Category Archives: Historical Links, Pre-Independence

Tracking the roots of a legacy in art

Arts,Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All
Going back in timeConservation architect and history buff Sharat Sunder Rajeev is the author of The King’s Craftsmen , which follows the footsteps of his ancestors / Special arrangement

Conservation architect Sharat Sunder Rajeev pieces together the history of his ancestors, legendary ivory carvers of Thiruvananthapuram, in his book The King’s Craftsmen

“ They came to the city in a large boat that halts at Vallakadavu. From Vallakadavu, they got into bullock carts to make the rest of the journey to my home…. Just behind the cart occupied by the patriarch was the cart that carried the wooden cradle made for the newborn Prince of Travancore…” narrated Sharada Ammal, then in her nineties, as a group of little children listened in wide-eyed wonder.

Grandmas have always told stories to children, tales that snuggled inside their imagination and nestled there for years together. That was how women kept alive oral history, especially about those that did not belong to upper echelons of society and so did not have the luxury of having their stories written by scholars and historians.

So it was with young Sharat Sunder Rajeev when he heard his grandaunts Sharada Ammal and Kamalam narrate stories about princes and princesses who came all the way from a place up on the Malabar coast and fabulous craftsmen who accompanied them to build palaces and temples for the royal family.

Little did Rajeev realise that the tales his grandaunts told the children were about their ancestors. By the time Rajeev became a teenager, the stories awoke in him an abiding curiosity to know more about his legendary ancestors; ingenious craftsmen who built many of the fabled temples in erstwhile Travancore and later became world famous as ivory carvers of Travancore.

“ Right from my school days, I began interacting with elders in my family to learn about the great craftsmen who had done our families proud with their breathtaking craftsmanship,” says Rajeev, a conservation architect and author of a book on ivory craftsmen of Thiruvananthapuram, The King’s Craftsmen .

The book tracks the footprints of his ancestors who came down from places around Kannur with two princesses who were adopted into the royal family of Travacore and settled in Attingal.

“Most of the earlier period had to be oral history as there is little written evidence. But their work has been mentioned in documents and temple records. So my book is a combination of oral history that has been passed down in our family and early records of some of the incidents that were written down by one of two of my ancestors. For instance, it has been documented that one of my ancestors Thottathil Moothu Asari was associated with the construction of the eastern gopurams of Padmanabhaswamy temple built around the 16th century,” says Rajeev.

Gathering stories

He has been working on the book for more than 10 years and travelled extensively to meet people and collect tales and material evidence of the craftsmen, who initially settled in Attingal, Kadakavoor and Navaikulam.

“Once the capital city began to grow under the monarchy of Marthanda Varma, these guilds began settling in Palkulangara, Pettah and Manacaud. I began the book when I was a student of the College of Engineering, Trivandrum and so there were limitations on how much time I could spend on the book. But I followed all the clues I got and met many of the descendants of the artisans who had once worked closely with the ruling families in Travancore and as Durbar artists,” says Sharat.

Completed five years ago, the book was published recently by the Kerala Council of Historical Research. Sharat’s book is at once a portrait of his illustrious ancestors and a thumbnail sketch of Kerala’s society in different periods of time. It is a piece of untold history that is told from the view of craftsmen and their legacy and how their body of work was shaped by influential princes.

He talks about how the legendary craftsmen of wood gradually began working in ivory as per the monarch’s orders, most likely during the time of Swathi Thirunal and how, over time, they became the best in the field of ivory carving and became famous as the Travancore school of ivory carving.

“Records show that Swathi was presented with a musical instrument Swarbath that was made in ivory by Kochu Kunju Asari on January 4, 1836. The best known is of course the ivory throne that was made for the Great Exhibition held in London. It won a prestigious prize at the exhibition and established Travancore as a centre of the finest ivory craftsmen,” explains Sharat.

To ensure that their craft was passed on to a new generation, the School of Arts was established around 1860 in Thiruvananthapuram and this eventually became the first fine arts college in Travancore and Kerala. Sharat got lucky as one of his relatives was able to give him a kind of log book that was once used in the college. That gave Sharat details about classes, teachers and students.

Turning artists

“Once ivory carving became illegal in the seventies, many of the craftsmen began to exchange the chisel for the brush and became well-known artists. Many of the early portraits of the royalty and feudal families were painted by them. Some of them went to Madras [Chennai] and got work as artists for posters and backdrops for plays and movies,” he says.

He points out how K. Madhavan, who printed some of the early posters of films in South India, was famous in those days for his posters for Tamil films.

That is not all. As Rajeev points out the book neatly documents the now extinct art of ivory carving with detailed diagrams and technical explanations. “The craft guilds had experts who could come up with exquisite works of art. They made everything from figurines and inlay work to cuff links, combs and bangles. Each had to be worked in a different way and since ivory was very hard, one wrong chip could spoil an expensive piece of ivory. So the carvers were perfectionists and disciplinarians,” he says with a smile.

