Friends, spouses, parents on hire

Photo courtesy: The New Yorker

Yes, one can get a husband, wife, father, mother, boyfriend or girlfriend on hire .... in Japan.

I didn't know this, until I heard a documentary in the Outlook Weekend programme on BBC World Service. This family rental business is thriving in Japan, where this extraordinary practice of getting a fake relative began in 1990s.

The programme features Yuichi Ishii who runs a company called Family Romance. Over the past nine years, he has been a husband to a hundred women and organised 8,000 fake weddings.

This is a perfectly legal commercial arrangement, and the actors ensure that everything goes off perfectly, with no chance of the impersonation ever being exposed.

At the end of the programme, there is an interview with a mother who hired a father for her little daughter, who was missing her real father since he had been divorced by the mother.

Though this is common in Japan, it's not an easy business: one, the moral issues arising out of living a real life based on a lie, and two, the emotional complications ensuing from the real-fake relationships.

This 30-odd minute programme on BBC World Service is very well made, and is worth listening to.

Later, I did a web search on this amazing phenomenon, and found that there have been articles on this in many publications like The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The Sydney Morning Herald. There is also a Wikipedia page on Rental family service.

Kerala Diary 2 - Ordering food in Hindi

Most people in Kerala (the small state tucked away in the southern tip of the Indian peninsula) speak their local language of Malayalam even if they know English. Many locals might understand Hindi (the most widely spoken language in the country) but they aren't comfortable speaking it. Which means, basically it's Malayalam that's the predominant language of communication in Kerala.

So today evening, at a restaurant in Ernakulam (in central Kerala) when I had to speak in Hindi to order food, I could not help thinking how drastically this state and its people have changed.

Over the few years, there has been a number migrants from the north of the country (who know only Hindi) moving in to Kerala because of increasing job opportunities.

It's only a few months since this waiter in the restaurant, who is from Darjeeling, in West Bengal state, has been in Kerala. He says he can understand Malayalam but not speak fluently. I switched to Hindi when he replied to me in that language.

I spent some time talking to him, a very affable person. And for a moment I wondered if I was in some north Indian city!

I am sure he will soon learn to speak Malayalam, just as many locals, who know only Malayalam, can now speak Hindi very well.

Incidentally, I spotted menu in some small hotels, written in both Malayalam and Hindi.

This shows how a society enriches itself with migration and consequent intermingling of people of diverse backgrounds and skill sets.

Rains abate

It was a relief to see sun shining bright today morning while I travelled by a bus from North Paravur to Ernakulam. News also came in that rains have abated, water levels in dams across the State of Kerala have seen a drop. That's a major consolation.

However, the National Disaster Management Authority of India has warned that there are possibilities of rain in as many as 16 States across the nation in the coming few days as a depression develops over the Bay of Bengal.

Kerala Diary 1 - Raining misery

It's an eerie feeling being in North Paravur - about 120 km north west of Idukki reservoir. The shutters of the Cheruthoni Dam in Idukki (central Kerala) have been opened, following incessant rain, letting out huge quantities of water into Periyar river which is now overflowing into some human habitations.

While grim visuals of the havoc caused by the rain are rolling on the TV screen, here it's mostly only overcast sky and an occasional heavy rain but water seeping into earth.

I have been here since Wednesday night when the clouds opened up unleashing a fury not seen in recent times. I was woken up around 2 am by the sound of the strong force of the downpour. Didn't quite realise then what it had wreaked mainly in north and central Kerala.

Next morning onwards, the only news on local news channels has been the mounting death toll and untold hardship of whoever was in the way of the recklessly gushing torrents of water.

Such has been the downpour across Kerala that shutters of 24 of the 40 dams in the State had to be opened. Twenty two people have lost their lives in the last two days. Idukki area is still witnessing heavy rain.

Tomorrow, I am scheduled to travel down south to Ernakulam, which is closer to areas that have been badly hit. Hopefully, the ferocity of rain would have abated by then, and situation is better.