A Trivandrumite Prays to Those Who Have Come to Lay a Siege on Secretariat

Dear brothers and sisters,

You have come from many parts of Kerala to lay siege on government Secretariat, for you think the Chief Minister of Kerala should resign and should face judicial enquiry on account of his alleged involvement in the Solar scam. To you all, the brave soldiers of the LDF, this writer, being a Trivandrumite, has a special prayer to make. 

You have come in large numbers and this great city has welcomed you all with enormous goodwill as it had welcomed many a human being from time immemorial. For most of you this city will be a stranger; a place where you have come for a few days after which you will go back to your cities and villages, leaving behind things that you have brought from your home, but would no longer be of any use to you. You have come in vast numbers and it’s a known fact that your political parties have not been able to arrange all facilities for you. But this writer, for the love of his beloved city, prays to you all to keep the city as clean as possible all along your stay in Trivandrum. 

Like most of you, neither the man you want to dethrone, nor the one who have called upon all of you to dethrone him, considers this city his home. But for us, who had the privilege to have born and brought up in this city, who have the pleasure to call this city his/her home, the city of Trivandrum is our soul and heart. This is the city where our parents were born or this is the place they decided later to call their home. This is the city where we were born, this is the city through the pavements of which we took our baby steps and learnt to walk, guided by our parents. This is the city that taught us to dream; this is the city from which we learnt to read and write and gathered our knowledge. This is the city that taught us life and this is the city that taught us to win emphatically and to lose gracefully. This is the city that gave us a lot of friends and brothers and sisters; this is the city that gave us our teachers, who have guided us all through our life. This is the city, though the streets and roads of which we walked alongside our boyfriends and girlfriends, hand in hand, dreaming about a future of togetherness. This is the same city through which we walked around with tears in our eyes thinking about our lost love. This is the city which sowed in us seeds of great thoughts and ideas and this is the city where we learnt how to agree to disagree. This is the city, whose every nook and corner are so familiar to us that we will traverse them as if we are traversing inside our home. This is the same city with many great landmarks that have a proud past and a rich history, about which when we were young our parents had told us with enormous pride and we listened with innocent enthusiasm. This is the city where our fathers have died and where we hope to die one day.

When the government calls in the military and orders them to fire, it is the heart of the city that gets hurt; it is the hearts of those who love this city that bleed. When you throw stones on to the buildings of this city, it is not the glasses that get shattered, it is the hopes and aspirations of the Trivandrumites that get shattered. So this writer, on behalf of his other fellow Trivandrumites, requests you to keep the city as clean as possible, as safe as possible and as destruction-free as possible, for this city may be a temporary shelter for you, but this city is our heart and soul and each and every inch of this city is quite beloved to us.

With lots of prayers,

Your brother.