Rajeev adds that the book also explains the reasons for the current socio-political place of the craftsmen’s descendants.

Even as his book opens a new chapter on the history of Thiruvananthapuram, Rajeev is busy at work on his next one.

The craft guilds had experts who could come up with exquisite works of art

Avid collector

Sharat Sunder Rajeev is a collector of antiques. On February 18, a day after the new redesigned The Hindu reached readers, Rajeev shared an image of The Hindu dated April 1, Friday, 1892 on his Facebook page, along with an explanation of how he had found it

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Saraswathy Nagarajan / February 24th, 2017

The woman who cut off her breasts

Amazing Feats, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Records, All
The legend of Nangeli was birthed in blood and injustice. | Photo Credit: Illustration: Satwik Gade

The real story of how one woman’s rebellion against oppressive feudalism has been hijacked and repurposed by the patriarchy

Her name was Nangeli and she lived in Cherthala, a watery alcove on the Kerala coast. We do not know when she was born or who sired her. But we know she died in 1803, her spirit cast in a hundred moulds in the two hundred summers that followed. Today, Nangeli has champions on the Internet, her story is told by men and women seeking inspiration and courage on this side of time. And they too have recast her sacrifice, celebrating a tale that would have been alien to the protagonist. Nangeli has been reduced from a woman who thrust a dagger into the heart of society to one who died to preserve those artful shackles that many of us know as ‘honour’.

The contours of the tale are well known. Nangeli and her man, Chirukandan, were Ezhavas — toddy tappers — who laboured in that awkward gap that society fashions for those who are low but not the lowest. They had a little hut where they lived, and they had no children. Life for Nangeli and Chirukandan was as hard as it was for their neighbours. They toiled hand to mouth, toeing lines drawn by caste, and bowing before the pretensions of their superiors. Nothing about them was remarkable till Nangeli stood up. They will proclaim that she stood up to preserve her dignity, but that is because they are afraid to admit that she stood up to them. Nangeli was a rebel, but like many rebels, in death her memory became the possession of those she opposed. She threw off one tyrant, and found her legacy in the grasp of another.

The Kerala that Nangeli and Chirukandan knew was not the Kerala celebrated today for its healthy children, emancipated grandmothers, and literate masses. It was a hard, difficult landscape, and Cherthala was a speck on the map of Travancore, a state with a ruler of its own to whom was owed allegiance — and tax money. Land tax was low, but the Rajahs made up for this ancestral blunder through other levies. If you were a landless fisherman, you had a tax on your fishing net. If you were a man sporting a moustache, your facial hair fell within the mandate of the revenue inspector. If you owned slaves, you most certainly had to pay tax on these bleeding units of muscle. Nangeli and her husband acquiesced like loyal subjects, but they will tell you that she stood up to the one abhorrent tax that touched upon her honour; that when it came to her rights as a respectable woman, she declared: ‘No more.’

Cleaved her place

They came one morning, the story goes, to tax her breasts, leering at its shape and dimensions to calculate the figure owed. It was called mulakkaram — the breast tax — and women who were not high-born were surveyed as soon as they advanced from girlhood to adolescence. Nangeli was probably taxed for years, but in 1803 when the villains of the tale came to her hovel, she was prepared for the act that would cleave for her a place in history and lore. She went inside calmly while they waited by the threshold, it is said, and returned with the tax offering on a plantain leaf. Since they had come for the breast tax, that is what they got: Nangeli’s breasts, severed by her own hand and placed in a bleeding lump. She collapsed in a heap and died in agony, her corpse cradled by Chirukandan who returned to find his home turned into the scene of one of history’s great tragedies. Some say he jumped into the pyre as Nangeli burned and perished in flames of grief — for him too there was sacrifice.

The legend of Nangeli was birthed in blood and injustice. Women of low caste, they will tell you, couldn’t cover their bodies if they didn’t pay the breast tax. They silently wept and lamented their fate, shame building upon shame under the gaze of lewd old men for whom the right to dignity came with a price. But Nangeli was a woman of virtue — she would not barter money for honour. And so she chose death.

Embarrassed and horrified by the tyranny of their ways, the Rajahs abandoned the tax on breasts. Nangeli became a heroine. Womanhood prevailed.

This is the tale they will tell you of Nangeli. As it happens, it is all a travesty.

