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There were news reports coming up in dailies recently that there are demands about re-naming ‘Kerala‘ as ‘Keralam’ and that the State Government is thinking seriously about the issue, favouring it of course. If ‘Bombay’ can become ‘Mumbai’ and ‘Madras’ can become ‘Chennai’, then why cannot ‘Kerala’ become ‘Keralam’, that seems to be the general sentiment.

Anyway, good thing indeed! Let ‘Kerala’ become ‘Keralam’. I am now eagerly waiting for the day when ‘Kerala’ becomes ‘Keralam’. Of course I’ve got ample reasons to justify my wait. Let me share some of them with you.

I believe that when ‘Kerala’ becomes ‘Keralam’, the following changes will happen, as sort of a natural consequence:

• Those people who still love to call ‘Thiruvananthapuram‘, as ‘Trivandrum’,  ‘Kollam‘ as ‘Quilon’ and ‘Kochi‘ as ‘Cochin’ despite the government rechristening these towns will start calling these towns by their un-anglicized names.
• People who want their kids to forget Malayalam and be proficient in English would start loving their mother tongue once the state is renamed.
• Hartals and strikes, especially those ones that incur financial loss and cause damage to public property, wont happen in ‘Keralam’, unlike ‘Kerala’.
• ‘Keralam’ will have a better government machinery that takes care of the needs of the general public and not those of the affluent.
• ‘Keralam’ will have better roads with no pot-holes at all. I lost the mudguard of my bike recently, courtesy an abyss of a pot-hole on Kochi’s arterial road, just in front of the office of a prominent Malayalam daily in Kaloor. Well, that has happened in ‘Kerala’. I won’t be losing mud-guards in ‘Keralam’, I am sure.
• ‘Keralam’ will have people with better civic sense- people who don’t swear and curse in public and would refrain from mouthing obscenities at public places. They won’t spit out from running buses and wouldn’t dump garbage on public roads.
• ‘Keralam’ will have people who are more environment-friendly, and trees, rivers, lakes and canals will be preserved and conserved very meticulously.
• ‘Keralam’ will have cops who know how to behave, government officials who reach offices and leave offices on time and do their work with all punctuality, without ever resorting to corruption or bribery.
• ‘Keralam’ won’t see paddy fields disappearing and new multi-storeyed flats and apartments coming up. ‘Keralam’ won’t have wells that dry up during the summer months. There won’t be roads that get submerged in water when it rains for a mere half an hour. The drainage system would be simply marvellous and perfect.
• We’ll have autorickshaws and taxis which we can get into without being afraid that they’d fleece us om the behest of rising fuel prices.
• We’ll have in ‘Keralam’ schools and colleges where better ‘quality’ education is given. We’ll then have English graduates and post-graduates who can read and write English at least fairly well.
• There will be a renaissance in the field of arts and literature, with more of ‘quality stuff’ coming out and our new generation more inclined to read and think.
• I am so much for ‘Keralam’ as it will have less of caste and religion based discrimination, which of course is there very much in ‘Kerala’.
• Politics too would get purer, with politicians all ready to serve the people and their interests; there won’t be any attempt at mixing religion and politics.

Hey.. I know this list would go on. So many are the advantages of rechristening ‘Kerala’ as ‘Keralam’. And the most interesting thing is that all these changes would come into effect the very moment the government declares ‘Kerala’ as being changed to ‘Keralam’.

I just can’t wait for that any longer. ‘Keralam’ is going to be so great, so wonderful..and so ‘dream’like.