis, Suresh says that in a population of 1.4 billion, about 20 percent will be unhappy at the actions of the government. “I know friends of mine in Wuhan, which was the epicentre, who were happy with the government’s actions,” he says.  

The government is supporting the people as much as possible. During the pandemic, all the patients were treated free of cost. “People are thinking, ‘the government is taking care of me, I shouldn’t be worried if they are sending ships to the South China Sea in a contest with the United States,’” he says. “The government knows the big picture, not me.” 

Asked whether there is a lack of freedom in China, Suresh says, “I have not come across anything like that.” He gave an example: the US shut down the Chinese consulate in Houston. In retaliation, China shut down the US consulate in Chengdu. Immediately, on social media, a lot of Chinese complained that the government should not have shut down a consulate that was hardly of any consequence. Instead, they said, the government should have shut down the consulate in Hong Kong. “People express their views,” he says. “But there may be a limit and they ensure they don’t cross it.”  

Many sites are banned. But people use the virtual proxy network to access them. 

As for India, it does not feature in the minds of the Chinese people. “It's not that they look down but they don’t think about India,” says Suresh. “But for business people, they look at India with a great deal of respect. Because, they know, that apart from China, India has a huge population to whom they could sell their goods.” 

A lot of Suresh’s Chinese friends told him that India is a beautiful place to visit. They feel that it is culturally vibrant. “But when it comes to economic superiority, they feel they are far ahead and their main rival is the US,” says Suresh. 

Asked about the extensive surveillance in a city like Beijing, Suresh says, “Yes, there are a lot of cameras. China has the maximum number of cameras in a public area than anywhere else in the world.”

There are about 400 million CCTV cameras across the country. In December, 2017, the government told BBC reporter John Sudworth to lose himself in a crowd in the city of Guiyang (2000 kms from Beijing). But they were able to locate him in seven minutes using facial recognition software. 

Suresh says people feel safe because of the cameras. At 2 a.m., if somebody's daughter has to come back home, after a party, even among the Indians, there is no fear. “The population has the fear factor because of the surveillance so nothing bad will happen,” says Suresh.  

But Suresh does admit that if you are a critic of the government you could face problems. 

It’s not that China is the only one which is feeding on privacy. Facebook, Twitter and Google also have a lot of data on all the people all over the world.

Meanwhile, Suresh is very happy with his life in Beijing. “The food is great, and the infrastructure is awesome. In eight years I have never experienced a power cut. Or a tap going dry. Or to have no gas in the house. I don’t think I have seen a pothole ever,” says Suresh, whose wife Karthika is a kindergarten teacher in an international school while son Siddharth, after his Mphys at the University of Surrey, is on a one-year assignment at the Institute of Astrophysics, Tenerife Island, Spain.   

Of course, since he grew up in Kochi, he accepts the pothole-strewn roads of Kerala. “I take it as part of my India experience,” he says. “I go with the flow.” 

But others may find it difficult. Suresh knows a friend whose child was brought up in China. He is now 15 years old and speaks English and Chinese fluently. “He hesitates to go back to India,” says Suresh. “He might settle down in China. No one can say.” 

As for the food, when asked whether the Chinese food made in India and that in China is the same, Suresh starts laughing. “There is a world of a difference,” he says. “The Chinese food in India is Indian food made differently.” 

A few years ago, the Indian embassy in Beijing had taken a Chinese delegation to Delhi to participate in a trade show at Pragati Maidan. In the night, they were taken to a Chinese restaurant run by Indians. At the end of the meal, one of the Chinese said, “This is very good Indian food. I like it a lot.”  

In China, they cook everything on a high flame for a short period. “Each vegetable or meat retains its original flavour,” says Suresh. “For example, when I eat cauliflower in a Chinese restaurant, it tastes like cauliflower. In India, we use too many spices and overcook it. Essentially, we murder the original taste but we create a taste that is quintessentially Indian.” 

(Published in Mathrubhumi English edition)

On the frontline

The Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) of the Indian government talks about their experiences of working during the pandemic  

Pics: Shamla PM and family

By Shevlin Sebastian 

Shamla PM goes to the government hospital at Fort Kochi and takes the list of the people who have been afflicted with COVID 19. Then, she, along with the other workers, locate the address of the families. They go to their houses and provide food kits, usually made by community kitchens belonging to the state government. 