***

For a society as open as Kerala once was, breasts came to provoke a grave panic in the Victorian age. This was the land where Portuguese merchants in the 16th century beheld bare-breasted princesses, negotiating treaties of trade and leading bare-chested troops in battle. It was here that a 17th century Italian found himself in the court of a prince, packed with royal women covered only around the waist — two young nieces of the ruler wondered with amusement why on earth he was so covered up in the tropical heat. This was also the land where women enjoyed physical and sexual autonomy, where widowhood was no calamity and one husband could always be replaced with another. The coast was rich with the tales of great women — from Unniarcha of the Northern Ballad of Malabar, an accomplished warrior from Nangeli’s caste, to Umayamma of Attingal, a princess who reigned over kings. These were brave women of towering personality. But in the 19th century, Kerala’s moral conscience grappled not with their achievements as much as the conundrum that their unabashed bare-breastedness presented.

Virtue, as we recognise it today in its patriarchal definition, was not a concept that existed in Kerala. And till our colonial masters — and fellow Indians from patriarchal backgrounds — sat in judgement over the matrilineal streak heavily infused among the dominant groups here, women, their bare torsos, and their sexual freedoms did not in the least attract attention or opprobrium. Where elsewhere polygamy was a practice available to men, in Kerala there was polyandry on offer, because women were not unequal to their brothers (or, to be more exact, they were less unequal). They owned property and controlled resources, living fuller lives than the domesticated child-rearing destinies granted to their sisters elsewhere. But this was, of course, the case of women of privilege. For women like Nangeli there was no question of living a life of heroic glamour with armies or ballads; she had to earn her way through every day of uncertainty. It was in death that the songs followed, and so worrying were they, that they focussed not on Nangeli’s message but a perversion of it that was more palatable to changing social mores.

The advent of the British meant more than just political rule; they brought to Kerala a new sense of morality, reinforced by missionaries who had the ear of these foreign masters. Polyandrous marriage was deemed ‘very revolting’ — women were told that they ought to be virtuous, which meant deference to one husband, one master. They had to cultivate modesty, and toplessness was not a step in that direction. The sexual gaze of the patriarchal Victorian was turned towards the breast in Kerala, till then not a cause of concern. When men and women entered temples, they both took off their top cloth. Today only the men are obliged to do this. As late as the 1920s and 1930s, when Namboothiri Brahmin women for the first time acquired the blouse to cover themselves, purists excommunicated them for breaching custom — modesty and true moral superiority lay, they argued, in not covering up. As Aubrey Menen remarked of his grandmother’s attitude to his Irish mother, it was thought that ‘married women who wore blouses were Jezebels’ and ‘a wife who dressed herself could only be aiming at adultery’. To cover breasts because men demanded it, was regressive to elders as it meant succumbing to objectification. But these elders were a minority in the face of young, ‘progressive’ men bent on making their women ‘virtuous’.

What morality?

Across the coast, the torso — male and female — was not something that was covered. Higher castes sported shawls, but not for reasons of modesty or because they had notions of virtue more consistent with those of a patriarchal society, but because the shawl was a mark of honour. When Christian converts from lower castes covered themselves in the 1850s, riots broke out after violent upper-caste attacks on them. The bone of contention was not that the converted women wanted to cover themselves — it was that they had covered themselves with the shawl permitted only to the high-born. Peace was restored when the converts invented a blouse; the covering was not the issue in the first place. The tale of Nangeli that they will tell you today has her fighting to preserve her honour, where honour is construed as her right to cover the breast. But in Nangeli’s time, the honour of a woman was hardly linked to the area above the waist. As F. Fawcett remarked, dress was ‘a conventional affair, and it will be a matter of regret should false ideas of shame supplant those of natural dignity such as one sees expressed in the carriage and bearing of the well-bred… lady’.

But the import of Victorian patriarchy also imported shame, and women were told that a bare body was a mark of disgrace. Dignity lay in accepting male objectification; honour was in docility. Men, studying in colleges in big cities, received jibes about their topless mothers who may have had more than one husband. Could they ever be sure about who their fathers were? These men dragged into Kerala the masculinity of their patriarchal interlocutors, and women too, exposed to the West and a new conception of femininity, succumbed. ‘We will publish nothing related to politics,’ declared one of the region’s earliest women’s magazines in 1892, adding that ‘writings that energise the moral conscience’ — tips on cooking, stories of ‘ideal women’ — and ‘other such enlightening topics’ alone would be covered. A lady’s job was in the home as a mother, as a loyal wife, and as a housekeeper, not outside as a topless harlot who exercised her customary right to divorce. ‘As women,’ another declaration went, ‘our god-ordained duty is the care of the home and service towards our husbands.’

