Trivandrum

The town we have been in thus far is in southern Kerala along the coast. It is called Trivandrum. From what I can tell, it has essentially two main industries, government and medicine. The seat of the Keralan government is here so that's where the governmental aspect comes in. It is a democratically elected communist government, so you see the hammer and sickle all over the city on political signs. Apparently, when the communists were originally elected, they did a lot towards attempting to alleviate the tremendous economic disparities that existed here. They were involved in land redistribution, public education, public health, and job creation among other populist projects. However, the people that I've spoken with here say that the party has softened its stance on populism in recent years and now in many ways is indistinguishable from competing political parties. I suppose that as money becomes more plentiful and available, any sort of popularly derived governmental mandate for egalitarianism diminishes.

As I mentioned above, medicine is another large industry here with multiple medical (private and government), nursing, science and technology schools. There seems to be a fairly large hospital on every corner. Also, there are little pharmacies everywhere (literally one about every 25 feet) as well as imaging centers that offer ultrasound, CT, X-ray and MRIs. It's kind of strange. I mean, there's really not that many people here (<1 million) so it's a small city by Indian standards. I

It is described as quiet and laid back. I suppose it is compared to places like Mumbai and Calcutta. However, it still seems crowded and loud to me. It is relatively easy to find some streets and neighborhoods that have little traffic except some pedestrians, so that has been nice.

Attached are some pictures.