Maddy's Ramblings

Tracing the curious story of ‘The King of the Coast’, an American in Kerala

There is a fascinating song ‘kayalinarike’ which was originally sung by Mehaboob and recently re-sung by a favorite of mine, Shahabaz Aman about Cochin’s past, where they mention a number of foreign companies which used to do business in Cochin. Well, perhaps then and before that they were all entrenched in the port and backwaters of Alappuzha- Alleppey or the Venice of Kerala, a place that later declined to become a sleepy town and a forgotten port. But many will not know that there was a time when it was a major port of Travancore and termed ‘second to Bombay only’. It was a port created with a purpose and it served it eminently, which was to break the Dutch blockade of the coast and establish a Travancore monopoly of all its produce. To further promote trade all kinds of foreigners (people from other regions like Malabar, Surat, Bombay, Chettis, Konkanis and so on) were invited to work under a commercial department sponsored by the King of Travancore and run under the Dewan Keshavadas. Over a period of time, the commercial and the vadai canal were built to access the backwaters and lakes. And as we near the 1860’s we find that a lighthouse was built, a telegraph office was constructed and people from the West started to take notice and arrive at this fine harbor.

The song that we started with should actually have mentioned a pioneer among them all, none other than Darragh Smail & Company which employed over 1170 people during the turn of the 20^th century, though it would not have been rhyming. And this is all about James Darragh, the American who not only influenced the region, but created a legion of left handed weavers…

Sometimes people wonder why I work on getting minute details about such obscure persons and write a few thousand words about them. I enjoy getting the story out of it and knowing those lost souls and you the reader, must realize that it is because of such adventurers that we are living comfortably today and mankind is reaping the benefits from their hard work and adventurous efforts.

And so we go to Alleppey (it was called exactly that even then) in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. To get a feel, you have to read a fine article about the locale, words which would be valid even today - An Indian Venice by CE Bechhoffer (circa 1918). Quoting him – Imagine a narrow spit of sand covered with coconut palms; on one side of it the waves of the Indian Ocean are beating in a continual foam. Few boats would dare to put out from this shore, lest they should be caught in the surf and swamped. But barely fifty yards away, on the other side of the palm-covered spit, lies a vast and placid lagoon. The wind that is tearing the sea into fury is averted from the surface of the lagoon by the impenetrable barrier of palms; but it sweeps over a few feet above the waters and fills the sails of numberless boats. The sea is desolate, except for one or two daring fishing craft and a tramp steamer quite half a mile from the shore. But the lagoon teems with life, covered with the tracks of sailing-boats and canoes. This propinquity of sea and lagoon is the characteristic of the coast of South-West India from a distance north of Cochin almost all the way to Trivandrum, the capital city of the State of Travancore.

It had been a torture in the lagoon to stifle in the appalling heat, and now at last we came to water-ways where the sun's rays rarely penetrated. The water in front of us was absolutely still, but our wash sent great rolling waves to break upon the banks.

Sometimes we stopped in midstream, for the canals were too shallow and sandy for us to venture close inshore — to disembark and take up passengers in canoes, a proceeding attended with tremendous excitement and trepidation. Especially when we got under way again and rocked their thin and fragile canoes with our wash did the timid passengers show alarm, and with some reason, for, though crocodiles are as rare in these canals as they are conspicuous on the shores of the broad lagoons, there is doubtless always the possibility of being snapped up in the event of the canoe's overturning. Towards evening, after one or two delays upon unsuspected sandbanks, we began to near the end of the first part of our journey. The banks of the canals were lined with canoes, and on shore huts became more and more frequent among the palms. As we passed, not without many blasts of the siren to clear our path, bands of children would run down from the huts and fling themselves on the painters of their canoes, lest our wash should carry these away; and the handsome, half-naked men and women looked up at us from their work among the coconut groves. At last we came into the straight channel which forms the main thoroughfare of the town of Alleppey, and ran in to the quay. There we disembarked, and I called a rickshaw, leaving my servant to follow me with the luggage to the Travellers' Bungalow.

My rickshawman was a fine tall fellow, and he started off at a quick pace. But in a minute or two he slowed down and began unaccountably to hobble along at little better than walking speed. At last I discovered the cause. The rickshaw man suffered from the curse of the district—"Cochin leg," a disease which is, however, much more frequent in Alleppey than in Cochin itself. It is elephantiasis, which gradually swells and thickens a limb until it reaches the ghastly dimensions that have suggested its name. The inhabitants of Alleppey seem to be affected mainly in the leg though I have seen men with the marks of the disease upon other limbs. Its extraordinary prevalence in the towns and villages of the back-waters is presumed to be due to the brackish water; there is said to be no cure for it. Practically all the rickshaw men at Alleppey are affected by this complaint, with the result that locomotion there is excessively unpleasant for both runner and passenger. But there is, after all, no need to move about at Alleppey. The Travellers' Bungalow lies on the seashore, beside the lighthouse and the jetty. The city itself stretches for the most part along either side of the main water-way, with occasional bridges over side canals. It is a clearing-house for the products of the interior, but there are no signs of life in the "town” itself.

To trace the story of the protagonist, we have to go back in time, to 1855 when a Brooklyn man left New York to seek his fortune in Kerala. At that time, he was actually an apprentice in his father’s coir factory. He sailed to India destined for Calcutta but was unsuccessful in making mats with Bengali labor and English expert supervision, for some strange reason (Remember now that coir matting was unknown in India but was already established in Britain and America). As it appears he took a couple of his trained laborers together with the English supervisor to a place he had heard of, rich in coconuts and teeming with people willing to work their butts off, but had no idea of their commercial potential. The man had big business in mind, nothing short of setting up a world class factory and to become the biggest manufacturer of coir products in the world! That my friends, is pioneering and James Darragh, that was his name, realized his dreams in a very short period.

He was a pioneer, in all respects when it came to cocoa mats (The US name for coir), but he also tried his hand in a few other businesses like cotton, oil and so on before making his fortunes on coir and propelling Kerala to the forefront of the industry, worldwide. Darragh, Small and Co., thus became the first American firm in these parts, soon employing some 1,081 hands and shipping coir matting to all parts of the world. His biography (It is a pity but so many books provide wrong accounts of his life) as printed in the American businessmen reads thus. Let us look at that and dig around a little bit more to see what drove the 28 year old young man many miles eastwards…

JAMES DARRAGH, merchant, born in Lurgan, Ireland, in 1827, died in Cairo, Egypt, in December, 1889. He emigrated to America while a boy and found employment in New York city in the manufacture of coir mats and matting. Learning that labor was low in price in India and that mats could be woven there at the smallest expense, he sailed for Aleppy on the west coast of Malabar, where, although beginning with small means, he gradually developed a factory, employing a thousand natives in this industry. He spoke the native language with fluency, made friends among the high caste residents, was kind to the poor, and acquired such influence as to earn the title of "King of the Coast." The house in this city took the name of Darragh & Smail, in consequence of the admission of Henry Smail, a son-in-law, to partnership. Mr. Darragh was the first person to manufacture cotton spool thread in Travancore. His mill at Quilon cost $350,000 to build and gave employment to 1,500 natives and a few expert Europeans. The Maharajah and his cabinet opened the mill with formal ceremonies. Mr. Darragh's family consisted of his wife and two daughters, the latter being Mary, wife of Henry Smail, and Ellen, wife of John McStay of Belfast, Ireland.

