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The biggest challenge of Kerala, which is one of the smallest states in India, has always been its space constrain. Flat culture that has taken firm roots in Kerala, has to some extent solved this problem though it has given rise to a host of fresh problems such as environmental issues and pressure on natural resources and infrastructure facilities. Whatever be the pros and cons of flats, the bottom line is that the people of Kerala have whole heartedly endorsed this metro culture and are enthusiastically gobbling up the piping hot offers from flat builders.

Interestingly, the flat culture has also set off many social issues as well. Kerala has always been famous for its close knit, joint family system. However, with the advent of these skyscrapers, youngsters migrated to cities to live among the clouds as the aged parents were left behind in their huge homestead in the countryside. It has made the malayalee families truly nuclear, which preferred to revolve around the small family of husband, wife and one or two kids. Relationships have lost their relevance and reverence as people preferred to fully recoil to their private domain.

Even though a residential building complex would house scores of families only separated by a thin barrier of a common wall, it is paradoxical that people do not know each other. If you go by the axiom ‘out of sight out of mind’, you would be in for a surprise as the community living in flats proves that to be out of mind you need not be always out of sight!

Even if the flat dwellers are seeing each other and bumping into each other at the lobby, the lift and the pool, they do not care to acquaint with each other. Even a death or birth next doors might go unnoticed as many prefer to turn a Nelson’s eye to these affairs. One such family coyly admitted that they only knew about the death of their immediate neighbor from the obituary column of the news paper the next day!

Amidst the daily grinds and chaos, people have long lost their virtues and the only thing that matters most is to mint more money than their neighbor and to buy the latest gadgets and widgets to grab a few eyeballs in the corporate circle.

Food for thought: Are we malayalees frantically chasing the illusive mirror images leaving our real and true selves behind?