Historian M.G.S. Narayanan releases the book Malayalavum Herman Gundertum by handing over a copy to literary critic M.M. Basheer at a function at Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University at Tirur on Tuesday.
‘Even serious historians have neglected books like ‘Kerala Pazhama’ by Gundert’
“If Thunchathezhuthachan was the father of Malayalam Language, Herman Gundert was its foster father,” opined historian M.G.S. Narayanan. Releasing the book ‘Malayalavum Herman Gundertum’ (Malayalam and Herman Gundert) at the Thunchath Ezhuthachan Malayalam University at Tirur on Tuesday, Mr. Narayanan said that even serious historians have neglected books like ‘Kerala Pazhama’ by Gundert, who is mostly known for the first lexicon in Malayalam as well as ‘Rajyasamacharam’, the first newspaper in the language.
Study of Gundert’s works have helped historians much in clearing certain misunderstandings and misconceptions. His works were milestones that marked the history of Kerala. The myths portrayed in his books give us a hint of the culture of those times. He was recovering the culture of Kerala for the later generations through his books. His work as a missionary only showed that the problems and culture of people are the same around the world, Mr. Narayanan said and appreciated the Malayalam University for establishing a ‘Gundert Chair’ in Germany.
Vice-Chancellor K. Jayakumar, in his presidential address said that the university has set aside the traditional methods and has formed its own policy on research activities.
The book, in two volumes, was published by the Gundert Chair established by Malayalam University in Tubingen University in Germany. A seminar on ‘The contemporariness of Gundert’ was held later.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kozhikode / Staff Reporter / Kozhikode – February 03rd, 2016
She hails from a family of educationists and is married to one. So, it was only natural that Shima Sendhil, who spent more than a decade in the US, came back to the country to help with the family run educational institution.
The director of Rathinam Educational Institutions tells us, “I hail from a remote village in Ernakulam, Kerala and my father was a headmaster of a school there. We moved to the US, when I was just 15 years old. After completing my studies in the University of Florida, I worked for a private concern as a programmer for five years. I moved to Coimbatore to take over the family business after the stint. When my husband heard the news about the award, he was quite excited. He asked me to consider this achievement as a motivation to take up many more programmes for the benefit of students.”
Shima has been voted as one of the #100Women Achievers of India in the category of education by the Ministry of Women and Child Development. “I wasn’t even aware of the fact that my name was nominated in the list. It was only when the Ministry asked for my profile that I believed the news was true. A lot of credit goes to my husband for being a pillar of support.”
When it comes to education, Shima ensures that she doesn’t leave any stone unturned as far as benefiting her students are concerned. “We have associated with many corporate companies to provide skill-based training to our students, through their CSR activities. The activities include training in electrical work, plumbing, IT and even costume designing. The idea is to make our students more employable.”
Shima says that her five-year-stint in the US has helped her pick many tricks of the trade and implement them back home in Coimbatore. “For instance, we have upgraded many technical aspects in the college and have also begun providing smart classes for students.” This apart, Shima has also taken steps to provide scholarships to underprivileged students. “We have also been undertaking tree plantation drives, helmet awareness campaigns and providing support to the needy in the times of crises, like the Nepal earthquake and Chennai deluge. We are now envisioning a waste-free campus in 2016 by which we intend to reuse plastics and covert food waste into gas & thus, use negligible resources from outside. This apart, we have a plethora of new activities in the pipeline, focusing on women.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Coimbatore / P . Sangeetha, TNN / January 17th, 2016
As a part of Kerala’s vast and scattered diaspora, I grew up hearing interesting titbits about the land I had sprung from: communism, literacy, matriliny and, more recently, Arabian Nights-type tales about treasures hidden in the vaults of Padmanabhaswamy Temple. I absorbed this information in my childhood without exploring it in any depth because the only books available were either written by colonial-era social anthropologists or Indian historians too wedded to the format of academic books to make them genuinely readable, crammed full of dates and details but with little attention paid to literary art.
Portrait of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi by her granddaughter and artist Rukmini Varma |
Luckily, debut author Manu S Pillai has now accessed all of those texts and created the book I always longed for—a narrative history of Kerala that faithfully records and indexes its sources but also tells a cracking story. The focus is on the last queen of erstwhile Travancore state, Sethu Lakshmi Bayi (aka Senior Maharani), who ruled from 1924 as a regent for seven years while the British authorities waited for the future Maharajah, Chithira Tirunal, to come of age. Chithira Tirunal was the son of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi’s adoptive sister who came to be known as Junior Maharani. Many people in Trivandrum remember the publicly fraught relationship that existed between these two Maharanis grappling for power in the decade before India became independent, an event that was unforeseen at the time and ultimately rendered their fight rather poignantly futile.