We see here that after about 25 years, Darragh has become a bigwig and was hobnobbing with the royalty of Travancore and even minting his own coins. He quickly diversified into coconut oil, tea, coffee, rubber and so on….and become a very rich man. In 1889 he decided to head back to New York and enroute at Cairo, he fell ill and died.

From the headstone of James Darragh’s grave, we get the following additional information.

Erected by Mary Darragh to the memory of her husband James Darragh who died at Cairo, Egypt, December 20th 1889 aged 62 years. Also their two children who died in India in their infancy. Of your charity pray for the above-named Mary Darragh who died at Hannahstown 17th March 1900 and whose remains are interred here. Of your charity pray for the soul of John McStay son-in-law of the above and dearly beloved husband of Ellen McStay who died at Locust Lodge, Belfast, March 8th 1912, aged 51 years RIP. Of your charity pray for the soul of Ellen McStay beloved wife of John McStay and daughter of James and Mary Darragh who died at Bromley, Kent, August 10th 1943 aged 75 years.

So now we know that Darragh’s wife was Mary, that he perhaps lost two of his children in India and had two more who survived. We see that he had two daughters, Mary and Ellen. Mary went on to marry Henry Smail later. We can perhaps conclude that Mary Smail was married to Henry after Smail was inducted into the family business.

We note from other accounts that the first small but modern factory of Travancore was thus started in Alleppey in 1859 by James Darragh to manufacture coir and coir products and for this he brought in some master weavers (two are mentioned, Banerjee & Chatterjee by some imaginative writer – but this does not sound right for both are Brahmin surnames and they would not be weavers in a caste conscious Bengal) from Bengal. Now let us take a look at the travails of Henry Smail and soon we will bring together their accounts and life stories.

1895 - Henry Smail, head of the firm of Darragh & Smail, arrived in New York on the 16th ult. from India, via London, and will hereafter make his headquarters at the firm's New York establishment, 177 Water Street. Mr. Smail has spent a number of years in India, overlooking the factories and exporting business of his firm. He was also formerly in charge of the New York business, but five years ago, on the death of James Darragh, then the senior partner, he returned to India and has made his headquarters in Alipee up to February last. On the death of Thomas. F. Bryce, the New York partner, in November last, Mr. Smail decided to leave India and make his home and headquarters in New York.

So we see that Darragh disappeared from the Kerala accounts of Darragh Smail & Co in 1860, whereas Smail remained in Alleppey (Alipee) for another 25 years. In the meantime, the advertising was ramped up (For some strange reason the Kerala Coir mats were termed Calcutta Coir mats!). The advt says - Buyers of either Calcutta or domestic coir mats and mattings can hardly be said to have inspected this market until they have seen the samples and obtained the quotations of Darragh & Smail, the old established India house, of 177 Water Street, New York. It used to be - Darragh & Smail are the most extensive manufacturers of cocoa mats and matting in India and also have one of the largest factories of the same goods in this country, located in Brooklyn. They are extensive exporters from India of coir fiber and yarns and other India products.

Browsing through New York records we now note that one Margaret Holt in 1890 transfers property to Mary, wife of henry Smail in 1890. Who could be this new character named Holt? Hang on, we will soon try to find out.

We also get to know more of Darragh from the accounts of an old China trader in New York named Charley Gustchow who was a dock supervisor involved in the review of legal cases related to coconut oil spillage and product damage complaints related to shipments from China and India. Prior to that Charley had sailed extensively to Japan, China and India many a time and was considered a storehouse of information. He also acquired and sold curios from India, to people in New York. As it appears, he traveled down to Alleppy once and chanced a meeting with James Darragh. Charley’s obituary in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle of Dec 12^th 1908 reveals the following about Darragh. That Darragh was a man of original Ideas and force of character is evidenced by this brief sketch of his character as set forth by "Charley" Gutschow, who appears to have known him well In India.

It was on one of his expeditions along the West Coast of the Indian peninsula that he reached Allepy, a port of Travancore. This latter is a long, narrow dependency that runs along the coast from above the apex of the great peninsula. It is ruled by a rajah under the supervision of a British resident. It was there that "Charley" met a Brooklyn man who had become enormously wealthy as the owner of cocoanut fiber manufactories, cotton, coffee and tea plantations, and whose story reads like a romance. This man was James Darragh, who lived in Williamsburg many years ago and conducted a small factory for the manufacture of cocoanut fiber, otherwise coir fiber, into mats, door mats, matting and other similar articles. He discovered that the raw material coming here in the shape of fiber cord was manufactured In Travancore at a nominal cost by cheap native labor. Gathering together what little property he could, he turned it into cash and sailed for India, leaving his wife and two daughters here. He settled In Travancore and established a business that throve rapidly in his hands. He acquired wealth quickly and became a confidant and adviser of the rajah. He obtained such influence with the native ruler that he was permitted to coin his own money, and the influence lasted up to the time he died at Cairo several years ago. Mr. Darragh waxed wealthy and started tea, cotton and coffee plantations that throve rapidly under his careful supervision. He usually sent one full cargo of Indian products to New York yearly in a sailing vessel and established here the East Indian Importing house of Darragh & Small that still exists at 177 Water Street. Manhattan. Mr. Smail was a partner and married one of Mr. Darragh's daughters. Some years ago Mr. Darragh decided to leave India and see Brooklyn once more. On his way he was taken ill and died at Cairo. His first wife and their daughters became involved in a lawsuit that was finally adjusted amicably to their satisfaction, and they returned to Ireland to spend the remainder of their days.

Herein lies an interesting observation, that he had two wives. This was not quite what we could make out from some sketchy details of the lawsuit itself or the tombstone. What was reality? The New York Times of July 12, 1893 provides the answer.

Frederick A. Ward yesterday' asked Judge Cullen, in the Supreme Court, Brooklyn to appoint a commission to take the testimony of Mrs. Henry Small, at Aleppy India, in the suit of Margaret Holt against the executors of the late James Darragh of that place. James Darragh was a poor Brooklyn boy, who went to India, accumulated money, established a matting factory, and became wealthy. He married and had one daughter, whom he brought to Brooklyn and left with his sister, Mrs. Holt, to be educated. He promised Mrs. Holt that he would remember her in his will, and he made a will leaving her $7,000. This will he afterwards revoked, and made another in which Mrs. Holt was not mentioned, but her daughter was willed $15,000. Afterward, Mr Darragh’s daughter returned to India and married Henry Smail, Mr Darragh’s surviving partner at Aleppy. Her testimony is considered Important enough to send for. Mrs. Holt wants $25,000 for taking care of and educating Mrs Smail during her childhood. Decision was reserved……..

Now we make some interesting observations, that Smail was originally a partner (?) in the New York office, perhaps a partner who had previously been in India a few times between 1855 and 1890. We note that he went to India after the death of Darragh to manage the affairs there. We can guess that Mary was born just around the time Darragh reached India i.e. 1856. We observe that Mary went to India after Darragh’s death and perhaps got married at Quilon around 1890. We see that they both returned to New York after five more years i.e. after settling the above case, while the second daughter and husband moved to Ireland with their mother. The fact that Mary Smail is not mentioned on the tombstone perhaps signifies a rift between her and her mother, Mary Darragh, who died in 1900. Did Smail and Mary conspire to take over the reins of Darragh and Small in far flung Travancore? But then again Darragh did make a will and disposed of his property & establishment legally previously. I was intrigued and continued to check till I got the answer from the Brooklyn daily newspaper dated May 14^th 1911. The various inputs to the newspaper came from US congressman Redfield.