Roles recast

New icons needed to be found. Women who fit the bill of the new order rather than those who were emblems of a now disgusting bare-bosomed past. And where such women were in short supply, existing women were reincarnated, as J. Devika has shown. Umayamma of Attingal, the topless queen whom the Dutch noted for her ‘noble and manly conduct’, who was ‘feared and respected by everyone’, and who was a ‘young Amazon’, became in S. Parameswara Iyer’s poetry, a melodramatic damsel in distress, a helpless mother (when, in fact, she had no children) pleading for a male protector. Where the English found that the ‘handsomest young men about the country’ formed her seraglio and ‘whom and as many [men] as she pleases to the honour of her bed’ could be had by her, now she became a loyal, patriarchal icon of womanly virtue. The women of the past were turned into ciphers for the present, filled with doses of honour and draped in garbs tailored by men. The wheels of time had turned and this is what was needed in Kerala.

***

Nangeli too was recast. When Nangeli offered her breasts on a plantain leaf to the Rajah’s men, she demanded not the right to cover her breasts, for she would not have cared about this ‘right’ that meant nothing in her day. Indeed, the mulakkaram had little to do with breasts other than the tenuous connection of nomenclature. It was a poll tax charged from low-caste communities, as well as other minorities. Capitation due from men was the talakkaram — head tax — and to distinguish female payees in a household, their tax was the mulakkaram — breast tax. The tax was not based on the size of the breast or its attractiveness, as Nangeli’s storytellers will claim, but was one standard rate charged from women as a certainly oppressive but very general tax.

When Nangeli stood up, squeezed to the extremes of poverty by a regressive tax system, it was a statement made in great anguish about the injustice of the social order itself. Her call was not to celebrate modesty and honour; it was a siren call against caste and the rotting feudalism that victimised those in its underbelly who could not challenge it. She was a heroine of all who were poor and weak, not the archetype of middle-class womanly honour she has today become. But they could not admit that Nangeli’s sacrifice was an ultimatum to the order, so they remodelled her as a virtuous goddess, one who sought to cover her breasts rather than one who issued a challenge to power. The spirit of her rebellion was buried in favour of its letter, and Nangeli reduced to the sum of her breasts.

The writer, who authored the award-winning The Ivory Throne, when not writing is busy trying to make a mean meen pollichathu.

source:  http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture / by Manu S. Pillai

The transformation of a historic church

Arts,Culture & Entertainment, Green Initiatives & Environment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All, Travel, World Opinion
Window to past The Koonan Kurishu Church that was renovated by avoiding conventional building materials.

Church commemorates the January 1653 vow taken by Malankara Nazranis

The Koonan Kurishu Church (Church of the Leaning Cross) in Mattancherry has undergone a transformation worthy of its remarkable place in history.

The church, built in 1751, commemorates the January 1653 vow taken by the Malankara Nazranis or Christians against Portuguese and Roman Catholic Church attempts to dominate their spiritual and ritual affairs.

The 1751 church underwent major renovation in 1974. Now, it has been renovated by retaining the original structure except in places where it had deteriorated badly. The church has been rebuilt, mostly avoiding conventional materials such as cement and steel, and using compressed, stabilised mud blocks.

The renovated church provides a brief glimpse into the past with its earthy shade, domes, vaults and arches that rise up as symbols of early eastern Christianity. The Marthoma Cross (St. Thomas Cross) crowns it and the altar is blessed by a cross formed by light beams, says NRI businessman and philanthropist John Samuel Kuruvilla who oversaw the renovation works.

He said architect Vinu Daniel designed the structure. The masons were provided training in the use of earth blocks, employing the ancient Nubian technology of arch and vault-building without extensive shuttering, said Mr. Kuruvilla.

The Koonankurisu Church, under the Malankara Indian Orthodox Church, will be reconsecrated on February 24 and 25. A religious amity meet will be organised as part of the reconsecration of the church. The all-religion meet will celebrate its lineage steeped in an era when different communities lived in harmony.

The spot where the church is located is where thousands of the Nazranis, restive over the Portuguese efforts to dominate, gathered to pledge their allegiance to their long-standing traditions. But the gathering was so large that hundreds were unable to touch the cross directly. They drew a rope from the cross, and touching it, publicly denounced the Portuguese. The story is that the cross bent under pressure and hence the name ‘Koonan Kurisu’. The event is described as ‘Koonan Kurishu Sathyam’ or the oath before the bent cross.

source:  http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by Special Correspondent / Kochi – February 22nd, 2017

Protecting their hallowed ground

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The renovated Jewish cemetery  K Shijith

Kochi :

On November 23, 2016, Josephai Abraham (Sam) stood inside the 1.5 acre Jewish cemetery on the Kathrakadavu-Pullepady road, Kochi. It was the burial of his mother-in-law Miriam Joshua, aged 89. “When I looked around, I suddenly realised that the cemetery was in bad shape,” he says. Many tombs could not be seen because of the high grass.

