What is Kerala?
Is it just a geographical place?
God’s own country?
Or a host of ideas floating in the minds of its population?

When one looks at how people relate to the idea of Kerala in various names like New Kerala Restaurant, Kairali Theatre, Keraleeyam Newspaper, to various claims of “authentic Kerala culture” and the “real taste of Kerala” in commercials, it is amazing to see how a region formed out of different provinces a generation before has already ingrained itself as a day-today reality.
What does Kerala mean to me?
Difficult question.

Staying away from the place, thinking about it….necessarily means that it does mean something inescapable.
Read in the recent The Week survey that the safest city for women in India is Cochin….was really shocked to find it out. Perhaps Cochin has changed, because the one I knew was not safe even for a daily bus trip to college.
At the same time, I have never been ashamed of declaring my state of origin.
I knew that each time I say it, people would be appreciative of various advances the region has made. Not bad.
So what does it finally mean to me?
A combination of the tourism byline “God’s own country” and its Kalabhavan parody “God countrikale srishticha naadu”?