Hammer to earthmover: reclamation as revolution

It was May 22, not Dec 31. It was a Tuesday, not Saturday. Still people were out in packs on Kochi’s Mahatma Gandhi Road. The usual promenaders – girls windowshopping and boys ogling at them – were outnumbered by the new spectators. They braved the summer sun to inspect the day’s work and took photos and videos of it on their mobile phones. Newsmen on camera and laymen on mobiles aired updates of the urban spectacle.

The spectacle was piles of rubble and disfigured buildings. Earthmovers had gone to rest until the next morning. And traders were busy removing signboards and pavements, which they suddenly realized, were jutting out to the public road. Gas cutters and pickaxes were doing overtime, for tomorrow earthmovers would be merciless.

The demolition drive along the primary arterial road in Kerala’s commercial capital was a cause for celebration. People thronged the roadside as if they were on a festival ground, gazing at reclaimed footpaths and a few side roads fenced in by big-time hoteliers and merchants. Nostalgic old-timers were looking for the lost paths of their city.

Elsewhere in the state, earthmovers were razing illegal constructions that had been choking lakes and rivers. Acres of government land recovered and forest saved. Everywhere, people cheered the demolition men. And the man who started it all, chief minister VS Achuthanandan, was an overnight hero despite his own comrades’ reservations.

CPI MP Panniyan Raveendran was heard saying that VS was playing Suresh Gopi, the actor who single-handedly burned down or bombed traitor-politicians, rogue cops and terrorists who manipulated them all. Though Panniyan has an axe to grind (his party office in Munnar was among the first constructions to be brought down), he was giving a realistic comment.

But was it the action that made the drive a thriller?

There was an evident spark of optimism after all these cynical days. Law was not an ass always. Despite all the bribes and red tapes, the great Indian bureaucracy was still an instrument of law. When political will and popular wish met, it has proven to be a red-letter day. It is the same spark that helps Suresh Gopis and other angry young men on screen collect at the box office.

Digest this: A resort in Wayanad, owned by the son of former director general of police KJ Joseph, deviated a river to form it into a swimming pool on its premises. A multi-storeyed resort in Munnar, owned by the wife of electricity board chief engineer BS Balakrishnan, was built on land exclusively leased to cultivate cardamom.

So when resorts across the state that have been choking the lifelines of the populace fall, what else could the people do other than cheer the earthmovers? Vembanad Lake, Kollam Lake, Periyar River, Kallayi River, Lakkidi River and so many streams have been reclaimed by encroachers including business leaders and media barons.

Back in Kochi, a city badly in need of public spaces despite its long shoreline, citizens were strolling down a road fenced in by a hotel to pave the way to its star sister and a canal filled up by a theatre to make a parking lot. Private was suddenly public. Observers have been striking parallels between the first communist government of Kerala and the present. VS government's actions may not match the land reforms of 1957, but there was something revolutionary in the air as people reclaimed public spaces as policemen watched.

The curious case of vanishing privacy

Hours after 24-year-old engineer Koushabi Layek was found murdered in a hotel room in Mumbai on May 14, scores of armchair detectives were on the job. They browsed through pages of personal data of the victim and her boyfriend, the suspect. Every friend of the duo was put to questions by the journalists, bloggers, browsers and of course, the police. Even before Manish Thakur, a navyman in Goa, was caught, online angry young men and women were on him. Worse, they had begun a trial.

Even murder has lost its privacy. Assuming the Manish Thakur who rented a hotel room with Koushambi in his name on May 12 and the Manish Thakur who features as an Orkut friend of Koushambi since January are the same, he left little to public imagination. The suspect had left too many leads on Orkut, “an online community that connects people through a network of trusted friends”. The site also provided the much-needed drama to the intrigue. Orkut brand of voyeurism was on print.

“hii this is manish here. hope u will find it interesting with me. all the best. only good friends are allowed thankx...,” Manish says about him in his Orkut profile. Koushambi gives an ironic testimonial: “Well, what to say about this sportive guy... He is really caring and loving guy... He is amazing, awesome and friendly. I neednot describe him as anyone close to him must surely be aware of his abilities. He is an all rounder.. Be it in the field of studies, sports or music. He is a champo...Don't u think so???”

Manish's scrapbook, full of abuses from people shocked over the murder, begins with two scraps from Koushambi welcoming him to the online community on Jan 2: “hi betu, welcome to orkut. thanks for updating d description. its nice to go thru it now.” Manish must have been working in Southern Naval Command, Kochi then. On February 10, he moved to Goa. A couple of months later, Manish writes to another friend: “hi this is manish from navy here remember me. i am koushambis -------” and so on.

Science fiction tells us of a future when past voices can be restored and recorded. This case has something akin to it. Scraps on Orkut are part of a lively conversation between friends, lost friends and wannabe friends. When Koushambi, Manish or any of their mutual friends were scrapping each other with a simple ‘hi’, little did they realize that they were saving their offline chat for a cop to peruse later. Orkutians are smart anyway. The fugitive had only two friends remaining on his list, including the deceased Koushambi.

If state was doing what peeping toms did on Orkut, laymen were doing a state on Orkut. Hate messages on Manish’s scrapbook were equaled only by the sympathies on Koushambi’s scrapbook. Communities sprang up for the victim and a single one defending the suspect. Sane voices were drowned in the commotion. You were either against the “devil” or for him. The verdict was given even before the charge sheet was read. But the police are definitely ahead with other possible scenarios.

What if the sailor’s lack of caution in executing the murder was deliberate? Manish, gave his true id at the hotel. He didn’t collect his sneakers while fleeing after the murder. He went straight to Goa, his camp where the police would first look for him. He went prepared for the murder, but he was not prepared for the cover-up. Police suggest there was a suicide pact between Koushambi and Manish, married with a kid. The colourful world of the web, however, has everything in black & white.