Agricultural Income Tax

The planter and the NRI have one thing in common. Both of them do not pay Income tax (To Central Govt.) However the planter has to pay tax to the state government. Kerala is one of the last remaining states in India which still levy’s this tax. The tax has to be paid in advance on or before the last day of February for the approaching assessment year.

Before 1990 this tax was levied based on income against appropriate slab rates as in central Income tax. The basic exemption those days given for Agricultural Income was Rs.20, 000/- and the rate of tax was as high as 80% in the final slab. Those days almost everybody used to declare only Rs. 10,000/- to 15,000/- as income. How on earth one could live with that income for a year was conveniently ignored.

During the proceedings of the assessment like issuance of pre-assessment notice and calling for objections which invariably the assessing officer rejected on flimsy grounds the assesse bribed the officials and the officer would enhance the income to somewhere around 25,000/- levied a small income tax and matters were settled to the advantage of the assesee and the personal profit of the officer and considerable loss to the exchequer. (The officers in turn bribe the powers that be to get posted to lucrative offices like Kanjirappally and vandanmedu)

Then in 1990 the Finance Minister in the LDF ministry Mr. Vishwanatha Menon (he was dismissed from the communist Marxist party some time ago and contested unsuccessfully as an independent in Ernakulam and I am not sure whether he is back in the party) introduced the compounding system of payment based on area and the crop that is cultivated. It was a great relief to the assesse in as much as that the amount of tax was fixed irrespective of the income earned and it also took away the discretionary powers of the assessing officers.

Now the planters have accounted surplus in their books. The officers have lost interest in doing the nominal work since they do not benefit otherwise.

The statement below shows how compounded tax is calculated.

Pseudo Bucket Collection

Last week the local CPI(M) office bearers of Vandanmedu a small village in Idukki district of Kerala State, India, approached me for a donation to the party fund. I stated that I was willing to contribute Rs. 2000/- but they asked for Rs.8000/- and wouldn’t settle for anything less than Rs.5000/- which I had to give with heart burn. Of course receipt was duly issued.
I would rather remain silent if the political parties (loot the public money) target MNCs like SNC-Lavalin etc. for their fund requirements and leave small fry’s like us alone.

Vandanmed Photos

My single bed-room Palace.......!!!!!!!!

Is this the flame of the forest? Even if it is not, it certainly looks like its flaming...!!

Saga of ‘Kayal Rajah Muriken’

Mrs. & Mr. Joseph Muriken

Audience with His Holiness Pope John XXIII at the Vatican

(personal audiences with the Pope for laypeople are extremely rare)

The church the 'Kayal Rajah' Muriken built on a large bund in the midst of his three kayals

The person standing between Pandit Nehru and Indira Gandhi with some sort of a badge pinned to his shirt/jubba pocket is the ‘Kayal Rajah’. The person seated along with Nehru and Mrs. Gandhi is Pattom Thanu Pillay the then CM of Kerala.

Text of the condolence message by

His Highness Sree ChitiraTirunal Balaramavarma

The Maharaja of Travancore

on the passing away of Muricken

The perpetrators repenting albiet 38 years late

News report of Muriken's Grandson Adv. Mohan's tragic end on 26th January
at Mandya near Mysore

Visit http://prometheanally.blogspot.com/2008/07/economies-of-scale-and-property-rights.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8P9YdLOwBEU for an excellent article by Rosemary Abraham with an animated vedio of the Kayal Rajah's farming technique.

Tragedy at Mandya

My father’s sister’s son (first cousin brother) met with a ghastly end on the night of the 26th Jan. Adv.Mohan (42) was residing with his wife and two boys studying in the 6th and 9th standard at Mysore. For the past 6 months he was working at Chennai TIDEL Park for an American company doing legal transcription work.

On the night of 26th he boarded the Kaveri express bound for Chennai and at Mandya station, which is 1 hour from Mysore, got down from the compartment presumably for some fresh air/ washing his face. Unfortunately while trying to board the moving train slipped and fell on to the track and was mauled beyond recognition.

The Railway Protection force dialed the last called numbers, on his undamaged mobile phone, one of which happened to be his brother-in –law’s. I got the news around midnight. His parents stay less than a kilometer from where I presently stay. So I rushed and had to break the tragic news to them little by little.

His younger brother and co-brother (Mohan's wife is from the jeweler’s family ‘Chemmannoor’ of Trichur) had to go to Mandya which is 10 hours drive from Kottayam to identify and bring the body. By that time friends and relatives from Mysore and Bangalore had rushed to the spot and there was plenty of support and help. After all the formalities the body reached Kottayam early morning of 28th and was buried the same day afternoon.

Mohan was extremely proud of his lineage.

Mohan happens to be the Grandson of the so called ‘Kayal Rajah Murikken’ of Kavalam who owned the famous Chithra, Rani and Marthandam Kayals* of Kuttanad, each of them being in excess of 500 acres. The famous kayals got their respective names after the three principal members of the Travancore Royal family His Highness. Sree Chitra Tirunal Balaramavarma the Maharajah of Travancore, Amma Maharani Her Highness.Sree Karthika Tirunal and His Highness .Sree Uthradam Tirunal Marthandavarma the then Elayarajah, the present Maharajah; they graciously travelled to Kavalam to ceremonially inaugurate the first sowing.

