OK.. I will bite.. If anyone doesn't know, I am a native and resident of central Kerala, hence qualified onlee.
First, let us set some baseline information that is often missed or misunderstood by non-keralites.
State name in native tongue : kEraLam. phonetically kɛrələm. There is no equivalent to the L sound in devanagari and many other languages.
State name in english : Kerala. No m at the end. There is no name like "keral".
People of the state in english: Keralites.
Language: 'malayALam'. Here the first l and second L are different sounds. There is no language like 'malayali'
People of the language : malayALi.
Traditional food grain: Red rice plain boiled. The rice grain is prepared in a parboiling process, so the cooked grains are firmer, smoother, and retain some of the bran flavour.
Traditional dress: 'mund~', which is a white plain cloth worn around the waist and a 'randaam mund~' (literally second mund~) that is worn like a shawl. Yes, it was even for women like a century ago.
Contemporary food: Kerala Porotta, which is a form or paratha that is flaky.
Post contemporary food: Arabic Shawarma
Kerala is formed from the erstwhile rajahdoms of Travancore and Cochin, plus the Malayalam speaking regions of British administered lands.
Wiki says: According to 2011 Census of India figures, 54.73% of Kerala's population are Hindus, 26.56% are Muslims, 18.38% are Christians, and the remaining 0.33% follow other religions or have no religion
Politics: Divided into two: LDF led by the CPIM, followed by the other commies and a few left leaning parties. UDF led by congress, followed by Muslim league and a few christian leaning parties. BJP is very low in the rung. Historically, KL goes contra to national mood. And mostly go anti-incumbent in state elections.
BJP is in terrible state. All evil cliches about the typical mallu are applicable to the party here. Infighting, groups, leg pulling, hamstring chopping whatnot. Unless they get their act together, KL is going to be the token opposition in India.
The commies corner majority of yindoo votes. Those with cong have to go extra mile to show secular credentials, like one MLA refusing to count himself as yindoo for voting for devaswom matters, and a few others regularly taking ramzan fasting etc.
Caste wise, the Ezhavas are the highest numbers. They are reasonably well organized under the SNDP organization (led by a father). They created the political arm BDJS (led by the son) that is officially aligned in a marriage of convenience with NDA. Now, since they have so many 'things to worry about', the father aligns with the commies and the son stays with NDA. See, both the state and centre have bolis right?
Nairs are next (I am born one). Once again, we are a community that personify the 'typical maloo'. We have the organization NSS, but being Nairs, we always oppose what anyone of leadership say. I think the only time we showed any level of cohesiveness was during the Sabarimala issue.
Xtians have three major sections.
The orthodox folk are practically independent ones, who are fine to live with. They do not convert people or talk bad of yindoos. They respect us and we respect back. Honestly our brothers.
The catholic folk are controlled by the pope. There are three types. The Malankara folk are almost like the orthodox and good to deal with. The syrian ones are OK. The latin ones are the ones go around converting and talking bad about yindoos. One tendency I see now is the exceeding use of yindoo cultural things, like celebrating onam, wearing traditional clothing, having temple like flag pole at churches etc. It is an effort to make it more acceptable I think.
Then there are the EJs. YouknowwhatImean.
Muslims are multiple types, so I lose track. But the tendency in the past decade is to see who is more arap than araps. Very.. Bad... That is the major concern for us now. Ten years ago, it was very difficult to identify a muslim at a public place. Now you can.
More later.
