This spiffy book demands of its readers much more than just flipping through it joyously and leaving it afterwards on the coffee table.

Kerala is known for its tourism of ideologies and ideas. Before the state was baptised God's Own Country, it was Karl Marx's Own Country. For long, it remained a most favourite tourist destination for Marxism.

As Shashi Tharoor says, communism has surely brought about far reaching changes in Kerala. Ironically, the ideology that introduced agricultural reform has destroyed the state's agriculture-and industry too-making it one of India's poorest states in terms of economic development to the point that the state now borrows money to pay its employees.

To get out of this situation - which is its creation - Kerala wants to try its hand, among other things, at promotion of tourism, that is, wooing the same Americans whom some Malayalees hate. Admittedly, tourism is a euphemism for the US dollar. 

Fine art: Kerala helped M.F. Husain redeem his painterly genius To put it simply, it is in dire need of dollars. For sure, art can help develop tourism. Surprisingly, sometimes  tourism can contribute to the development of art too. The state proves it abundantly. The book is no tawdry catalogue of twaddle.

Going beyond its declared objective the book invites readers to engage themselves in a discourse on the state of affairs and, more importantly, the question of the identity of Malayalees.

M.F. Husain has brilliantly painted all cliched metaphors of tourism-from Kathakali dancers to ayurveda masseurs. At a time when his art was getting dangerously close to triteness, Kerala helped him redeem his painterly genius-a feat Madhuri Dixit could not accomplish.

While Husain's paintings are limited to the depiction of present-day life, Tharoor delves into Kerala's history. His essay makes sense of the identity of Malayalees.

All said, will the book help bring in tourists to Kerala? Maybe. For one-third of Kerala's population lives outside the state and the richest of them are expatriates in the US, Canada and Australia. Instead of going on vacation to exotic destinations such as the Caribbean islands, they might visit the state.

If they do that, Kerala's efforts in developing tourism is already a success story. For, the best tourists the state can look forward to are Malayalees themselves.