There were more problems. “At one corner, neighbours had thrown their garbage, in plastic packets,” says Sam, the president of the Association of Kerala Jews. “Some inhabitants had pushed their water pipes under the wall, so that all the waste water would flow into the property.”

The shield of david and the menorah on the
compound wall. (Above)
An earlier picture of the cemetery

So Sam decided to do something, with the backing of six families of the association. Workers were hired, grass and weeds were chopped off, and, at one side, where there was a marshy pond, several layers of building waste was put in, to smoothen the surface. “Thereafter, interlocking tiles had been put,” says Sam.

“At least now, we can park our cars inside. Otherwise, we had to do so on the narrow road and it created problems for the other motorists.” The walls have been painted white and many tombs, which were broken, have been repaired and repainted.

And, on the wall, at the opposite end to the entrance, a Shield of David have been etched, along with the seven candles of the Menorah.

The Menorah has been a symbol of Judaism, from ancient times, and is now part of the emblem of the state of Israel.
However, it has not been smooth sailing. One neighbour approached Sam and told him he could not do any renovation, as all construction has been frozen. On being asked how, the neighbour said there are expansion plans for the road and the cemetery will be taken over. “I said no such decision has been taken,” says Sam.

Then, in mid-January, Gracy Joseph, Chairperson, Standing Committee for Development of the Cochin Corporation, came to inquire. “I had received complaints from the local residents that some construction was going on,” she says. “But the members of the Jewish community told me that they were only renovating the place.”
Clearly, the cemetery is under threat. “The Cochin Corporation has plans to broaden the road,” says Association secretary Dr Susy Elias.

But Soumini Jain, the Mayor of the Corporation says that the stretch in front of the cemetery has been handed over to the Public Works Department of the State government. “It is they who will do the road expansion works,” she says.

“There are suggestions of building an overbridge in front of the cemetery. But whether the government has the funds for that, I am not sure.”
Meanwhile, according to Jewish religious law, once a person is buried, the grave cannot be disturbed. It can only be removed if a relative gives permission. But the local Jews have no idea where they are, since many have emigrated to Israel. So, the Jews are anxious about whether the authorities will insist that they will have to give up a part of their cemetery. “Many tombs will be disturbed,” says Sam.
Sometime ago, the association got in touch with Israeli ambassador Daniel Carmon. Thereafter, last month, the Bangalore-based Israeli Counsel General Yael Hashavit met Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and appraised him of the situation. “The CM said that he was aware of it,” says Mordokkayi Shafeer, the treasurer of the association.
Meanwhile, despite these tensions, the Jews come once a month to light candles and to pray at the graves. “We also come on death anniversaries and during the Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) festival,” says Shafeer. “Life has to go on.”

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kochi / by Shevlin Sebastian / Express News Service / February 20th, 2017

122nd Maramon Convention honours Mar Chrysostum

Arts,Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Leaders, Records, All, World Opinion

The 122nd Maramon Convention has honoured the Metropolitan Emeritus of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, Philipose Mar Chrysostum, who will be celebrating his 100th birth anniversary on April 27, at a function held at the traditional convention venue on the sand bed of the river at Maramon near Kozhencherry on Saturday.

The supreme head of the Mar Thoma Church, Joseph Mar Thoma, felicitated Mar Chrysostum on behalf of the Church as well as the Maramon Convention which is billed as Asia’s largest week-long annual congregation on the occasion.

The Metropolitan further announced that the new mission project  undertaken by the Mar Thoma Evangelistic Association in Andhra Pradesh would be named after the Metropolitan Emeritus as `Mar Chrysostum Birth Centenary Mission Project’.

Yuyakim Mar Coorilos Episcopa presided the meeting. Bishop Mar Aprem of the Chaldian Church, Cyril Mar Baselius of the Thozhiyur Syrian Christian Church, the Rajya Sabha Deputy Speaker P.J.Kurien, and Mathew T.Thomas, Water Resources Minister, were among those who attended the meeting, besides all bishops of the Mar Thoma Church.

Addressing the congregation, Mar Chrysostum said he firmly believed it as a great privilage and God’s blessings to be a part of the Mar Thoma Church at different stages. “It was nothing but sheer Blessings of the Lord Almighty that has made me what Iam,’’ he said.

Mar Chrysostum invited two children who were sitting in the front row to cut the birthday cake. The Metropolitan Emeritus and the Mar Thoma Metropolitan also shared sweets each other on the occasion.

The renowned evangelist, Lord Griffiths from United Kingdom, delivered the religious discourse on the occasion.

Yuyakim Mar Coorilos Episcopa del  addressed the afternoon session of the Maramon Convention.

The century-old annual Christian retreat will come to a close on Sunday afternoon. The Mar Thoma Metropolitan will deliver the valedictory message.