It comes to light that the New York office was created after Darragh made his fortune in Aleppey and was favored and supported by the rajah of Travancore. His stories came to American ears through Charlie Gutschow who was sent to oversee the proper stowage of Darragh’s cargo into the merchant ships. According to Charles, Darragh left his wife and two daughters behind when he went to India. In India he married a high caste lady but continued to provide amply for his wife and daughters in Brooklyn.

The interesting part comes to light now. Henry Smail, his manager and later his partner, married Darragh’s Indian born daughter. So was Mary Smail a third daughter from his Hindu wife? Did he have two more girls in India who died? Who was Mary’s Hindu mother? What happened to the first daughter in Brooklyn? Perhaps a deeper study of the Smail family line will give more clues.

But now let us go to Alleppy and see how the fortunes of Darragh were made and how the company prospered. He was the first foreigner to start a modern factory in Alleppey Travancore and went on to provide employment to many thousands, that itself being a huge thing in a poverty stricken region at that time. This investment as you can imagine marked the beginning of a gradual process of industrialization in Kerala which in due course boosted the fortunes of the sleepy backwaters of Travancore.

1898 - It looks like our friend Smail fell ill, for the C&UR reports - We are pleased to learn that Mr. Henry Small, of Darragh & Smail, has recovered from his severe illness, and is again at his office. And soon he is up and complaining… In fact they had a hearing at the US senate as well, ensuring that matting companies paid no duty on the coir. Then came shipping issues - Referring to his firm's importations from India, Mr. Henry Small, of Darragh & Smail, says that it is now very difficult to charter sailing vessels to bring a cargo from India to New York. Very few sailing vessels are being built, while steamships are constantly increasing in number and are closely competing with the old fleet of sailors. For many years his firm has brought its products of coir fiber, yarns and Calcutta matting from India to this country in sailing vessels, but Mr. Small says that he will soon have to resort to the use of steamers. The latter now ply directly between India and New York, whereas heretofore almost all steamers went first to England, necessitating transshipping the goods to America. Why does he mention it? To signal higher prices due to the changed shipping and increased expenses!

Finally the Smail name comes up again in the case hearings of the Dunbritton 1896. He is now in partnership with Thomas F Bryce and files a suit to recover damages from Andrew weir & Co, owners of the ships Dunbritton after his coir dholls, mats etc (tea, fiber, mats, turmeric, coconut oil etc) had been damaged in transit from Aleppey to New York in 1892 (Getschow whom we talked about earlier was involved in the survey of damages). It was decided by the court that the damages due to improper stowage be made good.

Later, Darragh Smail and Co., Ltd., Alleppy, and the Commercial Union, Ltd, Quilon, were sanctioned and registered under an emergency regulation by the Rajah of Travancore for the construction of two pattamars and two schooners respectively. One of the pattamars, was named 'Lakshmi Pasha' and had a tonnage of 170 tons. Perhaps they were the first of Travancore registered ships.

With that we lose sight of Smail from written history, I could find no obituary of the bloke, who turned out to be the typical Manhattan businessman, living well, marrying high and retiring awash in money.… S. C. Wilber continued to be the selling representative for the cocoa goods at the warehouse and also on the road. They named a hall after Smail in the school at Aleppey and there his name remains etched for posterity.

But Darragh and Smail Co continued its existence in Aleppey. By 1881-90 they made over 13 lakhs of coir exports. In the first few years, the wages they paid were in kind, articles and gifts on special occasions. By 1860, cash wages became the norm and Darragh’s wage payouts were considered quite high (rice and 4 annas per day).

In 1908, the Quilon mills owned by Darragh changed ownership after it was acquired by South Indian Mills, but was liquidated by 1913 after accumulated losses and debts. Of his Quilon spinning mills, we get an insight from Henry Bruce who has this to say - There are about a dozen Europeans, whose chief excuse for a sweltering existence is business. People dress mercifully little in Malabar; yet at Quilon there are often dinners where dressing is required. The Darragh Cotton Mills, with all their clangor of machinery, are worth a visit. Here are 650 men; and more interesting, 150 women—or rather young girls, up to marriage.

The ownerships would have left the Smail family in the first decade of the 20^th century ( the Mcstays continued on till 1935) and I am not sure who the owners were, though the founders name continued to be used until after independence, in 1957 that the ownership changed hands, a year after Kerala was formed. Vakkan & Sons purchased the Baling Department of M/S Darragh Small & Co. Ltd., Alleppey on 2-1-1957. Pursuant to the sale the Management of Vakkan & Sons took over the premises of Darragh Smail & Co. Ltd., on the same date. That signaled the transfer of Darragh’s legacy to Indian owners.

But why did I mention the left handed weaver aspect? That is most interesting. One source says - A curious fact dating back to the inception of mat making in Alleppey district is that every mat maker in Travancore is left-handed, which may be attributed to the fact that Mr. Collins, Mr. Darragh's first factory manager, was left-handed, and so this became the norm ever after. He was left-handed and his machines too were for left-handers. Is it true? Perhaps it may be just that, yet another legend!! We get another angle from his grandson DL Vickers who mentions that his parents (John and Ellen McStay??) were living in India in 1935. He states – Tradition has it that Darragh was so closely imitated by his operatives that they worked left handed, even as Darragh did himself, he being , as they say in the States ‘south pawed’.

The house or bungalow they lived was I believe, called the Dow’s bungalow and until the 1950’s there were a motley collection of Europeans and their retinues of ayahs and servants and bungalows in the region. I do not know Dow’s bungalow survives any longer.

As Aleppey became better known and prospered, the stagnating lagoons were filled with coconut husks needed for the industry and this increased the infestation of mosquitoes and one also had to endure the horribly smelly air that hung around. The result was that many a person was afflicted with the Cochin leg of Alleppy, elephantiasis or filariasis.

You may be surprised to hear this though - fittingly a cure (Drug - Hetrazan) was discovered by an Indian (his name was Yellapragada Subba Row – I will write about him soon) around the 1940’s living in Brooklyn New York and working for Lederle!!!

Darragh & Smail continued on in New York and the company got involved with the innovative teaboy gas/electric tea maker in 1959 made of alloy and Bakelite, with settable (infinitely variable!) strength, essentially a combined kettle and teapot.

As days went by, trade unionism and worker agitation became pronounced, cost increased and management became complicated, so many of the owners left, and Aleppey reverted back to a sleepy port with the result that a modern port like Cochin took over. And so we hear the song kayalinarike connected to Kochi…which should actually have been Aleppey kayalinakrike………….

And with this I bring to end the story of the American who brought prosperity and fame to Alleppey, but who is now resting in the depths of obscurity. Hopefully this will cast a ray of light into those murky depths…..

UPDATE:

The following is an update received from descendants of Darragh's daughter Mary, now living in Australia. While it helps provide some clarity, the family was also kind enough to send me the reminiscences lsited under item 1 of the references, which go on change my inferences somewhat. I will correct those ASAP.

In Kathy’s family, stories were told of James having ‘an adopted Indian daughter’ - a bit of social licence? It’s much more likely that she was illegitimate by an Indian mistress he had after he arrived in India, although there is still a possibility that he did marry an Indian woman.

