“Please fasten your seatbelts…” droned the monotonic voice of the stewardess as the Indian Airlines flight to Trivandrum started its preparation for landing.  Looking out of the window I was amazed to see a vast expanse of greenery…stretching as far as the eye could see! It almost looked like we were in some jungle; the airport and what looked like a football field were the only two open spaces I could see from up above.  And as we went lower, what surprised me even more was the number of coconut trees all around!  No wonder we mallus use coconut in almost everything! And I also guessed that you probably could not earn a livelihood selling coconuts over here.  In fact, you might actually end up having to pay someone to pluck those coconuts…or wait for it to fall to the ground! Notwithstanding the adage that proclaimed that the coconut on your property would not fall on your head, I wondered at the perilous existence that these people led!

Still soaked in the warm afterglow of having indulged my eyes on so much greenery, I emerged out of the airport and was glad to be greeted by a driver holding a placard bearing my name! “This must be an absolutely wonderful place to work in” I said to myself, as I got into the waiting car.  And lo presto! I was brought down to reality!!! “Tomorrow is a hartal, organized by the BJP” announced the driver!  There you go! Imagine Kerala without its red flags, unionism and hartals!!! I wondered if this malaise had spread into the Technopark too!  Touted as the largest IT Park in Asia, I was also amazed at the fact that it had been set up amidst so much of greenery.  I was soon to find out that they had managed to create all of this without making it look like a scab on this absolutely green landscape!!! Quite an achievement!  Anyway, coming back to the hartal, what gave me a perverse sense of satisfaction was that the President was also in town…and hopefully she would also have to live through the ordeal of a hartal!  To be fair to the people of this land, the communist credo of equality is practiced religiously…everyone gets a fair dose of the problem…no special favours!  And predictably enough, the President and her entourage spent the next day at the Kovalam beach! J

I was in Trivandrum to conduct a two-day workshop on Product Management for a leading software company in the Technopark complex!   The Ginger Hotel is just a stone’s throw away from the IT Park…and that was a relief!  The hartal would not unduly inconvenience me!  Worst case, I could still walk it to the office.  The workshop (in my opinion) went off very well!  The participants were a fantastic bunch of bright and enthusiastic people, quite different from the cynical and laid-back Mallus I had expected to meet.  In fact, I was amused to find people walking to work wearing a mundu and shirt – the equivalent of the Silicon Valley culture of wearing shorts and Bermudas to work, I guess!  More importantly, however, was the revelation that there is a generation of people over here, who think they can actually make a career within the state itself!  The IT Park is a beautiful environment to work in – the facilities probably equal, if not excel, what you find in the other metros in the country.  And the bonus, of course, is what you will never find in the other metros – so much greenery, beaches, and hills…an abundance of natural beauty (in more than one form)!!! J

With such a literate (and intelligent) population, this should not really have come as a surprise!  I am glad that there are few entrepreneurs who are willing to risk it all, and set up shop over here!  And I wish that they succeed.  With a natural ability to work smart, this should ideally be a place, where one can expect to see the highest productivity and return on investment.  And IT seems like a very appropriate industry to flourish over here!  This will not pollute the environment and therefore can coexist harmoniously with Tourism, which is probably emerging as the staple source of revenue!  And creation of huge campuses where people can live very close to their workplace will also eliminate the need to travel long distances, and its consequent deleterious effect on traffic management, transportation, fuel consumption (and increased cost of living).  And with a huge literate population, service-oriented industries should be able to flourish, since it will allow more and more people to be employed.

The IT Park, in spite of its size and facilities, appears to me as highly under-rated.  Hyderabad and Gurgaon, with probably lesser facilities than this place have been gaining a lot more prominence as potential destinations for IT companies.  Whether this low-profile marketing is by choice, I do not know.  With the Smart city coming up in Kochi, one hopes that Kerala will in due course of time, earn its rightful place in the Corporate map of India.