In reality, the two ‘sisters’ were first cousins who were adopted together in 1900 from the Kolathiri clan of Mavelikkara to preserve Travancore’s shaky matrilineal line. After a series of miscarriages beset the Senior Maharani, it was the Junior Maharani who bore the heir to the throne. While it fell upon Sethu Lakshmi Bayi to play regent as the future Maharajah grew up, the Junior Maharani, cast in an unenviably vacuous position during the regency years, naturally made it her business to ensure a powerful role for herself as soon as her son became king. This was eventually achieved, with much help from the flamboyant and brilliant Sir CP Ramaswami Iyer, and was—the book suggests—employed to make the Senior Maharani’s position untenable once Chithira Tirunal came to power. The present royal family residing at Kowdiar Palace in Trivandrum are descendants of the Junior Maharani while the family of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi left Kerala to settle in Bangalore, Chennai and beyond after the regency period came to an end.
Manu Pillai charts this divided journey in vivid and comprehensive fashion, bringing events virtually up to the present day and telling the story occasionally like a family saga. Personal letters and interviews reveal the kind of tensions and jealousies that run through all families and this is rendered doubly riveting when set against the backdrop of ‘palaces and princes’.
However, it would be doing the book a huge disservice to suggest that it does not rise beyond mere historical biography. This 700-page whopper of a book is much, much more than the story of Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, fascinating as it is to read about this able female ruler who was responsible for many policies now taken for granted in Kerala (eg, the Nair Succession Act that effectively and, in my view, rather regrettably abolished matriliny). For me, the best aspects of The Ivory Throne lay in those authorly excursions that efficiently answered all the questions I had stored up from my childhood in a maranaadan Malayali home.
From Vasco da Gama’s chaotic arrival on the shores of Calicut to Martanda Varma’s ingenious melding of royalty and divinity when he declared himself Padmanabhadasan, from the Temple Proclamation Act that finally allowed lower caste Hindus into temples to the abolition of the privy purse—this book swirls through Kerala’s history like a dervish possessed by the intention of telling a magnificent story, and telling it marvellously well.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> LifeStyle> Books / by Jaishree Misra / January 09th, 2016
Yuhanon Mor Philoxenos, the former metropolitan of the Jacobite Syrian Church’s Malabar diocese, passed away at a private hospital in Kalpetta at 10am on Wednesday. He was 74. He had been undergoing treatment for age-related ailments at the hospital.
The Patriarch had honoured him with the ‘valiya metropolitan’ title in recognition of his service to the Jacobite Church.
Popularly known as valiya thirumeni, Mor Philoxenos had stepped down as metropolitan in August 2009 following ill health and had been leading a retired life ever since.
His mortal remains were taken to his birth place at Pambadi in Kottayam district. The funeral will be held at the St Mary’s Simhasana Church there on Friday.
Born on December 5, 1941, Mor Philoxenos did his schooling at Pampady and took his BA degree from Baselios College, Kottayam and MA from SV University. Later he took his doctorate in theology from Logos Graduate School of Theology, New York and obtained Doctor of Divinity from Orlando International Seminary, Florida.
He was ordained as ramban at the Pambadi Simhasana Church on August 30, 1985 and was consecrated the metropolitan of Malabar diocese at St Peter’s and St Paul’s Cathedral at Meenangadi in Wayanad on September 12, 1985.
Mor Philoxenos was instrumental in setting up a number of educational and charitable institutions, like the Mor Elias Sneha Bhavan orphanage, Karunya Bhavan old age home, St Peter’s and St Paul’s Higher Secondary School and St Gregorios Teacher’s Training College, all at Meenangadi. He also took the lead in setting up a new diocese based in Kozhikode by dividing the Malabar diocese, in 2008.
As metropolitan, he had introduced many reforms, including retirement for priests on turning 70, welfare fund and pension for priests.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kozhikode / TNN / December 31st, 2015
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will make his maiden visit to Kerala after assuming the post to address the first ever combined commanders’ conference to be held out of national capital, onboard INS Vikramaditya off the Kochi coast on Tuesday.
