New-age quotation

Quotation in Kerala simbly assumes a dangerous meaning. In Malluland, where red flags and hartals keep away private companies, ‘quotation’ has nothing to do with business projects. It is a local euphemism that means contract killing — known as supari in Mumbai’s now-nearly-collapsed underworld. It sounds very much like a ri-diculously scripted Ram Gopal Varma movie. Thugs are available at your beck and ‘cell’ call, for a song (and a full bottle) — ready to undertake any job that ranges from smashing a few bones, or chopping off a leg or hand, or worse, making a ‘wall-poster’ out of you (another Mallu euphemism which, crudely put, means bumping off somebody). Issues such as business rivalry, land grabbing, illicit liquor and sex ma-fias automatically qualify for quotations. Sex mafias thrive in the fully literate state and provide daily fodder to half-a-dozen news channels. You can also hire quotation teams if your neighbour keeps the music disturbingly loud, or when the flat owner upstairs refuses to repair leaky pipes.
The recent murder of a director of a BSE-listed, Kochi-headquartered finance company, who was hacked to death on Alappuzha highway, is yet another ‘feather in the crown’ of these goons. As usual, cops are busy preparing a script that suits their immediate political requirement...and are wondering how goons, who are in the Gulf, as per their records, are still taking a ‘quotation’ in the ‘peaceful’ state.
As the state gears up to celebrate Onam this we-ek, the harvest festival, which stands for oneness, quotation teams are levelling their targets — political/apolitical, religious/non-religious, poor/rich, rickshaw driver or jet-setter, casual labourer or castle-owner, all being equal in their world. ‘Gods’ own co-untry’ is increasingly meant for gods, demi-gods or, at least, godmen.
As for me, I have put on hold my retirement plans for Kochi, at least till such time as I reincarnate.