James Darragh’s partner or wife in India - and mother of Mary - is a mystery. No-one has been able to trace her or find out what became of her. She may have died or been disowned. So far no birth record for Mary has been found, if there ever was one.

James later married Mary (yes, same name), nee Fleming, in Ireland, about 5 years after he had had Mary, his first daughter. With his wife Mary he then had three more children, of which there was just the one surviving daughter, Ellen.

Some scandalous NY newspaper reports after James Darragh's death talked of him 'taking a second Hindu wife' after his wife Mary and daughter Ellen returned to Ireland. In fact it was Mary Fleming who was his second ‘wife’. Although he may of course have had later Indian partners, contributing to those stories ...

James sent his daughter Mary to New York to be schooled - and possibly also to distance her from what could have been a disapproving and conventional ex-patriot social milieu in India. Whatever his relationship with - and the fate of - her unknown mother, James obviously accepted responsibility for Mary, and it is likely that she was his daughter.

Mary lived in NY with James Darragh’s sister and the sister's daughter - of the court case fame. Since he changed his will to leave money to Mary (more proof that she was his real daughter and not adopted?) it seems there may have also been a falling out with his sister for some reason.

Henry Smail was James Darragh's manager, and he was made a partner in the business after Henry had married Darragh's (possibly illegitimate) half-Indian daughter. Was this a deal made to secure daughter Mary’s future?

James' wife Mary, and their daughter Ellen, would have been unlikely to have kept close to his first daughter. Their return to Ireland suggest a rejection of life in India as well as in the USA.

Given the attitudes of the time - regarding Mary's mixed race, and possible illegitimacy too - it may be that no-one openly talked about her origins.

This could have lead to several of the confused reports of the time about ‘second' wives and Ellen being her sister (rather than her half-sister).

Henry and Mary Smail returned to England before the 1901 census, as there was an arm of the business still in London. They had five children and lived most of the latter part of their lives at Wimbledon, now a south-western suburb of London. One of those children, Alice Smail, married my wife's grandfather, Georges Waterkeyn.

References

Regrettably I could not lay my hands on the article - G.H. Davey, Reminiscences of James Darragh & Henry Smail - Carpet and Upholstery Trade Review, 15 February 1890, even though I requested a copy from the Coir board who possess the same. Perhaps there is more information there.

The Carpet and upholstery trade review and the rug trade review 1896

Brooklyn Daily Eagle of Dec 12th 1908,

Brooklyn daily eagle May 14 1911

On a Human Note – Dom Leonard Vickers (A touch of God – Eight monastic journeys)

Letters from Malabar and on the Way - By Henry Bruce

Gateways of Asia – Aleppey – Hans Schenk

America's Successful Men of Affairs: The city of New York - edited by Henry Hall

The Wide World: The Magazine for Everybody, Volume 42 – An Indian Venice by CE Bechhofer

The history of trade union movement in Kerala – K Ramachandran Nair

Darragh tombstone

Pics

Darraghs Mill Quilon

Other sources – Google images…

Afterward

Darragh and Smail Co in Aleppey were to figure again, this time with respect to trade unionism. We see that by 1907 the company’s new administrators became tougher businessmen and profit became paramount. After the First World War, demand dipped and wages dropped. Work was organized by job contractors or moopans who were known to treat the weavers very badly, especially the women. They also extorted the workers by demanding a commission or moopakasu. The working hours are seen to stretch from 6AM to 6PM, late coming was not allowed and the women laborers not treated very well. In addition to factory work, they had to do menial work for the owners too. After a strike and walkout, an agreement to start work at 7AM was reached at. This was the first of its kind in Kerala. Darragh Smail and Co also got named in militant women’s uprisings and we can see a large number of trade union cases related to the company. It appears that a physical clash between labor and management occurred once and that a European manager was beaten up by a group of women workers inside the factory. The K Meenakshi case was a prominent one relating to pregnancy - Darragh Smail Company, the employer felt that as women became pregnant at home, the management could not be called up to make any extra payments. Meenakshi organized the women who argued for the linkage between the two, i.e. the fact that women worked to give themselves and their children a dignified life. All this turbulence continued on till 1946 when Sir CP intervened and the bloody Punnapra Vaylar revolt occurred. But that is another story, for another day.

I apologize for the length of this article, my heart just did not allow me to cull it…

The reassuring click of the seatbelt was the thing which jump started ruminations on the month long visit to India. The plane was about to commence its 15,000km trip westwards (with a transit stopover in Dubai) and I slipped into a long and slow train of thoughts, snaking through those marvelous thirty days like a meter gauge train, remnant from the days of the Raj.

Squabbles at and about the Calicut airport had ensured that I would neither land nor take off from our home airport, and we were moved to neighboring Cochin. Ironic isn’t it, for that was exactly what happened since the first wars between the Vasco da Gama and the Zamorin of Calicut dating back to 1500’s, with the Cochin Raja winning a bulk of the spice trade. During a long layover at Dubai’s teeming airport, I idly watched the masses troop into the latest sin-city of the world, while the many who toiled at the airport kept it spick and span. The guy sitting next to me turned out to be a Pakistani living in Australia, visiting his home in Lahore. People from two ends of the world, moving towards opposing countries in South Asia, and chatting at the only neutral zone, Dubai!!!

The monsoon over Kerala had been delayed and much weakened with the dipole people having a field day, triumphing their dire forecasts. It was in this atmosphere that I set foot at Cochin and drove with a Moplah driver Sartaj to Calicut. A pleasant chap, he updated me on all that was happening in ‘gods own country’. He was totally amused when I, coming all the way from USA chose an ordinary eating place and ordered Malabar Porota and egg curry over other fancy dishes. When I explained that the freshly made Porota was one thing not available in the US, he was mystified, for he said ‘my mother makes it often at home, why can’t you people do it’? Then he wised up and added, I know, it is because you cannot get the right flour in America, in fact my mom struggles to find it here!!! Anyway he was an enthusiastic talker, and happy that Ramadan was around the corner after which he would get married and buy his own Innova taxi car. He was not sure though if he would let his ‘dentist to be fiancée’ work, and I had a tough time trying to persuade him to not even think of keeping her at home. He was more worried about care for his ageing mother. So you see, yet another chap, modern outside, but conservative inside!

And with that I had made my entry into my old haunts, and as the Toyota Innova car sped through new roads, much nicer than the old potholed roads once frequented by the majestic Ambassador taxi, I could not help but notice development and building work everywhere. Sleepy half towns had metamorphosed to busy towns, with garishly painted high-rises and everywhere you could see the influence of money sent by workers working in the Gulf. Large boards advertised Kuzhi mandi, a Yemeni form of Biriyani which seems to be the ‘in thing’ in Malabar, which Sartaj quickly added was not so tasty, but just something new.

A five hour drive took us to our destination at Calicut where I joined my wife who had arrived earlier and other relatives. The house was abuzz with the impending marriage of my wife’s nephew and various other long pending estate matters related to my mother-in-law’s untimely demise last year which still had to be sorted out. The bags were quickly unpacked and soon I was out in new garbs, a white dhoti and a half sleeved shirt. My old ‘kalan’ umbrella was taken off of its resting hook, and thus clad, I became a local once again, though my brother in law gently reminded me that nowadays people wore the dhoti only for ceremonious occasions. But then, who cared?

