But who will go for it?
For the Malayalam challenged, the new report is about a job advertisement seeking Coconut tree climbers. A very lucrative position from my experience. The money offered is pretty decent, but a decent freelancer can earn much more than that. We had a coconut tree in our house till last month (acquired by the Government and will be cut down soon for widening the road). We had a hard time finding somebody to pluck the coconuts. We had a friendly neighbourhood coconut plucker (thandaan), but after he passed away its been really hard. His son finds this job demeaning and waste of energy. Instead he spends his time as a CITU head load worker. As a CITU worker, he needn’t move a muscle and earn a livelihood from the fee gets for allowing others to unload the goods in the locality. The man could have easily earned a lot more if he wanted to work hard. Easy life and scot free money. No wonder people say Malayalees work hard when they are away from home. Away from the protectionist nanny system which allows a man to earn without doing any work.