EOM.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Kerala / by Special Correspondent / Pathanamthitta – February 18th, 2017

Men of steel

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Thiruvananthapuram :

Alliance Francaise de Trivandrum in association with the Embassy of France in India will be screening Farewell My Indian Soldier, a documentary film by Paris-based Indian filmmaker Vijay Singh.

The film will be screened on February 19 at 6.30pm at Bharat Bhavan. Vijay Singh, known filmmaker, scriptwriter and novelist, will be present along with Shashi Tharoor, the chief guest of the evening.

Farewell My Indian Soldier is a docu-fiction on Indian soldiers who came to France and Belgium to fight in the First World War. Following its market screening at the Cannes Film Festival 2016, this film is expected to travel to international film festivals worldwide.

It’s also the first ever film to be dedicated to the 140,000 Indian soldiers and civilian workers who defended France against invasion.

Co-produced by Silhouette Films and Rajya Sabha Television, and supported by the Embassy of France in India, this film uses rare archive material, historical testimonies, 100-year old Indian war songs and 600 insightful letters written by soldiers to tell the story of 10,000 Indian soldiers who never returned to their motherland.

The screening will be followed by a discussion between the director and the chief guest Shashi Tharoor. Entry is free.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Thiruvananthapuram / Express News Service / February 16th, 2017

Where tea production is a lasting legacy

Agriculture, Business & Economy, Green Initiatives & Environment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All, World Opinion

teafactorykerala15oct2016

The factory was set up by Britishers in 1935 and production is still on the equipment installed then

 Acclaimed as the highest altitude tea plantation in the world, Kolukkumalai, near Munnar, has the unique feature of preserving the British heritage in tea-making at the factory here.

Located at an altitude of 7,130 ft. above sea level, the factory is housed in a two-storey wooden structure set up by the Britishers in 1935 and the method of tea production is still on the equipment installed at that time.

The equipment still in use at the Kolukkumalai tea factory in Idukki are those installed by the Britishers
The equipment still in use at the Kolukkumalai tea factory in Idukki are those installed by the Britishers

Tea is made here through a process of withering. Manual labour is an integral part of the process, from hand-plucking to the final stage of making tea dust. The factory is set in the ambience of green tea plants on the mountain stretch bordering Tamil Nadu.

Though Kolukkumalai is in Theni district of Tamil Nadu, it is 32 km from Munnar. The story of Kolukkumalai is linked to the tea plantation era of the British Raj in Munnar.

Leased land

The visit of British resident of the erstwhile Travancore Kingdom, John Daniel Munro, to Munnar in 1870s paved the way for tea plantation. He leased the land in 1877 from Poonjar Koikal Rohini Thirunal Kerala Varma and started cultivation of various crops under the North Travancore Land Planting and Agricultural Society. However, it was A.H. Sharp, a European resident who started tea cultivation on 50 acres of land in Munnar in the 1880s.

The tea plantations later extended to the nearby hills, reaching the present border areas of Tamil Nadu. Though tea production in the Kanan Devan Hills is still done in the factories set up by the Britishers, the process and the equipment underwent a lot of change under the modernisation process

An official at the Kolukkumalai factory said the organic method of production is followed here. Since the plantation is located on a peak, the attack of pests is minimum and the natural elements in the soil are preserved. Kolukkumalai also provides a bird’s-eye view of land extending up to Kodaikanal and it is also a natural habitat of bird species that are seen in the high altitude ranges.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Kerala / Idukki – October 15th, 2016

Portuguese epic on Gama gets Malayalam version

Arts,Culture & Entertainment, Education, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All, Travel, World Opinion

VascodaGamaKERALA12aug2016

Kochi :

Keralites are familiar with the arrival of Portuguese sailor Vasco Da Gama in India in the 15th century and history of trade relations between both countries. But so far they missed out on the Malayalam version of an epic Portuguese poem, Os Lusiadas, depicting the hardships and travails faced by Gama and his crew during their voyage to India.

Keralites can now access the translation of the epic poem in their mother tongue thanks to C J Davees, a lecturer in Thrissur. “The Malayalam version, Epic of Lusiadas’, launched in Kochi few days ago, will also shed light on African and Indian life in the 15th century. During the voyage, Gama had touched Africa and had taken a person from Malindi as his guide.

“The poem explains all these minute details,” said Jerald D’souza, secretary of Indo-Portuguese Cultural Centre, Cochin. The epic written by Luis Vaz de Cameons in Portuguese narrates the difficulties faced by Gama and his team during the 10 month voyage.

The poem, written in Homeric style has 10 chapters. The seventh and eighth chapters speaks about his arrival in Kozhikode. The poem was first published in 1572.