I had a week at Calicut before the next event, and this was spent touring the various book stalls scouring for new history books. My niece was a trifle unhappy as she had been allocated a seat for BA history, not a subject of her choice, and my attempts at persuading her to go for it, if only to follow my passion, fell on deaf ears. Her mother quickly added that it would be a disaster and everybody at home would have to live with yet another bore with an astonishing capacity to elicit a yawn from a person who had just imbibed two tumblers of chicory laced south Indian coffee. As my wife fretted over the tailors of Calicut and their poor quality, I went about collecting books. A few kilograms of books were quickly purchased, much to her disgust (she warned me that bag space was reserved for all the stuff she was going to buy and books were only secondary) as I looked the other way. Some real estate matters had to be sorted out and discussions with lawyers and chartered accountants took the rest of our time in Calicut.

With that done and dusted, we moved on to Palakkad. Sartaj was again the driver and it was his first visit to the interior villages near the ghats. Amazed at the green fields and a completely unspoilt locales, he could only wonder if such places existed. Well, Pallavur, where we were going to, still had just one school, a temple, a post office, a bank and perhaps three or four shops serving perhaps two thousand people. Here again an event was in the offing and was the reason why we were there, this being my own nieces wedding to a cousin from another leg of the extended family.

Pallavur - Photo Arun

Ah, I can write reams and reams about this small village and its people. It is still the same place about which I had written many a time earlier and you all can see a view from this fine panoramic picture taken by my second son. I saw now that many people I knew were all ageing, and a number of younger offspring were appearing for functions and on the roads. The mosquitoes were still there and our cans of ‘off’ repellent quickly proved popular with the many who had come from various parts of the world for the wedding. The mosquitoes were not too happy I suppose, but I assure you my friends, they are quite clever. If we sprayed our exposed surfaces, which they normally frequented, they would spend an extra minute buzzing around to locate a hidden vein or artery far from the chemicals, like near the ear or on the face or through the fine muslin dhoti, with a vengeance to make you swear and jump. The wafting hands of the hapless visitor originally planning a quiet sojourn in the easy chair was a sure sign of the angry mosquito at work, unhappy at being kept away by the nasty chemical. The decibels of chatter rose up and down with some amount of irregularity and was interspersed with the drone of the Anopheles or the Culex species, with or without the Dengue virus……

The village temple beats and music had started, as it was soon time for the evening prayers, and my brother informed me that the one person I was looking forward to meet, drummer Sridharan (Appu marar’s progeny) was touring USA, with a Kathakali troupe. I was planning on discussing some facets of the Kerala music style Sopana Sangeetham with him actually…

But all that was soon forgotten as wedding discussions took precedence, we still had to invite a few more people the old fashioned way, visiting individual homes, and my cousin and I this time around, visited the homes of all the people who worked for us in the past as well as the Tamil Chetty dwellings in the village. Vaithi pattar arrived and prepared a number of goodies, laddus, mixture, mysore-pak and jelebis, for occasional consumption.

The food was catered from a nearby supplier and some 40 guests (including a few from the North) were expected for a week until the wedding. Shamiana’s were erected in front of the ancestral house and the bridegroom’s house, which conveniently was neighboring.

And the rains came, well, not just so, it poured. Indra had really released all those waters held captive by Vritrasura, I suppose, but what a relief it was as it cooled the place considerably, from a 90 degrees, 90% RH to a more tolerable level.

The visitors came the next day, to experience Kerala and the rains, and as ill-luck would have it, one of the girls fell into the nadumittam in the nalukettu, right on the first day. The limping girl, a newly wed bride promptly latched on to her doting husband’s hands for the next few days and never let go. But I can tell you, they all enjoyed the rain, they enjoyed the village and they cared a hoot about the mosquitoes. I think they relished the food too…

We had a lot to do for I was to help compere the Sangeeth event planned to happen before the wedding. I was soon introduced to Reshma, my nephew’s wife, who was the chief planner of the Sangeeth (they had only been married a few months ago). Pad and pen, and later a laptop at hand, we set about charting the activities covering the intros, music and dances. The DJ was to come from neighboring Coimbatore.

As the hours sped by, more relatives trooped in and out. Discussions ranged from politics to family issues, films, songs and so on and so forth. I was sitting smugly with just the task of supporting with the compering of the event when a bombshell was dropped, that we had to partake in a few dances. No amount of excuses could get me out of it, for only a month previously I had been hauled up on stage in Ohio by Rimi Tomy (a popular show host and now an actress) and made to dance a few steps. This video had passed around members of the family (snigger worthy!) and was used effectively as a tool to get me to participate. So hiding all the fear and nervousness, I cast away the dhoti and donned a pair of Bermuda’s to join the groups for dance practice (Shoba was also pulled in). All the fear was soon gone, for such was the enthusiasm of the older and younger participants. The choreographers (the bridegroom Vineth and his brother Ajith) were of Bollywood class (being from Bombay!) and they took us through some steps to create a semblance of a performance which the onlookers were quick to appreciate and assure were of watchable quality. Looking back, how I enjoyed those four days with those young people. I was then reminded of the fascinating novel Drifter’s by James Michener and at many an occasion likened myself to George Fairbanks in the novel.

At Ullattil

The hours flashed by, and the heady preparations rose to a crescendo, as the dancing improved and the walls started to shake when the volume of the speakers increased. New technologies such as iPad’s, coupled with Bluetooth and wi-fi helped get the music blaring when needed. A newly married couple, friends of the bridegroom from Bombay insisted on practicing their dance item in privacy, while we wondered if it was indeed a dance they were practicing or complex versions of Kamasutra!! The older people grumbled about the sound and how it affected their beauty sleep while our own rheumy knee joints complained about the disturbance to their not so dynamic existence. Tired at last, people slept where they found space, and fortunately the power supply did not fail often. In the mornings we trouped out bleary eyed, to the dining areas for the idlis, vadas and puttu served on banana leaves. Staid family members warbled or sang now and then, to ensure that their skills were also demonstrated while older listeners wah wahed. Days turned to night, limbs flailed and the mosquitoes got even more irritated, finding no parking space. The wedding preparations were truly on, like no other. My brother and sister in law were not spared either, for they had to waltz with the couple wearing formal clothes.

Our sons arrived from the US, one after a long span of 12 years while the other after a 5 year gap. I assume they were taken aback with all the hustle and bustle and activity, but the younger one joined the team quickly, though looking quite a bit embarrassed by his father’s antics on the dance floor. He was seen shaking his head in disgust often, at the spectacle his old man was creating…

Breakfasts were followed by succulent lunches, all vegetarian, followed by high tea and then dinner, with frequent infusions of herbal water to keep us all going and soon it was the day of the sangeeth event at which point we quizzed the parents and the couple, took them through their love story and peppered it all with some smart dances and performances. The couple who practiced in secret came up with a superb performance, and as it turned out, all other performances were pretty good. Yours’s truly performed well as a co-host and on the dance floor, though some were seen to remark that his white glasses (purloined from his son) were a bit too garish, but that the evening was a grand success… It is still being discussed, I presume and will be (or so I want to feel). Some others had stealthily retired to a private room to imbibe an invigorating beverage or two, while others not in the know were unhappy that Kerala had gone dry.

