Please note that these are my perceptions and any resemblance to fictitious person is purely coincidental :)
Kerala-God's own country is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India...to me its a country on its own. Each part of Kerala behaves and thinks absolutely differently!
Kerala has three major regions : North Kerala, Central Kerala and South Kerala
North Kerala is the malabar area, Central Kerala comprises of Thrissur and South Kerala is from Allapuzha onwards
North and South Kerala are like India and Pakistan...they cant see eye to eye...Central Kerala love themselves so much that they do not like to support either part...most of the characters of Central Kerala would be inclined to North or South Kerala...however North and South Kerala's characters are distinct
There are things which are common through out but the objective of each is different, such as importance of education, traveling out of Kerala for work purpose and celebration of festivals which exists from North to South Kerala. Thnakfully objective of celeberating festivals are similar throughout, thanks to one God :)
Below are some facts and yes there may be exceptions to each but I am representing the major chunk of middle class Nair families
North Kerala men are considered to be spineless : Well I will never call them spineless, but let me tell you why this perception is made:-
In North Kerala, custom of Dowry is not practiced. Hence women are respected here..when she gets married, she is not supposed to bring anything from her place and has equal rights in a relation,hence even the man of a family treats her very well and hence she has the right to voice her opinion during any family discussions
In North Kerala, the objective of education is to gain knowledge and hence become self sufficient and run a family smoothly
Objective of traveling is for better career prospects
South Kerala : Money,money and money is what defines them...its the only priority of this region, objective of education over here is to make money!Objective of travelling out is to make money!
Dowry is practiced in a huge manner and you will see grooms working in TCS/IBM, flaunting the brand to make more moolah out of a marriage....the boy would be having high degrees to his credit, but that education does not make him wise at all, infact he uses those degrees to get a richer bride.
Its a normal custom here to boast the kind of car which a bride brings in. So you see a girl is always considered a burden in all class of this society, as after marriage one needs to send her, all draped in gold alongwith materialistic stuffs...She is the money spinner for the groom and hence is expected to keep quiet in front of others
By the way, gold is yesterdays terminology, today in South Kerala, diamond is what rules!
Some serious facts :
In a typical family discussion :
In North Kerala, though women are able to voice their opinion during family discussions, men usually make their own decisions after consulting the women. In South Kerala, even though you will not see women giving any opinion during discussions, at the end of the say its the women's decision which a man makes :)...
some use of the dowry brought!
If you borrow money from a North Keralite and South Keralite, say Rs 11.50, when you give them back, NK will not bother about 50 paise but SK will make sure to get it back, if you have forgotten,he/she will remind you about that :)
When you go to a temple, NK will give money without looking at the value...but SK will surely see how much he/she is spending on God :)
Again I am sure this may vary by their class (low/middle/high), but in NK, the custom is give to God with all your heart
In SK the value is considered and if someone donates a lump sum, then he/she is considered to be great, even if he is a criminal
I have seen lot of NK's make huge donations, but they do not like to hog the limelight because of that donation
In NK, once you have a job, in the family as well, except for the elders, no one will ask you your exact salary : that is considered to be a personal thing but in SK, even an acquaintance will ask you your exact salary to the last digit
In NK, if a lady is travelling by train/bus;you will see men getting up to give her the seat, in SK, if a lady is travelling by train/bus;you will rarely see men getting up to give her the seat.
The attitude in SK is, I have paid money for this seat, why should I ever give it to someone else
Its funny, when a typical SK family has a girl child, they will try their best to marry off her to North Kerala, so that they don't have to give dowry and when the family has a boy child, they make sure that he is married off to a SK family, so that they receive good dowry :)
Language: Again there is so much of difference in one language of Malayalam...North Kerala malayalam is very polite, its like Lucknawi Hindi, Malayalam of South Kerala is completely opposite..its like Mumbai hindi, full of slangs!Again districtwise language differs.
Guess I am placing SK in poor light, but there are good sides to them also : for e.g.: they save loads of money, they follow rituals better than NK in terms of religion.The food culture is better in South Kerala, as there are loads of varieties in their cuisine.
Again when you look at North Kerala, there are different districts like Palakkad, Calicut, Kannur etc
By the way, for a Calicut person, Palakkad is a strict No-No...they consider Palakkad people to be very stingy and attitude wise similar to SK, and Palakkad people are brainy and hence consider themselves superior!
In South Kerala, you have districts like Kottayam, Ernakulum, Trivandrum etc...each one considers them to be superior.Central Kerala considers themselves most superior as they have the best temples and jewellers...hehehe
Imagine one state has so many differences, what would be the case of others....hats off to India to remain United!!!
