Book review: Mad about Cuba by Ullekh NP
Notes from contemporary Cuba
The only thing quirky about this book is the title. In actual fact, Mad about Cuba is a compact report from the field.
The tagline informs you that the author is a Malayali revisiting the revolution. And the first pic on the front jacket is one familiar to most Malayalis: that of a reading station packed tightly with wooden benches, a mural of the much-loved Che Guevara, pronounced `cheguvera` locally, on the back wall
Ullekh NP writes of Kerala`s long and abiding admiration of Cuba`s Fidel Castro, of the way communism still survives there in the deep and stifling shadow of US sanctions. He buys books on the Cuban Revolution from the bookshop of his hotel, the Nacional de Cuba hotel in Havana, which once served as Castro`s HQ during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. He drinks a lot of coconut water, a lot of white rum, he learns how to roll a cigar. He admires the changing hues of the ocean from the fabled Malecon, eats at a paladare or home kitchen, tells us how Che fared as Minister of Industries in the 60s, how Jagger and his Rolling Stones rocked Havana in 2016.
Yes, the bias shows but in an unobtrusive way, with the author stating firmly and repeatedly that he loved Cuba and Cubans, that he admired the small island for being a persistent David facing up to the American Goliath. And when the reader does the math and realises it has been over six decades of sanctions, they too cannot help doff a hat to Cuba.
Time and again, the writer brings into the foreground the parallels between the tiny state of Kerala in India, and the tiny island in the Caribbean. The fondness for coconut water, the determination to keep communism alive and thriving, the literary culture spawned by Leftist politics, how one will find many a Fidel or a Che in Kerala. A common liking for drumstick moringa, a common high female literacy rate, zero population growth, and great strides in maternal and child health. The ruling parties in both places viewing theism in a pragmatic fashion.
Beyond the white rum
This is Cuba beyond the legendary Cohiba cigars and white rum. This is Cuba that has done sterling work in the fields of public health, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and agriculture. Ullekh meets and interviews a wide range of Cuban bureaucrats, scientists, young people in bars and restaurants, chauffeurs of the vintage cars that serve as taxis in Havana. The picture that emerges is of a modern Cuba where the young want to live `like people we find on Twitter and Instagram. ’ While communism is nowhere on its last gasp, outmigration has become a problem. Their elders fought and suffered, but the young are ready to flee to a world of better prospects.
Will the revolution endure? Ullekh NP remains optimistic, going so far as to say a new kind of revolution is brewing in Cuba. Time will tell. Because everything Cuba does, it does in the shadow of sanctions.
Mad about Cuba By Ullekh NP. Penguin Books. Rs 399.222 pages.
This ran in TNIE`s Sunday Express Magazine of 12 January 2025.
Sheila Kumar • January 13, 2025