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Business News/ Mint-lounge / Mint-on-sunday/  Letter from... a place where people don't tweet
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Letter from... a place where people don't tweet

A entire little society that seems not to care about every little thing that happens on the news or the internet

Photo: iStockPremium
Photo: iStock

Merely moments after I sent in last fortnight’s somewhat sentimental letter from Thrissur, all kinds of chaos ensued at home. On Saturday evening, the weekend before my sister’s wedding, we were all sitting on rickety little catering company tables, supping on rice, sambar, papadam and assorted beers of troubling alcoholic strengths.  

Suddenly, there was the sound of something sparking and popping. The decorative lights draped all over our house flashed on and off momentarily. So we all went back to eating. And then it happened again. At which point a cousin decided to go and have a look at the electric connections. Everyone assumed it was because one of the kids, romping all over the place as they do on such festive occasions, had dropped a toy on some such on a socket or something. Instantly the kids were ushered away from the electricals.  

And then something blew up.  

Moments later we were all assembled outside the house, watching with our hearts in our mouth, as tongues of fire leapt out of our meter box. The meter box itself wasn’t the problem. It was situated on an outer wall. The problem was the window right next to the meter box. And the diaphanous curtains hanging through them. My dad watched in stunned silence. He knew, and so did everyone else, that it was only a moment of time before the curtain caught fire. And once the fabric went up in flames the fire would work its way indoors.  

Miraculously both the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) office and the fire brigade control room responded immediately. Electricity was immediately pulled from the neighbourhood. And moments later, two firefighters came sprinting down the road, without waiting for their fire engine to manoeuvre into the narrow approach road, extinguishers in hand.  

The fire was put out moments afterwards, thanks to some very judicious use of the extinguisher. And then, holding his breath, dad walked into the house.  

“I was 100% sure that the fire had spread inside," he later said trying to play down how utterly terrified he was at the time.  

Nothing. Not a speck of damage. Smoke and the faint smell of extinguisher, yes. But otherwise, the inside of our house was completely and totally intact.  

What is more, just two days later, by Monday evening, at least a dozen officials at the local KSEB office worked at astonishing speed to get the power back up. “It is a wedding house no… we will do our best," one tiny little assistant engineer said as she surveyed the house before installing a new meter.  

“Never again write about family matters in your newspaper, OK?" Dad said.  

So I won’t.  

***

My dad does not tweet or use Facebook. My mom does not even use her mobile phone more than once or twice a week. My brother only uses social media to stay in touch with family and stalk me to make sure I am not saying nasty things about him. My sister uses her phone like a camera and the internet like a photo studio. My uncle does not even use WhatsApp.  

Therefore you can imagine how utterly wonderful my two weeks in Kerala were. Hardly anybody discussed news and current affairs more than twice a day: once in the morning when we read the papers and once in the evening when we sat and saw the nightly news bulletins on TV.  

In between? Generally nothing. And that was not just because of the wedding and all the chaos that comes with that. But because just nobody sat all day in front of their "prayer books", as my dad calls mobile phones. (Because everyone sits in front of them all day, in a trance of some kind.)  

So I know what you’re thinking: Yeah fine they are not tweeting, but they are believing all kinds of nonsense on WhatsApp no?  

It appears that this particular type of gullibility has slowly defeated itself. While there is a nonstop stream of crap news, fake facts and crazy "true story, please share" flowing into WhatsApp inboxes at home, most of the adults I met seem to be skipping all the garbage and concentrating only on the comedy and jokes. 

It was the most refreshing thing. An entire little society that seems to not obsess over every little thing that is happening on the news or on the internet.  

I highly recommend it. 

***

I do not watch TV news in general and Indian TV news in particular. Also, I generally don’t let anybody watch any of the stuff at home. And in case somebody must, I instantly put on a pair of noise cancelling headphones of some kind. I do not want even a nanosecond of the garbage into my brain where it might go in and corrupt all the sanity I have carefully nurtured over the duration of my life. 

Yet I did catch a few glimpses of Malayalam TV news. My dad is an addict. 

And you know what? It didn’t suck completely and utterly. 

I am going to posit one possible reason for this: I think Malayalam, and perhaps many other Indian languages, is capable of several emotional states. So news anchors can choose from more than just the two that seems to be the forte of English news anchors: "Something happened somewhere but I am dispassionate" and "I will hunt you down, I will find you, and I will destroy you". 

There are, it appears, several levels of escalation available in the Malayalam language before a TV anchor has to actually scream at somebody: "Mild disapproval", "proper disapproval", "bemused", "bemused and hostile", "hostile and no longer amused", "Mohanlal in Narasimham" and finally "Mohanlal in Sphadikam". 

If you are desperately seeking some respite from the relentless pain and agony of news, Twitter, body aches and mental tensions, just pack your bags, go to Thrissur, chill out with some locals, get an Ayurvedic massage at Joy’s Palace and have a Sharjah Shake.

Letter From... is Mint on Sunday’s antidote to boring editor’s columns. Each week, one of our editors—Sidin Vadukut in London and Arun Janardhan in Mumbai—will send dispatches on places, people and institutions that are worth ruminating about on the weekend. 

Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com

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Published: 27 May 2017, 11:46 PM IST
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