In each kit, there are rice grains and other essentials. “For a family of four, it should last for about two weeksor more,” says Shamla. 

The only precaution she takes is to wear gloves and a face mask. She also carries a sanitizer bottle. What they lack is personal protective equipment. 

Shamla is an ASHA worker (The initials stand for Accredited Social Health Activist belonging to the Indian’s government’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare). 

She is in charge of 300 households. Shamla says that when somebody is diagnosed with COVID, the neighbours shun the family, as it scares them they will also get it. “That is a problem the family faces,” says Shamla. But she cannot blame the neighbours. It is a colony where houses are very close to each other. So people have a right to be scared.

Shamla advises the family not to step out. But sometimes, they are forced to, as the water tap is outside. So they have to come out and collect water. 

Thankfully, in the area where she is staying, the people have appreciated the work she has been doing. Shamla has twice won the ‘Best ASHA Worker Award’. Incidentally, there are 24 ASHA workers in Fort Kochi. 

In between, Shamla, 44, had to face a personal crisis. Her husband, Najeeb, 49, a fisherman who worked at the Cochin Harbour, had a heart attack in April. He needs to get an angioplasty done, but the government hospital is busy treating pandemic patients. So, the doctor has given him medicines. Shamla has two children, a daughter, Sujeesha, 30, who is married. Her son, Alameen, 24, is doing a logistics course, but they have suspended classes for the time being. “My family is supportive of my work,” she says. 

As the days go past, Shamla isamazed at the power of the virus and its ability to disrupt lives and the economy too. “My husband is not able to earn because the harbour is closed,” she says. “I know of so many people who are jobless. We are going through hard times. And we had already suffered the impact of two major floods in 2018 and 2019.”  

It is not a risk-free job. Around 20 ASHA workers have died nationwide. According to newspaper reports, one of them was a woman named Bheemakka, 51, who passed away on May 13. 

She was working at a village in Ballari district, Karnataka. The relatives refused to take the body until she received insurance for having died of COVID. However, the doctor said Bheemakka had tested negative for the virus. The cause of death was a heart attack. 

There is no doubt about the risks. ASHA workers go to many houses and when they come across positive cases, they inform the hospital. Thereafter, they have to provide the medicines and look for primary and secondary contacts.  

Seena KM, Senior Consultant, Social Development, National Health Mission, of the Kerala State Government, says that ASHA workers do a daily tracking of people in quarantine to see whether they are displaying any symptoms of the virus. “If a person becomes symptomatic, the worker will immediately inform the primary health centre,” she says. “Then a swab test is done.” 

The workers have to put up posters outside houses where people are in quarantine along with the date. “This prevents outsiders from coming to the house,” says Seena. 

On May 21, the state government had launched a campaign called ‘Break the chain’. The aim was to bring about a change of behaviour among the people. ASHA workers spearheaded this programme. They talked about how to keep a distance from each other at funerals and marriages. “The workers also distributed pamphlets, conducted health education sessions and did home visits to generate awareness,” says Seena.  

There are over 9 lakh ASHA workers all over the country. In Kerala, it is 26,475. They earn anywhere between Rs 2000 and Rs 7000 per month. Shama, in Fort Kochi, is earning Rs 7000 a month. 

Sheeja AS, 44, is also earning the same amount. She is working in Manaloor village, near the Canoly Canal in Thrissur (87 km from Kochi). She has been an ASHA worker for the past 12 years. At present, she has the responsibility for 234 houses. She gives the residents notices from Arogya Jagratha (a Kerala state initiative) of the actions that need to be taken to safeguard oneself during the pandemic.

Sometimes, she buys medicines for elderly people who live alone. So far, nobody has got the virus in her area. She wears a mask, a face shield, and carries a sanitiser bottle.  

Some residents are happy to see her. But others have told Sheeja to just call them on the phone. “They told me they had seen on the TV that a few ASHA workers had turned positive, so it scares them I might have it also,” says Sheeja. In Thrissur district, two workers have tested positive. 

So, to comfort them, Sheeja speaks from the courtyard itself. 

Regarding her family, her husband Premlal, 54, works in a shop at Thrissur. Daughter Krishnendu, 26, is married, while son, Pranav, 24, is working in the credit card section of a bank. 

The family takes precautions. As soon as they return home, all of them take a bath first. “We have to do this because you can never say from where the virus will come,” says Sheeja. 

