Beyond this tropical sensuality, the place is curiously home to a very strange sociology. Having been removed from the "real" world for so many decades, the rules of economics appear to be distorted or non-existent. Price and value don't seem to be linked. On the one hand, everyone is trying to sell you cigars or take you to the Buena Vista Social Club or whatever, all with different intensities of hustle. On the other, people appear quite happy, despite their limited freedoms and really narrow commercial choices. They do have great (and free) healthcare and education, their life expectancy (at 78) matches that of the United States, and there are books and art everywhere.
Perhaps most amazing of all is the fact that truly humanist sentiments that most of us encounter only in classical literature - patriotism, heroism, fraternity - appear alive and well, and, of course, well supported by roadside propaganda, particularly in the smaller towns. It is clear that even as the economy is - thankfully, albeit slowly - being modified by a kind of capitalism, most people in Cuba still believe in the revolucion. Fidel Castro certainly did some things right.
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Returning from this strange and inspiring environment (on the 16th, in fact), I plunged directly into the dazzling circus of Narendra Modi's extraordinary election victory. His more or less supermajority in the Lok Sabha, coupled with the ongoing lapping of the Modi wave and his clearly focused, even if authoritarian, management capability, provides, for the first time in decades, the necessary condition for Indians to create our own socio-economic revolution.
Of course, to make it really happen - and to ensure his place in the relatively small pantheon of truly great Indian leaders - Mr Modi needs to inspire heroism (not merely "heropanti") in all Indians.
Getting the show going should be a no-brainer. Take a fire torch to the bureaucracy (pushing pending infrastructure projects into action), take a flamethrower to the public sector unions (turning PSUs into real assets), keep the business sector onside and enthused (with, of course, no more special favours), and focus spending on health, education and rural development more effectively.
Growth will spurt as if out of a compressed container. There will be constraints, of course. The monsoon, if it is weak, may keep inflation elevated for some more time; global markets, which appear to be steadying, could - in fact, given the continuing "magic" monetary compression by the Fed, likely will - throw a wrench in the works at any time. And, of course, there will always be "unknown unknowns".
However, to sustain this growth and turn India into the truly great socially liberal, inclusive, capitalist democracy that it intrinsically is, will need more - it will need inspiring heroism in all 1.2 billion (and counting) of us.
To achieve this, Mr Modi needs to address the multiple constituencies that his heretofore combative and, indeed, amoral approach has alienated. And this is no small number. Adding the vote share of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies - and assuming (rather liberally) that all non-voters will be enthused by simply the growth mantra - indicates that about 60 to 70 per cent of the population will be in immediate heropanti mode.
The remaining 300 to 400 million - modern people who believe passionately in basic freedom of expression - will need to be convinced that books will not be banned just because ... and that art can be displayed without fear of threat; women will need to be convinced that they are truly free, free to walk down the streets, free to wear jeans or whatever else they like, free to work, to play, to live their lives as they choose. People of non-mainstream sexuality will need to be convinced that they will be free to love who they like. Muslims, of course, many of whom are understandably terrified, and the poor - who still need to believe that things have really changed (after all, 34 per cent of the members of Parliament in the current Lok Sabha have criminal cases against them, as compared to 30 per cent in the previous one) - especially need to be convinced that this new wave is genuinely for all Indians.
This process needs to start right away, since only then will we be able to build the India of the future.
C'mon, let's get started. We need to take leaves out of several books, and, importantly, let's not forget Fidel Castro.
jamal@mecklai.com