Shrayan Sen
— “You should leave a little later. That way there’s less chance of facing trouble on the roads. Whatever happens in support of the bandh will be over by noon”.
Hearing these words from a Kochi police officer, left me feeling both worried and reassured at the same time. My mind kept telling me that tourists are usually kept outside the scope of a bandh in Kerala, so we shouldn’t face any problems. But another part of me kept wondering: what if we do run into trouble?
Since morning, the streets of Fort Kochi have been deserted. There are no buses at the nearby bus stand. All the government city buses of Kochi operate from here, yet today there is no sign of the usual rush.
In a state where both the government and the opposition support the bandh, one doesn’t need to be very wise to understand how strong its impact might be.
Around the Chinese fishing nets of Fort Kochi, the usual morning bustle was barely visible — not even a quarter of it. A couple of fish shops had opened, but overall everything was shut. Tea stalls and snack kiosks were closed.
We were supposed to travel from Kochi to Munnar today. Just because of the bandh, we couldn’t change our travel plan.
Reassured by the police, we finally set out around 11:30 am. Following our driver’s suggestion, we stuck a paper marked “Tourist” on the front windshield of our vehicle so that even if bandh supporters stopped us, they would let us go quickly.
Those who have visited Kerala know that the roads here are quite narrow. With high population density, there is hardly any open space. Traffic jams are a daily scene in the plains’ cities here.
Drivers usually advise leaving Kochi very early for Munnar so that one can get out before the office-hour traffic begins. Once stuck in that jam, there is no escape.
Today, however, there wasn’t even a trace of traffic. Forget jams — there were barely any vehicles on the road. Only vehicles connected to emergency services were moving. Even the KSRTC government buses were absent.
Shops closed, silence all around, empty roads — and our vehicle was moving swiftly through it all.
It felt like the kind of bandh I used to see in my childhood: schools and colleges closed, IT sector work halted, banks shut — a complete shutdown.
But what surprised me most, or rather what I wasn’t prepared to see, was this: throughout the 130-kilometre journey, we didn’t see any bandh supporters on the roads. No one was forcing people to observe the bandh, stopping vehicles, or shutting down shops. There were no blockades anywhere.
Both the ruling party and the opposition supported the bandh, yet their workers were nowhere on the streets. No coercion, no intimidation. The few shops that were open seemed to be operating without fear.
It was a completely different picture of a bandh — total in effect, yet without force.
Usually, it takes me about seven hours to travel from Kochi to Munnar. Today, we reached in four and a half hours — and yes, that includes a 45-minute food break along the way.