“Camoens had visited India after the arrival of Gama in Kappad. He interacted with people and sought help of Alvaro Velho, who wrote a diary during his voyage with Gama to India. In the poem Gama has been presented as a hero. We can witness the influence of Greek mythology in the poem, which is like Odyssey and Iliad of Homer,” Gerald said.

The original poem was written in 8,869 lines in Ottava Rima that has rhyming stanzas of 10 syllables in each line.

“The rhyme scheme used in the poem was ABABABCC,” Davees said.

“I translated the poem in prose form as I knew there may not be readers for the poem. I took five years to translate the poem word by word. The translated book is around 400 pages long,” he said.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kochi / T C Sreemol  / TNN / August 12th, 2016

A buried past, a curious future

Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All
DEAD MAN'S TALES: The Dutch Cemetery serves as a reason for the the publication of the Hortus Malabaricus. PHOTOS: THULASI KAKKAT
DEAD MAN’S TALES: The Dutch Cemetery serves as a reason for the the publication of the Hortus Malabaricus. PHOTOS: THULASI KAKKAT

The Dutch Cemetery in Fort Kochi is as an important legacy of the historical vicissitudes of our colonial past

The ancient Dutch Cemetery in Fort Kochi, the oldest European cemetery in India, is a tell-tale reminder of Dutch lives lost in their quest for trade and expansion. Every tombstone has a story of a historic past, of pride, of power.

The Dutch, through the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or the VOC) stepped on the shores of this port city in the early 1660s. In 1663 they managed to capture the fort and port from the Portuguese who had been there from 1505 onwards. In 1795, the English captured the fort from the Dutch.

The Portuguese had their hospital and cemetery on the west of the Parade Ground, writes K.L. Bernard in his History of Fort Cochin. A Catholic cemetery was taboo to the Dutch and they decided to erect a separate one for them, which is located between the Lighthouse and Bank House.

A small, square plot enclosed with high walls within which are tombs – ‘flat, dome and pyramid shaped – occasionally diversified by broken pillars, urns and sarcophagi, all more of less blackened by exposure, the grass rank and wild, here and there lost sight of among bushes of a beautiful orange flowered weed that infests these parts,’ is how Charles Allen Lawson describes the cemetery in his British and Native Cochin (1861).

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Nothing seems to have changed. The date 1724 is engraved on an entrance pillar, the gates seem to be locked forever, the tombs are overrun by wild growth, and the thick walls plead for a whitewash.

The 104 tombs, records say, are constructed in typical Dutch architectural style with inscriptions in ancient Dutch script.

“Sadly, this cemetery is not a monument under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). It is still managed by the Church of South India (CSI), which also manages the historic St. Francis Church near by. The cemetery is one of the few surviving Dutch structures, a footprint of their presence in Fort Kochi. Once in a while, when grants are doled out some cleaning up is done. It is then left to the mercy of the elements,” says K.J. Sohan, former Mayor of Kochi and member, INTACH.

In the cemetery lay buried many Dutch governors, commanders, officials, gents and ladies who died in Cochin.

In fact, the British preserved this as a monument for the Dutch. According to T. W. Venn, who published the book St. Francis Church, Cochin, the last person who was laid to rest in this cemetery was Captain Joseph Ethelbert Winckler. His burial took place in 1913.

“The cemetery is the graveyard of war heroes and a memorial in tears for the brave hearts that came here in their sailing boats. Many are the soldiers and officers that lay buried here,” says M.A. Aboobacker, cultural activist.

When the British took over Fort Cochin, arrangements were made twice for the Dutch to leave Cochin, but they refused, preferring to stay on under British rule. “Their gravestones in the cemetery stand testimony to this. Stories have been added to history through ages; for example the Cochin Raja’s palace in Mattancherry is called ‘Dutch Palace’ when it has nothing to do with the Dutch, in terms of architecture or occupation, except that the VOC gave the Raja some fund for its renovation,” informs Dr. Anjana Singh, whose research on Fort Cochin’s Dutch connection is the premise of her book Fort Cochin in India (1750-1830): The Social Condition of a Dutch Community in an Indian Milieu.

But for Bernard this ‘chivalry yard’ was always uncared for and a safe haven for anti-socials. According to him the Dutch were ‘vandals, plunderers and destructors’ who did nothing for the cultural progress of the natives. They did not construct anything new in Fort Cochin, as most of the buildings were empty when they came as the people had left the town in fear. Their only interest was to amass wealth, which they did ruthlessly. So, Bernard writes, the sole remembrance is gate and the cemetery where the leaders lay buried. And ‘a mausoleum is unwarranted’.

“Bernard is right and wrong,” feels Sohan. “Right because all that the Dutch did was to pull down structures, churches, monasteries and converted them into warehouses. They brought down Fort Manuel and built a small fort in its place. The cemetery was inside the fort, close to the Holland Bastion, one of the eight bastions in the fort. And till recently when the boat landing place was close to the cemetery it reeked of rotten fish, it was dirty and refuge for anti-socials.”