The next day a smaller group sped off to Guruvayoor, and the stop at ICH there for the cutlets was not missed. This was when I met a fascinating young fella, Dina Karan, who took us along in his car. I cannot but express my admiration for this young lad, actually a gentle giant with an even bigger heart, an entrepreneur of two businesses as well as owning and running a school. It was fortunately not so crowded at Guruvayoor and my efforts at obtaining a copy of KVK’s book on the temple was unsuccessful. Other nearby relatives were met and early the next morning we witnessed the quick Talikettu wedding ceremony of the couple in front of the temple. People still find it amazing to see and hear that the event takes no more than 5 minutes. That done, Dina had to get us back to Palghat in quick time in his SUV, which he did, for he was a great driver, deftly handling the crowded Kerala roads. I will always remember that four or five hour trip, with Nikita in the front, a shawl draped over her to cover up all the jewelry, Dina driving with a fierce and focused countenance, Varsha, Kartika and Shoba in the middle row while Vineth and I were hunched over with the bags at the back. A jolly trip it was, with a lot of singing and merry making, and Kartika prodding us on with marvelous song suggestions. At Palghat, the formal event started after we got there, with many friends and relatives in attendance. A sumptuous lunch was served after and with that the day’s events were brought to a close. Dina returned to Tiripur, and we to Pallavur. An impromptu music session followed, where we all tried to sing, Vineth of course taking the lead as he is a wonderful singer and then we had a great time ribbing the couple about the first night....The next day showcased a reception to the villagers and as the house started to empty, with guests and relatives starting on their return trips, promises to stay in touch were sadly exchanged.

Nikitaa and Vineth

We moved on to Cochin before proceeding to Calicut, to drop off a son at the airport and visit a cousin in Cochin. Phew, Cochin City I can assure you is a right royal mess, with the metro work and the horrendous traffic jams. But then again, Calicut will soon follow suit. At Calicut, we had some other matters to tend to while our niece Devu and her team planned the Sangeeth and other related events for the second wedding. She did a yeoman job and ensured that it was memorable and efficient. We did have a little snafu (that word is actually an interesting military acronym – google it if you want to know) when an aunt fell ill and had to be hospitalized to recover from dehydration, what with the intense heat and humidity.

Calicut has changed a lot, the juice ‘mash’ now sports large industrial gloves on his hands to save his fingers from the citric acids while squeezing limes, a new Zamorin is in place, the roads are chockablock, many a high-rise is being built and people are just spending a lot of money. Added to all that, it was Ramadan time and many of the popular hotels had closed down for maintenance (but we had ensured that we did not miss the Bombay hotel biriyani before it closed). Paragon was open though and still maintained their old standard, but they had no more new stories of hotshots visiting them….

Newspapers were abuzz with the story of pirated DVD versions of Premam, a hit movie and various other events while the monsoon played truant. I can assure you my friends, it was too damn hot and humid, even for me!!

A new mall called Hi-lite had been opened and proved to be full of brand names, looking a lot like a US mall. The barbecue kitchen there was a revelation, and the food fantastic, to say the least, though one must be quite hungry to consume all the stuff they have on offer. The bypass was becoming the in-place, with all kinds of new shops. I wonder how Calicut will look after some time.

Calicut was many things to many travelers, delightful, bustling, quiet, war torn, rainy, sleepy and so on and widely written about, eons ago. Today it has lost all its character, and if you compare it with David Lear’s description a hundred plus years ago (1874 to be exact) terming Calicut the summer of Eden, you just wonder.

Lear had said - I mooned about those beautiful lanes and roads, the exquisite vegetation of which beats all chance of description. The plentitude of palmery here is overwhelming! Those deep grey-green misty hollows full of endless vistas and series of palm leaves and stems! It is all but impossible to give any idea of these beautiful Malabar lanes, since their chief beauty consists of what cannot be readily imitated; to wit, endless detail of infinitely varied vegetation, and constantly changing variety of moving figure panoramic effect. The colour, too, of these scenes; the deep and vivid green, the red soil roads, and the brilliant white and scarlet dresses of the people, make all Malabar drawing a painful riddle. I found it too difficult to draw standing up in the middle of hot road, with crowds of people around. These Malabar folk stick like burrs or flies; you can't get rid of them, and on the 'one fool makes many' principle, you find yourself in a multitude, what can one do against the eternal rain? At this moment it is raining as if it had never rained before-cats and dogs.

About the beach - How pretty and orderly all this part of Calicut looks!

That is one part of Calicut which has changed so much, the beach has been beautified, sea view apartments built, the filth has been mostly removed and by evening, everybody is there to look at the Arabian Sea and be part of the evening multitude…..and have a good time.

The second wedding went off well, with the Sangeeth also a resounding success. Remarkable an event in many ways (Remember what I had to say about religious amity in Calicut?), my wife’s nephew Sid married Lisa Mary and the function was solemnized in a reception hall owned by a Muslim friend! As usual the cousins were all there, replete with a lot of merry making and consumption of great food, though a bit somber with the aunt’s illness, from which she subsequently recovered fully…

The theme color for the ladies of the family was yellow and orange and it is said that many of the hapless lady guests trooped into every cloth shop in Calicut trying the find a yellow saree or dress in time, so much so that the event and people were well known in most shops. As girls and women put on mehndi on their hands, special events marked evenings, like a performance welcoming the bride, with the folk singer extoling the virtues of the bridegroom, impromptu singing, catered food and what not. Everybody wanted to make sure that they were in line to bless the couple, as is a must in Kerala weddings.

The demure bride seemed a bit overwhelmed with all the new ceremonies, but we hastened to put her at ease with idle chatter as Sid was busy sorting out matters before their quick return to Bombay, where they both worked. A visit to the registrar (I could not but help recall that one of the first registrars who sat in that very office was my own grandfather!) to witness their legal marriage was an interesting aside. The special marriage act rules required the couple to fulfill the condition that they were neither idiots nor lunatics (neither party should be an idiot or a lunatic at the time of registration)! Hmm, no wonder they call the English queer, only they could have instated such a rule!!

Sid and Lisa with parents

And finally it was time to return. Sartaj again was the taxi driver who took us back to Cochin airport. We did startle him again when we asked him to stop at a road side Indian coffee house to have a last meal of cutlets and ghee roast. I presume he was wondering on his lonely drive back, about those funny Americans who wanted to eat only at such lowly places and of course, I am also sure he has different impressions about us compared to many of those Malayali foreign returnees who spoke with newly acquired accents and threw money around…

At the registrar's office

But like every other trip, we met so many new and interesting people who would remain in our minds and hearts, like the driver Sartaj, the impressionable Dina, new friends like Varsha, Reshma and Kartika, and so many more….

But I cannot end without introducing an even more interesting character, named Chotu, for he was the professional photographer during the event at Calicut. It is said that before he became an accomplished event photographer, he used to accompany his friend Jayan, an AIR artist who clambered coconut trees (part-time – you have no idea how strenuous that is) to fell coconuts. Now Chotu never climbed coconut trees, but he was an oddity because he was not a Malayali and spoke only Hindi. He had landed up in Calicut, after running away from his faraway Uttaranchal home as a teenager (don’t ask me why, I forgot to ask Chotu). Why he chose Kerala was also not clarified as my own meeting with him was shorter than I liked. Anyway as the story goes, he wandered around with Jayan who took him under his wings and when Jayan started to work with Doordarshan at Trivandrum, Chotu accompanied. One day he found time to visit a circus. There he met a Russian who as it turns out, curiously tried to sell him a Zenit 35mm SLR camera. Chotu had no need for a camera, and neither of them could converse for they had no common language. Talking with signs and eyes, the Russian in the circus made it clear he wanted to be rid of the camera and wanted some money in return. He wanted Rs 5,000, and without a plan in mind, Chotu replied that all he could raise was RS 1,000. The Russian agreed finally and Chotu (means ‘small guy’) ended up with a Zenit camera and a nice leather case. Not knowing what to do with it, he decided to go to the beach and take pictures of beach scenery, because somebody told him that is what you did with a camera. He shot away, taking in the palm trees, the beach and finally some bikini clad foreigners.

