Krazy Kochi

Manappe sits on the verandah of her home at Thekkupana Ooru. She is unlettered she says M a nappe, an old woman, sits on the verandah of her home in Thekkupana Ooru (hamlet), Attapady, a tribal belt in Kerala, clutching a bag of beans that she has foraged for in the wild. We ask her age, she shrugs saying she does not know. With a sigh of resignation, Manappe says she has no padippu (education). She gesticulates with her thumb, explaining that she uses her digits for everything, including “voting”. For a moment, one confronts a Newtonian dilemma (as in the Hindi film) and wonders if it’s a thumb impression that sets the electoral exercise of the largest democracy rolling. Of course, it is.    Kalliamma feeding her goats at her home in Thekkupana Ooru. She pins her hopes on 10-year-old Rangappan, who is attending classes at Project Shine But, times are a changing and, the winds of learning are ruffling and shaking up the backwardness of s...

    (Photographs by Avran Ittyipe) When I have to I want to: Sherin Noordheen , 34, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala Pinching point: “My father committed suicide when I was six years old. I grew up with that stigma. I too had suicidal tendencies. I want to talk about it openly to remove the stigma around suicides.” Sherin who has a master’s in MSW, used to work with IT companies before she quit to travel around the world. While planning to start a cafe to help other people with suicidal tendencies she heard about kanthari and her application was accepted. “I want to start a travelling cafe called ‘Let’s Live Café’. I want to take it to the rural areas where people can walk in and share their problems over a cup of coffee. What I found was that there is no societal support for young adults in Kerala for depression and prevention of suicide. I would like to train volunteers and the cafe would be a link between psychologists/psychiatrists and those with depression. ...