Sources from the Indian Navy said all arrangements are in place to receive the prime minister and defence minister Manohar Parrikar apart from other senior members of the cabinet and commanders.
“A special operational demonstration will be organised for the PM as part of the conference in which entire ships from Western Command will participate. Exercises including firing will be performed. A steam past will be performed where a fleet of ships led by INS Viraat will salute the PM onboard INS Vikramaditya,” said a defence source.
For the first time, Modi will also address all the field units through armed forces network from INS Vikramaditya after the conference is over, the source added.
Combined commanders’ conference is an event where the chiefs of staff of the Army, Navy and Air Force explain the achievements of the past year to the PM and other ministers, the issues and challenges the country may face in coming year. The conference will also discuss the strategic, operational, logistical and administrative aspects relating to the forces. It was later decided to start the custom from Navy and the conference will be held onboard India’s latest aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya.
It was Modi, during his address at the combined commanders’ conference in Delhi last October, suggested that the armed forces could organize such conferences on ships or in forward area cantonments or air-bases, instead of only in New Delhi. The conference was originally scheduled to be held in October, however it was postponed due to the Bihar elections.
The PM will return first from the INS Vikramaditya in a helicopter followed by other dignitaries in separate choppers. The details of the conference will be briefed to media in the evening by Defence PRO, according to Navy sources.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kochi / Shyam P V, TNN / December 14th, 2015
Poems by ten people who were imprisoned during the Emergency.
The Emergency in 1975 has had many gruesome after-effects. But ‘Thadavara Kavithakal’ is one positive outcome of the times.
The anthology, the English translation of which is getting ready to be published soon under the title ‘Poems from the Prison’, consists of poems penned by ten people who had been imprisoned during the emergency for various reasons. It was their endless days in prison that unearthed the poets in most of them.
The anthology in Malayalam was first published in 1977, edited by Civic Chandran, one of the poets, and republished with extensive notes and memoirs in 2010. Some of the poems had been translated and used in various English anthologies over the time.
The cover photo of ‘Thadavara kavithakal’ the English translation of which is getting ready to be published.
First time
This is for the first time an attempt was made to translate the anthology completely into English and published as one book.
Freshly translated by noted Malayalam poet K. Satchidanandan, with a foreword by Balachandran Chullikkad, the anthology carries 25 poems by ten poets, most of whom are still alive, while a few like Muhammed Ali and Udayabhanu have bid adieu to this world.
The remaining — M. Somanathan, V. K. Prabhakaran, M. M. Somasekharan, Das (Kuttikrishnan), C. K. Raghunath, Purushothaman, C. K. Abdul Azees and Civic Chandran –- are mostly still active as writers, theoreticians, editors and activists, having moved away from the Maoist ideology that had stirred them in the Seventies.
The poems are on diverse themes. ‘An evening note’ by P. Udayabhanu recalls the turbulent times when revolution was brewing across the country while V.K. Prabhakaran’s ‘The People of my village’ is about the unrest beneath the surface.
However, they are marked by certain recurring symbols such as storm and rain and the spirit of revolution.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kozhikode / by Aabha Anoop / Kozhikode – November 04th, 2015
The U.S.-based Kerala Center will honour six Indian-American Malayalis for their outstanding achievements and service to society.
“Every year we invite nominations and the committee has to make a unanimous choice for a candidate in a category to be selected to receive the award and this year is no different from previous years in terms of their achievements,” said Kerala Center board member and trustee Thomas Abraham.
Four-member panel
The honourees were selected by a committee consisting of four members headed by Mr. Abraham. They will be honoured at the Center’s 23rd Annual Awards Banquet on November 7 at World’s Fair Marina in Flushing in New York City.
The honourees include Navin Manjooran, Global Director (Energy) for Siemens AG; Sasi K Pillay, Chief Information Officer, University Wisconsin System; Prem Soman, Director of Nuclear Cardiology and Associate Professor of Medicine and Clinical and Translation Science at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center for Medicine.
Other honourees are George M. Kakkanatt, a former U.S. Air Force Captain and chief editor of Azchavattom Malayalam news weekly, Leela Maret, Scientist at New York City’s Environmental Protection for Community Service, and Captain Jophiel Philips, Judge Advocate General in the U.S. Air Force. — PTI
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Kerala / November 04th, 2015
Malayalam University VC K Jayakumar (left) releasing the book ‘The Nectar of the Gods’ by Gopikrishnan Kottoor (centre) by handing it over to RBI regional director Nirmal Chand on Wednesday | Manu R Mavelil
Thiruvananthapuram :
If your Malayalam is not good, it only means that your linguistic skills have not been used to their full potential, and do not in any way contribute to a better fluency in English, K Jayakumar, Vice-Chancellor of Malayalam University, has said. He was speaking at the release of Gopikrishnan Kottoor’s book ‘Nectar of the Gods – King Marthanda Varma and Devasahayam’ at the Press Club here on Wednesday.
