There is something uniquely Malayali about retired civil servants forming a WhatsApp group and eventually producing an anthology on Kerala’s past, present and future. It combines nostalgia with intellectual restlessness, administrative experience with literary flair, and above all an abiding concern for the destiny of the State they served. The Kerala Club: Keepers of the Flame, edited by KM Chandrasekhar and TP Sreenivasan, is the impressive outcome of that collective enterprise. Published by Bloomsbury, the volume brings together 29 essays that examine the Kerala model critically and suggest ways to preserve and strengthen what has made the State exceptional. Kerala itself is a fascinating paradox. The very word Kerala is believed to derive from Kera, or coconut, though the coconut was not even endemic to the region.…