However, Sohan considers it as an important monument that needs to be preserved. “One of the lasting contributions of the Dutch was the Hortus Malabaricus. I find a link between the need for the publication of this work and the cemetery. A large number of Dutch people lost their lives to tropical diseases and were buried in this cemetery. Looking around they found that it was only their people who fell prey to these diseases, while the natives survived. That’s what prompted the Dutch to call Itti Achuthan, a well-known Ayurveda physician who authenticated the contents of this classic work prepared with the assistance of European and native scholars.”

The few visible tombs show that the layers of plaster on the laterite stones of the tombs have withered off. The church authorities are finding it tough getting it rid of weeds and keeping the place clean.

“There should be a concerted effort to maintain this heritage. The place needs a facelift. The walls of the fort, which is now buried, needs to be dug out and re-built. After all Fort Kochi gets its name from this fort. The tombs must be plastered, a pathway, proper landscaping can all be done to turn this into a tourist attraction. The inscriptions and other information on the tombstones can reveal a lot more on the history of the Dutch in Fort Kochi,” feels Sohan.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Metroplus / K. Pradeep / Kochi – August 05th, 2016

Doors open to tales of a century

Arts,Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All

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There is a room in the 120-year-old Kavalaparambil family home at Konthuruthy, Thevara, whose walls have heard the first cries of seven newborns. The non-descript little room bears the enormity of the seminal births in the quiet elegance of a polished four poster bed, a chest of drawers and a cupboard that came as dowry. It is positioned at the centre of the house and is the coolest room.

Of the 10 family children who grew up in the large and spacious house, it has come to be in the hands of the youngest, Sash George, Applications Development Manager, Microsoft in Dallas, Texas.

In its romantic vicissitudes the house saw many changes, faced many hard and happy times and has opened as a service villa replete with tales of a century.

Sitting over old style tea service in a western style open kitchen, a later day addition, savouring traditional vattappams and kozhukattas hark back to a time when this would have been the scene, decades ago, with children hovering over tea and hot snacks. Sash and his brother recount the frisson in the kalavara, the storeroom that was added on by their father. “It held a wooden trunk to store rice. My mother would have the snacks placed there and as children we would run to open the box,” says Sash. Today, the storeroom remains much the same but the kitchen has changed into an open one looking on to a wide corridor that loops the house.

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The area, before the family houses, three of them, came up, had several ponds, water bodies and was swampy. Mango trees grew in large numbers. There was a pond for bathing, one for drinking and one for fermenting coconut leaves. The house was built by Sash’s grandfather, Kochu Varkey, a man with a taste for fine living, as is seen by the art pieces he made on the walls. The house bears evidences of his artistry and of his faith.

Before the road came up to the house in 1976 and changed the entrance to the house, the main thoroughfare was the water body. Boats brought people up to the edge of the land on which stood the house. “When my grandmother’s arrival was announced a chair used to be put on the skiff and was sent to bring her,” says Sash who is in the process of collating photographs and incidents of yore “for the sake of the future”. If one ventured to arrive at the house on land it was through 16 or 17 turns, says Sebastian, Sash’s older brother, a former Sr. Manager with LIC and one who takes care of the house after it opened itself to hospitality.

Much of the grandeur of the house comes from its simple architecture, a fusion of European and traditional style. It was one of the few two-storied houses in Ernakulam in its time. Two rooms atop two rooms encircled by breeze ways or wide corridors remains its main form. Rooms were added, but not ad-hoc, to the house, as realities changed. The area around was paved. Earlier, the house had no attached bathrooms and these were added as European habits replaced traditional lifestyle. A shed with cows was a sign of wealth and it existed for a long time. The area was quiet and wooded. Sounds and sightings of birds and tree animals were common. As the family grew and moved away the house was closed down for nearly eight to 10 years, until Sash, nostalgic and faraway in America, decided to bring alive his heritage.

“The family elders used to talk so often about a flood that saw the verandas of the house accommodate the affected people. It was called the flood of 99, in the Malayalam year. There are lots of memories around this house,” he says.

Today, memories arise from the preserved utensils and objects, from the shiny brown baby cot, the inscribed wooden bowl, old doors, measuring bowls, trunk, vase, jars and such. A photograph of Kochu Varkey hangs with pride. The delicately restored house has now all modern facilities in the new wing with two rooms and attached baths.

In its new mode, Kavalaparambil, now Lake County Heritage Home, offers guests the best of both worlds, the delicately preserved past and the swiftly changing present.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Metroplus> Society / Priyadershini S / Kochi – July 29th, 2016