*The three famous kuttanadan kayals fields are paddy fields made cultivable by building 12-15 feet deep, thick walls around an area each of more than 500 acres in the Vembanad Lake. It’s like an unimaginably big swimming pool from which water is pumped out to make them dry lands. It was an unparalleled feat in the world carried out in the erstwhile state of Travancore. No wonder that the Sovereign along with the Amma Maharani and Elayarajah arrived for the inauguration.

The communist government of EMS nationalized the Kayals in 1971which are left fallow at present, a perfect example of dog in the manger.

Tryst with a Sub-Editor

Giji Marykulam became a familiar by-line through the articles appearing in "Time out" and "Unseen Kerala". It was rather difficult to guess the gender of the person from the name, which subsequently I found out, was not confined to me. Unexpectedly one day the articles disappeared from the paper. After sometime a public notice appeared in the same paper asking Mr. Giji Marykulam of Adackamundackal house, a reporter with the paper to show cause for unauthorised absence from duty, thus the gender and house name was revealed.

Marykulam is a sleepy village in Idukki district of Kerala, on the road from Peermade to Kattappana through which I pass a dozen times a year. Ever since the by line was noticed and whenever I passed the place I always wondered whether Giji took the name from the same place and lived there. Two days after the show cause notice appeared I was driving past Marykulam and on an intuition I stopped at a wayside shop and enquired whether a person named Giji Marykulam lived there, the mention that he worked with Indian Express immediately elicited favourable reply and a kind soul offered to show the house which happened to be a short distance away.

The nondescript house was a forewarning of the person himself. The famous Sub-Editor cum reporter of the mighty Indian Express hailing from a place where there is not a single subscriber for any English newspaper let alone the Indian express. Bewilderment turned to astonishment as he spoke of his schooling in the local school where he was not the brightest and his pre-degree course as a private candidate from where he went to a college that does not figure in the list rated by India today. The secret of his English language was his voracious appetite for reading of all things philosophy.

He was a determined journalist who after stints with different journals at far off places like Gawhati finally landed at the New Indian Express, Kochi. His interests where in wildlife, environment, and historic architecture and has published numerous articles in NIE and won awards. At present he is the staff correspondent of ‘The Hindu’ at Kattappana.

Epilogue: - After reading my Time Out ‘Looks can be deceptive’ in the NIE, he rang me up to say that when he saw me at his house when I went to meet him, he was about to bolt thinking I was a police officer sent by Indian Express to pick him up for unauthorised absence from duty.

Man proposes God disposes

I must have been twenty two when late one night my father woke me up. My maternal grandfather and great grandfather had arrived at that unearthly hour and wanted me to accompany them urgently to vellore. They wanted my services as an expert driver.

Word had come from CMC hospital that grandmother’s sister, who was admitted there critically ill, was sinking. Grandfather who had a Willy’s station wagon immediately set out proposing to take the patient’s father, his own father-in law, to see the dying daughter once more for the last time and also to bring back the body as soon as the inevitable occurred.

I changed in a jiffy and we set out earnestly on the 400kms journey. The diesel vehicle wouldn’t move as fast as the present day turbo charged engines and there weren’t a patch of four lanes in all of India those days. As we wanted to reach before she passed away, we drove non stop except for a brief while for tea and reached Vellore after about sixteen hours on the road.

Grandmother’s sister was in a very serious condition and the doctors gave her a maximum of 24 hours. Planning started immediately for the return journey with the body by the next day evening. Since there won’t be room for great grandfather to accompany us along with the body on the journey back, he was to be taken to Madras early the next morning and put on a flight to Cochin. That too was entrusted to me and we left after getting a wink of sleep.

At the airport while waiting for the boarding pass I told the person standing next in the queue that great grandfather was travelling alone and to be of assistance should the need arises. Probably feeling a bit scared seeing the old man, he asked me whether he can go the toilet by himself. Great grandfather was a little hard of hearing otherwise he would have been offended.

We the advance party of undertakers waited for the eventuality which never occurred the next day nor four days after defying all the doctor’s conclusions. So we returned rather uneventfully.
A couple of months passed and the patient was discharged from the hospital not because she was cured but because the doctors said there was nothing more to be done. She was brought home and was bedridden for the rest of her days.

Meanwhile grandfather developed a chest pain and was referred to a famous cardiologist at Trivandrum. On the day he was given appointment he took along with him for company, a retired doctor friend. At Trivandrum at the prodding of grandfather his doctor friend too underwent investigations and when the findings were announced, grandfather’s heart was pumping well but his friend the doctor who accompanied him just for the heck of it was found to have a cardiac snag. They were prescribed medicines and sent back by the cardiologist. On the way back grandfather dropped his friend at his house and asked his wife to take good care of him since it was revealed that her husband had a heart problem.

Two days later my grandfather who was all of 63 years passed away in his sleep. His sister-in law whom he had gone to vellore to bring back dead, breathed her last only a week after him. The doctor friend who accompanied him just to pass time but was found to have a heart condition lived for another eighteen more years. And Great grandfather out lived all of them to the ripe old age of103.

Man proposes God disposes.