As community spread increases in Kerala, Seena says there is coordination between ASHA workers, health volunteers, police, and the COVID Rapid Response Team, so that they can render efficient services. 

“We are doing our best,” she says.

(Published in the Jesuit magazine Pax Lumina)

This land of ours

By Shevlin Sebastian 

The rice is boiling in the steel utensil. Shamila watches as the white grains go left and right, up and down, and in circles. “Just like our lives,” she thinks, as she stirs the water with a wooden ladle.

It is a Sunday noon. 

Her husband, Suresh, is an electrician. He meets the family’sexpenses, despite drinking a bottle of toddy every night. Shamila’s son,Pradeep, 22, works in a transport company in Mumbai, while her 20-year-old daughter, Reshma, is a salesperson at a cosmetics shop in a Bangalore mall. As for Shamila, she works as a maid in a house down the hill. But today is her weekly holiday.    

Shamila lives in a brick house of three rooms and a kitchen. It is modest: a wooden sofa, and two chairs in the living room. On the low centre table, there is the 'Malayala Manorama' and a vase which has red plastic roses in it. In the bedroom, there is a wooden bed. The only ornamentation is a calendar hanging on the wall. In the children’s room, there is a wet patch at a corner where the ceiling meets the wall.

She takes a few grains in the ladle, presses it with her fingers to see whether it is cooked, and, when she confirms it, switches off the gas stove, and places the lid on top of the vessel.

Shamila walks barefoot to the living room. Clad in a blue nightgown, with white frills at the neck, she sits on a chair near the window and looks at the newspaper. She has pulled her hair back in a topknot.

The house, on the slope of a hill in Thodupuzha, is in a scenic spot: surrounded by rubber trees and wet leaves. The only sound Shamila hears is the tap-tap of the raindrops hitting the asbestos roof. It is peaceful, although, in the newspaper, there are reports of murders, robberies and accidents. “No peace in the world,” she thinks and shakes her head. 

Soon, a sound rises at the edge of her consciousness. It puzzles Shamila. It seems like thunder, but she is not sure. What could it be? All at once, she hears shouts: it is a mix of fear and rage. Shamila’s intuition buzzes, and she experiences the first signs of panic: shortness of breath and trembling legs. The shouting goes on.  

Shamila opens the door and rushes out. Her neighbour, Parvathy, is pointing up, and screaming. 

Shamila glances upwards and sees an unimaginable sight. The top part of the hill is rolling down: thick, red mud, branches, roots, plants, leaves, tree trunks, stones, and bricks. The roar feels like as if somebody is shouting in her ears. “It is a landslide,” Shamila’s mind screams. “RUN, RUN RUN!”

She turns and flees, forgetting all about Parvathy. Shamila takes the narrow mud path, a shortcut to the road below, that people in the area use all the time. “Oh God, please save our houses, I beg you,” she says, even as she concentrates on running on the wet and slushy surface. But in another part of her mind, she knows how deadly a landslip can be. At a sharp turn on the path, she loses her balance but grabs a tree trunk to hold on. 

Through the branches, Shamila gets occasional glimpses of the tarred road. At the back, the roar is non stop. She is panting now, more out of fear than tiredness. Shamila notices an overpowering smell in the air and realises that it is of wet mud.

There is a cry of pain, the sound rolling down the hill like a shriek. “Somebody is injured,” she thinks. “Krishna, please don’t kill anybody.”

Shamila reaches the road, her mouth open, her chest heaving forward and backwards with the effort. She can feel the wetness of the road through the soles of her feet. Soon, dhoti-clad men run past her towards the hill. They don’t stop to ask her what has happened. They all know what the roar is and what it means to their lives.

Her thigh and calf muscles are hurting. She has never run so hard in her life. Shamila wants to look back but is scared to see the devastation. But she knows where she has to go -- to her husband’s friend, Murali’s tea shop, a shack by the side of the road, a kilometre away. She has to inform her husband she is safe. In her hurry, she had forgotten to take her phone. 

At the shop, Murali is sitting behind a rickety wooden table near the entrance, a white cloth towel tied around his head, like a bandana. The two men, who worked for him, have rushed off to see what is happening. Inside, there are tables and benches, placed against the bamboo walls, with an open area in the middle. At one corner, a TV set, with rusted buttons, has been placed on a shelf of a wooden sideboard.

