KOCHI: Perhaps, no place is as accustomed to the buzz of passing trains as Kammattipaadam. Locked into a triangle by railway lines in the heart of the state’s business capital, the residents cannot move out without walking across the tracks. Worse, the five square km land is fast becoming a filthy hellhole as the railways keep raising the tracks laid out on a marshy surface.
The 50 families there can feel the vibrant city around them steaming ahead on its metropolitan dreams. But they themselves, the original inhabitants of modern Kochi, are left lagging behind.
Kammattipaadam - where the actor in Vinayakan took shape en route to this year’s best actor award - used to be an area dotted with Pokkali fields and swamps until the 1970s when development chugged in on rails and divided the settlement. Now, it has a hero to identify with. But little else.
Vinayakan won accolades portraying a character hardened by life’s miseries in ‘Kammattipaadam’, the movie being based on the early lives of the colony exposing the anxiety and anger lurking beneath the glitzy surface of the city.
A visit to the place reinforces the decades-old alienation of a people from the mainstream, both social and economic, despite all the vibrancy around them. When ‘Express’ walked into Kammattipaadam, a small crowd near Vinayakan’s ancestral house was preparing to ‘shoulder’ the mortal remains of a resident to a public cemetery by crossing the tracks. For there are no roads to this colony from the outside world!
NEGLECTED LOT
Besides the topographic fix, the people of Kammattipaadam have always been a neglected a lot in the urban landscape of the state. The artistic life of Vinayakan is a classic example. It is an age-old tradition in Kerala for political parties to vie with each other to pay a visit to the home of a state film award winner and ...... pose for a photo after pleasantries.
But not a single minister, political leader, or the district secretary of the ruling CPM made any attempt to visit the house of the actor where his mother, brothers and inlaws live, despite the family being hardcore supporters of ruling CPM. One can easily imagine the plight of other Dalits in the colony if this is the society’s reaction to an award winner from the area.
Interestingly, the family was not all annoyed by the feudal attitude of the society towards them. Because, the disparity and discrimination is not new for them and they had grown up facing severe hardship and exclusion from mainstream society.
Shaji K, a social worker in the colony, said it is true the younger generation of the colony often fall prey to the designs of various racketeers including drugs as they were always placed at the bottom of the city’s social hierarchy. At times, they were forced to do the most dangerous and degrading works of urban life. “The city needs the poor of the slums more than they need the city,” he said.
Vikraman, elder brother of Vinayakan, said however, it doesn’t mean the colony is highly vulnerable to the social evils of the growing city.
“Perhaps, we were the first who introduced the moral policing in the colony, but in a different sense. When the colony was highly vulnerable to narcotics during 90’s, a vigilante group under the left youth organisations used to warn the youth and their family with a view of weaning them away from the harmful habits.
On occasions, when they failed to act, we had broken the legs of affected youth. Interestingly, those who were injured and later went to Dubai, have admiringly told us later that it was the tuning point in their life and they owe their life to them,” said Vikraman. “But now there are no such vigilante groups. The political parties and their feeder organisations have no influence on the youth of the colony despite invariably supporting the Left in each election,” he said.
Soundararajan, another native of the undivided Kammattipaadam, said there were times when the police also felt the heat of the vigilante groups in the colony.
“The policemen who were on duty at the KSRTC bus station used to extort money from the sex workers who reach the bus stand in search of customers at night, apart from collecting money from others. No policemen will dare to pursue us through the railway tracks as it is impossible for them to chase us down the tracks,” he said.
DIRTY HELLHOLE
The basic amenities of the colony are still poor, said Vidyadharan, another brother of Vinayakan. Stay for a while on the lanes of Kammattipaadam during rainy season and you will be shocked on seeing the filth and human excreta floating in the colony. Around 50 families living in around 5 km sq area here will be at their wits’ end for around six months as the entire area would be waterlogged. Overflowing wastewater from the nearby canals and other issues make their life miserable, he said.
RAILWAYS PERMISSION : Since the area was locked by railway tracks, special permission is required from the Southern Railway headquarters in Chennai to dig even a pit in the colony, despite they are the original residents.
Due to this lengthy process, the colony is yet to see the light of development in many respects, said Poornima Narayan, local councillor and sister of director Rajeev Ravi who shot the movie Kammattipaadam.
“It is not possible to construct a new culvert in the colony to drain out the filth and human waste,” she said.
MAYOR SPEAK
There are around 260 colonies in the Kochi Corporation limits and, perhaps, Kammattipaadam is the only colony which has no road connection with the outer world.
If the councillor of the ward comes up with a proposal, the Corporation is ready to take up this matter with the railway as ‘way to leave’ is the fundamental right of every citizen. No one can block it and no court can deny the right of the people
Soumini Jain, Kochi Mayor