When he had the reel developed, he was not surprised to see that most of the pictures were duds. Of the 37 he shot (now those who used cameras in the 70’s through 90’s will know that you can get only 36 shots legally, and the 37^th is usually an iffie) only the last four of the bikini clad females came out right. Chotu was mystified, why did the last four work out right? Were the girls blessed or was it because of their complexion? You never know with these foreigners, he thought. He went back to the studio to find out and find out he did, that the shutter stop setting was perhaps just right for the low light since the last four shots had been taken with the setting sun behind the scantily clad lassies. So the next week, he spent another hard earned Rs 120 on a new roll of film and with a book in hand carefully set the exposures and recorded them against time. Soon he had mastered the Zenit…

And that was how he became a photographer, and having decided to settle at Calicut, mastered Malayalam though speaking it with a slight accent. He is now a popular young fella in Calicut (I forgot his full name and in any case nobody other than he, uses it anyway) and covers many a wedding event. He, I believe, is now on the lookout for a life partner.

These day things have changed so much in Kerala, where once North Indians were hardly seen. Today there are so many migrants from Bihar, Assam, Bengal and all those NE parts. Malayalis are employing them for all kinds of work and many a Malayali now proudly claims to be fluent in Hindi, thanks to these job seekers.

Ah! Well! I have been rambling on and on as so many miles were traversed by the large A380. The pilot has announced that it will soon be time to land in JFK. They want us to put on our seal belts, upright our seats and raise the tray tables.

The seat belt clicks again, severing my memories of that glorious month in India.

Nikita – You asked me why I thanked you after the wedding, now you have a complete answer, no?

And with that, let me sign off…..

Here I am, back home……..

On the origins of Mohiniyattam, a discussion

Ammini - It was soon time for the performance and I have to get ready. A dancer has to dress immaculately, as you will all agree and not only should the dress be pleasing, but should also be worn properly. And so I made sure that the nine foot long Onnara, the under garment, which we Nair women always wore, was first of all wound tightly. It had to be, or I would look too fat after the chela was worn. A little bit of makeup, some kanmashi, a dab of sindooram and a bit of powder completed the face. Then it was time to wear my anklets, the kaccamani, Oh! You know that men like that very much and its sensuous tinkle. The wearer has to tread softly, as my mother had taught me when I was little. She would always tell me, don’t look up or run, don’t be brash, walk softly and deliberately, Oh! How I miss her.

That was Ammini, but let’s leave her for now - I was lost in the past and my imaginations, for those were simply my thoughts going adrift, like a raft in the ocean…I was actually planning to study connections of medieval Kerala’s Mohiniyattam to Palghat. Many have attempted to trace the history of Mohiniyattam, only for yet another to restart again. Will I do the same? Perhaps, as I too have perused the subject for many months now, pored through many books and articles, seen a couple of documentary films - all in an effort to get to the bottom of it. Did I? You should decide after traversing the route together with me…

Experts would say that all music and all of dance has no singular origin. Somebody brings along something from a neighboring region and soon it is adapted to fit the local custom and traditions. Rightfully so. As we discussed in the Sopanam article, the tevaram style singing based on tamilakam pan raagas evolved into what we know as Sopanam. While Sopanam was sung in the temples, people listening to it made it one of the norms and everything was based on gods and their stories. In those times, the other contributor was folk music which people sang during festive and non-festive occasions. A combination of these two created the music for entertainment of the public in the Koothambalam attached to the temple, though the folk combination was minimal. As regards dance, well, the contributor in those times was the dasiyattam practiced in temples of the south, dasiyattam performed by traveling troupes from the tamilakam and coming to the Palakkad region through the pass, the local koothus like nangiar koothu, krishnattam, ottamthullal, kaikottikali and so on. Without a strict definition behind it, Mohiniyattam evolved.

Ammini continues - My ears hurt, I really do not know who came up with the idea of the toda, and I hated the large holes in my ears. Yes, the large gold todas that I wore in those holes are perhaps attractive, but they were so different from those dasi attakaris of tamilakam who wear something called kundalam, I have to try and get them soon for they look nicer and lighter, as it happens, I saw it on the attakari from Kannambra Nair’s tharavadu. You see, I myself am attached to the Manjapra tharavadu, not far from Kannambra. But I do have the mooku valayam which I wear. Actually I hate them, they hurt my nostril so much. The other day I was thinking, what If I wore it on my right nostril instead of the left…Krishna Krishna, it would be preposterous!!

The hair came next. I always wear them in a plait behind me and adorn a lot of jasmine flowers, and my cousin sister helps me ensure it is orderly and tight. I wear a netti chutti next and as I always did, I wore the nagapadam, the mohinimala and the chutti pathakkam (carefully setting the surya chandranmar) and the mudukku which my grandmother gave me. And of course, one should not forget the beauty spots to ward off the evil eye, you know how it is, there are so many out there in the audience who are capable of casting evil looks, especially that poojari from the mariamma kovil. I put an itsy bitsy one with kanmashi on my left chin, not too small, not too large. The other day Kannan Nair was telling me that it looked cute, he is an idiot, he just wants to flatter me and take me to bed…the lecher…

The light in the room is not at all enough, if only we could dress outdoors, but today it is a little late. The dark walls or floor of the mud house don’t help in making the room any brighter. The randhal is no good, maybe I should tell ammama to get a petromax, like the ones the British people carry.

Like most art, musicians and dancers need patrons. The smallest patron is the local feudal lord, and the biggest is the king or Valia thamburan. The route from the bottom to the top in medieval Kerala was dependent on the power of the feudal lord and the number of Nairs he commanded. Not all of the big patrons had interest in arts, only some did and that is the simple reason why a dance form like mohiniyattam flourished at times in certain places, sank to decadence during others or stagnated in between.

Medieval Kerala had some major regions and of course many small principalities. The major regions were Kolathunaad to the North, Mid Malabar lorded by the Zamorin, Palghat and Cochin under the Cochin king and finally Venad or Travancore. The Zamorins were clear in supporting only Krishnattam, a form developed by them. There are no instances of other art forms being promoted in his territory. The Palakkad achan was not very powerful but somewhat influenced by tribal and Tamil traditions, whereas the Cochin raja who lorded him was. They have a tradition of supporting various music and art forms, what with an influx of all kinds of foreigners in their kingdom. The Venad rajas were influenced heavily by Tamil tradition, music and art forms. Dasiyattam was prevalent in both Travancore and Cochin regions and kathakali was slowly taking root as popular public fare.

