Sunday, October 10, 2010

Part I of my life in Kerala

Now Kerala was a different place altogether as I said. Moovattupuzha was in what is known as the Kochi Tiruvitankoor area and was in the plains. Kerala sweeps dizzyingly from the hilltops to the seashore in a matter of 80 kilometers along its width and Moottupuzha lay somewhere in the middle. Wikipedia, the all knowing one, tells us “Muvattupuzha was part of the Vadakkumkoor Kingdom until it was captured by the Travancore Kingdom, now merged into the state of Kerala. Old documents show that the lands of Muvattupuzha belonged to ‘Edappally Swaroopam’, but were later transferred to ‘Manas’ (Brahmin Families) St. Thomas, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, who introduced Christianity to India, is believed to have visited Muvattupuzha and converted several families to Christian faith.”

Moovattupuzha literally means the river of three streams. Three streams apparently meet at Moovattupuzha and become one. People there even celebrate the river as a triveni sangamam like the Allahabad sangam. Unlike many great rivers of the Indo Gangetic plains, the streams that constitute Moovattupuzha and the final river itself meander a lot as you can see on any map, and hence one is not really sure whether one is on the west bank or the east, north bank or the south. But fortunately for us, people in Moovattupuzha talk about “thekku puram” or the southern side and “vadakku puram” or the northern side to indicate directions rather than use terms like “Bittu ke dookan ki taraf” or “Ram Mandir ke taraf” that we see in Delhi. I therefore deduce that Anchu Muri Madhom, the ancestral house of my mother was located on the western banks of Moovattupuzha.

It was located in an area called the Kavumpady, meaning the steps of the Kavu, which traditionally is a shrine dedicated to the Goddess Bhagawati, who is a consort of Lord Shiva and is the sister of Lord Vishnu. Please click onto my post dated 24/08/2006 for more details. There are innumerable Kavus in Kerala and one needs to visit them to imbibe the atmosphere that surrounds them. I have visited most temples in India and the feelings that one gets in Kavus of Kerala can be matched only by the feelings that one gets in the Dzongs of Bhutan. A surreal 15th century feeling, that permeates the bones of even a diehard atheist and fills him with awe.

It was a diametrically opposite life for me. I had to speak in Malayalam instead of Wadi Hindi. Wear Mundu with the freedom to walk around topless in the neighbourhood instead of shorts and shirts as in Wadi. No rotis, just red boiled rice. Lots and lots of coconuts, heroes like Jayan and Premnasir to substitute for Amitabh Bachhan and Shatrughan Sinha, and most importantly, for an adolescent, beautiful girls. The girls of Kerala win the bronze, with Telugu girls winning the silver and the gold goes to ………hold your breaths there like you do in TV reality shows, ……Bengali girls!!!.


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