Applauding the chaste English employed by the author, the poet and former Chief Secretary said that writers like Gopikrishnan enrich Indian writing in English. He underscored the need to ensure proficiency both in English and Malayalam among our students. “For a writer, using English that is coloured by the influence of one’s mother tongue is like trying to escape the gravitational pull of the earth. Gopikrishnan has achieved this laudable feat,” he said.
‘Nectar of the Gods’ is Gopikrishnan’s twelfth book and is a play based on the little-known history of the execution of the Nair noble Devasahayam for converting to Christianity under the influence of the the Dutch naval commander Eustachius De Lannoy. Kottoor, a senior Reserve Bank officer, is the author of the book of poems ‘Vrindavan -The Coloured Yolk of Love’ and several other poetry collections and novels. He also founded and edited the poetry quarterly ‘Poetry Chain’ and currently edits the online poetry magazine undergroundflowers.com.
RBI regional director Nirmal Chand received the first copy of the book. S Adikesavan, Chief General Manager, SBT, shared his memories about growing up in Puliyoor Kurichi, where the play is set and which houses historically significant structures like the Udayagiri Fort and tomb of De Lannoy who was in the service of Marthanda Varma after being defeated by the king in the Battle of Colachel. C K Thomas, Deputy Director of Doordarshan Kendra, Thrissur, and Devi Prasad, General Manager, SBT, also spoke. The visual adaptation of two scenes from the play, shot by the author himself, was screened after the release.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Thiruvananthapuram / by Express News Service / October 22nd, 2015
The mortal remains of Bishop emeritus M.C. Mani, former head of the Church of South India, will be laid to rest at a specially constructed crypt at the CSI Cathedral, Chalukunnu, on Thursday noon.
Bishop Mani had died of age-related illness at a private hospital, near here, on Tuesday. His body was taken to his residence in the town on Wednesday where hundreds of people paid their last respects to the departed soul.
The funeral services will commence at 8.30 a.m. This will be followed by the Nagarikaanickalceremony. The last leg of the funeral service will commence by 11 a.m.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Kerala / by Special Correspondent / Kottayam – October 22nd, 2015
Geetha Varma [CPI(M)], Urmila Varma (Congress), and Radhika Varma (BJP) will fight it out in a ward in the Tripunithura municipal election. Photo: Thulasi Kakkat / The Hindu
Geetha Varma, Radhika Varma and Urmila Varma — all relatives — are battling it out against each other.
They might belong to the same family that once ruled this part of the State. But in this local bodies’ election, relatives are divided on political lines and they are battling it out against each other.
In ward number 38 of the Tripunithura municipality, Geetha Varma, Radhika Varma, and Urmila Varma, three members of the royal family of Kochi, have started running their campaign ‘‘from different floors of the same house.’’ And with the family members pitted against one another, the fight has turned exciting.
For the masses
Married to Ramesh Varma of Edoop Palace, Geetha Varma, a CPI(M) candidate, hopes to serve society at the grassroots. ‘‘The decision to contest was rather easier as I enjoy the support of both the family and the party to the maximum,’’ said Ms. Geetha, a known Kathakali artiste.
Radhika Varma, who recently retired as the head of the junior wing of Chinmaya Vidyalaya School here, said being in the BJP would help her continue with her social work. The daughter of the late Captain Kerala Varma, she looks forward to learn from the straight-jacket demeanour her father had exhibited all his life. “He led a service-oriented life and never gave room to the dirty politics all through,’’ she said.
The youngest candidate among the three, Urmila Varma, is the grand-daughter of Mangu Thampuran, the present Valiyamma Thampuran of the family. Having started her professional career as an HR trainer in Chennai, she has been involved in social work for a long time through an NGO. With her father Ravi Varma being an active Congress worker, Urmila’s name came up as a natural choice for the party.
‘‘Camaraderie in the family remains unaffected with political affiliations,’’ says Ms. Urmila.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Kerala / by Shyama Rajagopal / Kochi – October 19th, 2015
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