Honey, this is our new national festival!

A hartal-infested Kerala has started loving a practice considered a menace elsewhere

It’s been four months in Bangalore in my new incarnation as content editor.

When I heard about BJP’s plan to hold a dawn-to dusk hartal on May 2 to protest against inflation, I thought it would be holiday just like it often happens in Kerala, where people celebrate it with gaiety and political fervor! But my colleagues told me that the hartal call wouldn’t have any impact on daily life in Karnataka and that everything will go on as usual.

So my hopes of resting at home for a day vanished into thin air.

And on the hartal day, there was nothing unusual unlike in Kerala where any hartal call would bring about a curfew-like situation, and I forgot about the hartal thing.

It was only when my journalist friend from Kochi asked me about the hartal in Karnataka on that evening that I realized that it was a hartal day. When I told him that it didn’t have any impact here, he dwelt at length on the day’s highlights in Kerala: buses almost kept off the roads; thin attendance in government offices, etc…

I am coming from a state where hartal has become a national festival. So I was bit surprised over the lack of any reaction to the hartal call, and that too by Sang Parivar which has considerable foothold in Karnataka.

At present the situation in Kerala is that any Tom, Dick and Harry can pronounce a hartal. People are so happy accepting it because it is a paid holiday.

There was this particular case happened not so long ago in Kerala. When some devils in this God’s own country spread a rumour that some petty organization has called for a hartal the next day, it was almost like a hartal the next day; vehicles kept off from the roads and people refused to go out.

On this BJP hartal day there was one news item in a Malayalam TV channel about how people of Kerala have started celebrating the hartal. According to the report, Keralites consider hartal as a best occasion to unwind; special dishes are made and all family members sit together and dine. The report had testimonials of shopkeepers who described about the rush of people and increased sale of stuff like chicken on the day before the hartal day. There are also a couple of testimonials by a few chaps who said they used hartals as merry-making occasions with the family.

A hartal roundup has become a staple new item for the newspapers and TV channels in Kerala because it is happening at frequent intervals. And invariably it has become a mundane and bland exercise.

This hartal saga is just another ironic but interesting story from Kerala, touted as the highly literate state with living standards on par with Western level.