When Murali sees her, he nods, and says, “Good, you are safe. What about Suresh?”

She smiles and says, “He is at a worksite.”

She asks for his mobile phone. He passes it to her. 

Shamila calls her husband and tells him she is okay.

Murali goes to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Shamila sits down on a bench. She is glad to give her legs a rest, although she is still breathing rapidly. Her heartbeat has still not slowed down. “How does a landslide start, with no warning,” she thinks? The image of the river of mud coming down the hill flashes in her mind’s eye. Her body shudders involuntarily.

Murali brings the tea in a glass, and a white towel. She wipes her face, arms and hair.

She sips with soft slurps. 

After a while, she senses that Murali is staring at her. When she looks up, she notices that his eyes are focused on her breasts. He looks frustrated. Shamila knows that his wife is fat and ugly and nags him. 

Murali blinks and realises that Shamila does not approve of what he is thinking. Embarrassed, he moves away and switches on the television. Both spot the red and white band moving across the bottom of the screen: “Breaking News: Landslip at Thodupuzha.”

“These TV guys move fast,” he says, with a trace of admiration in his voice.

“Yes,” she says. “They are everywhere. Too much competition, I guess.”

The ticker changes: “Many may have died.”

“Who could have died?’ says Murali, as they gaze at the screen.

“Must be Rekha’s old and sick mother,” says Shamila. “She is bed ridden.” 

“What about Parvathy?” she wonders and feels a stab of pain. Was the yell she heard that of Parvathy? Should she have stopped, gone up, and tried to save her? But Shamila knows that if she did that, she would have risked her own life.

“This is a tragedy,” he says. 

Shamila nods. 

The first visuals are aired. The slope has collapsed. Nothing is left, except mud, thatched roofs, some beds and chairs which are embedded in the soil. The local men she saw on the road are now wading through the muck, pulling away the debris, trying to locate survivors. 

Murali looks at her and says, in a flat voice, “I am sorry, but you have lost everything!”

“I am alive,” she says, pointing a thumb at herself. “That is more important than all the possessions in the world.”

Murali’s eyes enlarge, and his eyebrows go up. To have property is so important these days. He does not know what to say. So, he remains silent and looks at the screen.

Time passes. 

It is a silent tableau. Both of them gaze at the non-existent slope. 

Her husband appears at the entrance. When Shamila sees him, she feels her heartbeat against her rib cage, like a hammer. Suresh’s eyes are wild, the pupils enlarged, and he keeps opening and closing his mouth.

She embraces him. And, like her own experience, she realises his body is shaking. And soon, the tears are rolling down his face.

“We have lost everything,” he says. “There is no land anymore. It has vanished. The house has collapsed. All the valuables are lost, including your gold jewellery. How do we live? What do we do? Where do we go from here? At 45, how do I start from scratch? We have no insurance. And what will this idiotic government do? These politicians are only making money for themselves. They don’t care about the poor. This horrible life that we live, always on the edge, always struggling to make ends meet and to keep our dignity, to give our children a chance for a better life. All this is ash now. Nothing remains. Ashashashash…”

Shamila knows that all what Suresh has said is true. But she does not have the desire to think about the future. She is trying to recover from her panicky run down the crumbling hill. Her mind is blank, but she is glad she is alive, and not buried under the mud. She feels happy that she had the foresight to run, instead of trying to save some of their possessions, knowing that there was no time for that.

“Our children are earning,” she says, in a soft voice. “You are earning. I am working.”

Shamila sees a flash of anger in Suresh’s eyes. He raises his voice, and says, “How much can we earn? Do you know the price of land these days? You need lakhs of rupees. It is beyond us. We are poor, Shamila. We have lost our dignity. That is how cruel God is. I shudder at the life ahead. How will we pay for our daughter’s dowry?’

This mention about his favourite child makes Suresh to cry. 

Shamila hugs her husband, trying to press a mother’s warmth to him. She inhales a peculiar smell: a mix of sweat and muskiness coming off Suresh’s body. It is familiar. During the earlier years of their marriage it was appealing, but now she is repelled. She thinks it is the stench of defeat.

Suresh becomes silent but continues to sob. This shock has hit the deepest part of him. Shamila becomes fearful. “Will he find the will and strength to overcome this?” she wonders. Shamila is not sure at all. Her intuition panics once again. She caresses his face and head, like as if he is a child. She knows that, underneath their bluster, all men are Mama’s boys.

“Come, sit down,” she says and leads him to the bench. “Murali, can you make a cup of tea?”

Murali moves to the kitchen.

Suresh wipes his face with a towel, which Shamila extends to him. They both stare at the screen once again.

Suresh’s body is becoming calm, as Shamila can sense that the trembling is slowing down.

Murali brings the tea and places it on the table.

Suresh sips it. 

By this time, people troop into the shop. One of them is businessman Harish Raghunandan, who has a walrus-like moustache. 

He grasps Suresh’s hand.

“Suresh, you have to remain strong,” says Raghunandan. “The colony of ten houses has been destroyed. Rekha’s mother, Lalithamma, Parvathy and her daughter, Meena, are dead. But there is no confirmation. There are others still buried under the mud. The men are trying to pull them out. It is unlikely there will be many survivors.”

There is pin-drop silence. Nobody knows what to say. 

“It is great luck that Shamila survived, thanks to her quick thinking,” says Raghunandan, looking at her with piercing eyes. “If you had waited for half a minute, you would have died.”

Shamila feels grateful for this praise by Raghunandan. She acknowledges it with the faintest nod of her head.

Raghunandan sighs, looks at Suresh, and says, “You may have lost everything, but your family is safe. Be happy about that.”

Suresh wants to be grateful, but all he can think about is the loss of his property. Raghunandan reads his mood and says, “Once I owned a large farmhouse and it burnt down. I had to start from scratch once again. Life has its trials. It is a rare person who enjoys a smooth ride. Sometimes, the setbacks can be life-threatening.”  

Suresh stares at him in silence. Shamila knows that her husband will say nothing. In public, he is shy and discreet.

It had been a love cum arranged marriage. The fathers of Suresh and Shamila had been friends for many years and worked as tappers in the rubber plantations of Thodupuzha. Every morning before they set out for work, they would stop at a temple and say their prayers. The families would meet during festivals like Vishu and Onam. 

As Shamila grew up, Suresh found her attractive: the shining brown skin, firm breasts, and slim figure were eye-catching attributes. Shamila had a few admirers. But when Shamila turned eighteen, Suresh told his father he wanted to get married to her. Shamila’s father agreed. As for Shamila, she did not have any problems, although she knew her life would be difficult. Suresh was a school dropout, who had apprenticed to an electrician, and was learning the trade. “What can we poor people expect?” she had thought when her father told her about the proposal. 

The couple struggled and bought a plot and built the house. And although Suresh drank every night, he was not a wife-beater, and nor was he abusive, like the husbands of her friends. Shamila walks to the door of Murali’s shack and beckons to Suresh to come out. Her husband has a questioning look in his eyes, but she urges him out with a wave of her hand. She no longer wants to sit with a group of men, all ogling her. She wants some privacy now.

When Suresh comes out, Shamila says, “Come.”

“Where to?” he asks, looking baffled. Shamila keeps her face blank, although there is a trace of a smile on her lips.

They walk for several minutes. The rain has stopped. A cool breeze is blowing.

Several ambulances roar past, their sirens blowing. Two police jeeps, with khaki-clad cops in it, also speed past. Following them is a group of men crammed into a minivan. They look like political party workers.

Shamila ignores them all, and, holding her husband’s hand, she turns left from the road, down a mud path, which leads into a forest. They carry on walking. Suresh says nothing. Instead, he is immersed in his thoughts. After walking for 20 minutes, they arrive at a pond. It is surrounded by large trees, with overhanging branches, on all sides, so the pond is hidden from view. Frogs are croaking at the edge of the bank and green leaves float on the surface.

“How did you discover this place?” says Suresh, and his voice echoes in the silence.

Shamila says, “My friend Ashwathy showed it to me one day. Isn’tit nice?”

He nods as they both sit on the bank, next to each other. They stare at the still water.

They can hear bird calls, and the chirp of a squirrel following bya few quick barks. And under all this, there is the ceaseless call of the crickets. The leaves are a shimmering green thanks to the monsoon showers. 

Nature was undergoing its annual rejuvenation.

Minutes pass.

Then Shamila turns to Suresh and says, “Let’s always remember what Raghunandan said. If he can come back from disaster, then we can. It is veryimportant that we stay positive and develop a fighting spirit.”

Suresh looks at her, and presses her hand…  

(Published in Borderless Journal)