Ammini - I hate the lengthy process of tying the 16 muzham long (24 ft) white mallu Chela vasthram and the rouka, to get the mel-kasavu and keezh –kasavu right is not easy, but then I have my cousin to help and she knows what to do, only it takes forever while I sweat. Then comes the brass udyanam which I love, hopefully someday I will find a Namboothiri to get me a gold one. I have to call that nephew of mine, Koman and tell him to bring the hand fan. With a 24 foot cloth over a 9 foot onnara, and that too during the summers at Palakkatchery, one can get more than stifled. Koman my 14 years old nephew will do the fanning part happily, because he likes sitting there and looking at me. And I have seen the wrong thoughts in his eyes at times. Can’t blame him, he is getting to that age when boys will soon become men. I wear my finger rings next, I wear my upper arm snake bangles, and dab a little bit of coconut oil to smooth down my hair. I hate my curly hair, look that that attakari at Kannambra, she has straight hair. Since I am fair, I put on very little of that rice flour based make up. Kanakam does though. She adds more manayola (yellow) and less cayilyam (red) to the aripodi paste.

The whole of last week was fun, for the kuruppattayar had come for our uzhichil…massage. You noticed the word ‘our’ right? Well out troupe consists of the haughty Kanakamma – haughty because she is onnamkita, but I look better for sure. And we have the young girl Neeli, a moonam kita. Three of us, the dancers. This year we start our performances locally and we may move on later to other places, I do not know where, only the Nattuvan and the karanavar at Mannapra know.

But how does Mohiniyattam fit in? Was it an offshoot of Dasiyattam or Kathakali? Was it influenced by them? Or is it a latter day version of the nangiar koothu, Kummi or other Tamil dance traditions? That there would be similarities between one and the other is quite clear, but my mind forced me to dig deeper and deeper to find out when and how it all started. I am not sure I reached anywhere, but I did come across a few tidbits which were illuminating.

Tracing the known route, we see that it was performed sporadically in the past, was then supported heavily by the Travancore Rajas, and after Swati Tirunal’s demise, slipped into a state of decadence. It acquired a very bad reputation and was eventually banned in the Cochin state, mainly because the dancers originated from regions controlled by Cochin. Kathakali rose to the fore and Mohiniyattam declined to the depths. Finally when poet Vallathol established the Kalamandalam in 1930’s, the dance was revived and today considered an appealing and popular art form of Kerala. Many foreigners, interestingly Americans, continue to learn and write about it.

I could start with the mythical aspects, but then this would turn out to become prose too lengthy for anybody, especially the story of Mohini, or for that matter more appropriately the Narayani movement, Yellama or Renuka movement and Parasurama all of which could have some impact in dance forms of Kerala. I am also deliberately not getting into a detailed discussion on Dasiyattam, the Travancore Padamangalam Dasis, Manipravalam poems, and Bharatanatyam, an area which others have covered eminently, but suffice to say that all of them provided inputs to this Kerala dance form.

Let us first look at the printed media out there, dealing with Mohiniyattam. Almost all writers were Mohiniyattam performers and this would mean that they would stay true to their teachers and school. All of them were people who trained from the first teachers and students of the Kalamandalam School. Virtually every one of them and I can assure you that I perused every single one of those books, take off and follow the original research conducted and recorded by Betty True Jones who came to Kerala in 1959 to train under Thottasseri Chinnammu Amma while her husband Clifford Jones concentrated on Kathakali research.

Betty traces the mythical origins of Mohini, the efforts of Vallathol and Kalyani Amma, Krishna Panikkar and Kunhikutti amma and Chinammu Amma. She emphatically establishes the fact that almost all Mohiniyattam dancers belonged to the Nair caste, and that they performed for their Nambudiri patrons and the most desirable of them became consorts of these rich patrons. She explains that much of this dance form’s development could be attributed to the 17^th century, side by side with Krishnattam and Kathakali. In this way this was less of a temple art form and more of a leisure art form for richer patrons, which of course explains the emphasis on lasya and not bhakti. After the Mysore Sultan invasion destabilized North Malabar during the 18^thcentury, arts and artistes shifted to the more stable Travancore and Cochin. The decline occurred with the strengthening of the British, the development of a British/Christian influenced school system and the imposition of new moral standards and various other social changes to the old feudal structure. The art simply collapsed and went into obscurity.

We see all authors referencing payments to Mohinyattam dancers in the Vyavaharamala, and its prose commentary dated 1809. It may be noted here that most books place it at 1709 wrongly due to a mistake which Ulloor made. There is mention in Kunjan Nambiyar’s Ghoshayatra set at Ambalapuzha in the 18^th century (the region where kathakali was born) and of buxom Mohiniyattam dancers.

Betty goes on to explain that Mohiniyattam dancers were drawn from kaikottikali troupes, and establishes that most Nair girls learn the steps of this dance at home. Some of these chosen girls, from lesser families usually, joined up with a leading local nattuvan, trained rigorously during the monsoon season and travelled around during the dry seasons to conduct performances. Most importantly it is an abhinaya nrittam and interpretation of the poem in facial expressions and mudras have to be done in the most pleasing and a somewhat sensuous fashion (lasya).

And Betty establishes that nattuvans as well as dancers originated from villages around Palghat, such as Korattikkara, Pazhayannaur, Peringiottukurissi etc and performed between Kodappara in the south and Kattanadu in the North. She explains that the dancers came from poorer Nair families. Augmenting this thought, MGS Narayanan in his article cited under references opines that some of the old time Devadasis merged into the lower echelons of Nair society. Geetha in her prose adds other places in Palghat to the list such as Ottapalam, Mankara, Chatannur and Kozhalmannam.

Lemos concentrates on anthropological matters in her thesis and focuses mainly on matriliny, sambandham and the such while touching on the lasya aspects and the decadence of Mohiniyattam but traversing a route similar to the one taken by Betty jones. In the course of her study, she reaffirms that the dancers were from Lakkidi, Korattikara and Pazhayannur. She also establishes that it was indeed outlawed in Cochin with a promulgation in 1936 and that it was performed in the various manas or bigger estate homes and that it was primarily for the entertainment of wealthy landlords. What I could not quite understand was her conclusion based on an opinion of MGS that the matrilineal inheritance system was conducive to dance development, with the argument that independence for women came about due to their power over inheritance matters. She analyses the fictional dance recital narrated in Meenakshi written by Chattu Nair and shows how the decadence had deteriorated to the Mukutti culminating in a lap dance of sorts in certain cases, by the 20^thcentury.

An interesting input comes from Madhavan Kutty’s ‘The village before time’…where he mentions how one Ramakrishnan Nair wanted to establish a Sambandham with Vazhakottu Meenakshi because she had learnt Mohiniyattam. Vazhakode by the way is near Ottapalam, in Palghat.

Venu and Nirmala trace its origin from Tiruvathirakkali, basing it on a number of steps used and explain that the decadence was due to excessive patronage for kathakali after which the dancers of Mohiniyattam stooped low enough to include items like Polikali and Mukkuthi which were techniques of going through the audience and extracting money from them. They too confirm the medieval confinement of Mohinyattam dancers to Palghat and bordering areas of Trichur

Bharati Shivaji equates Lasya with grace rather than erotica, and traces its origin to the 12^th century as a tangential development of dasiyattam or Kuttachiattam. As Malabar was a region favoring abhinaya, the dance development took a desi (not margi) course through natyam with abhinayam, making it different from the other dances.

Almost all writers concur that while Mohinyattam had its similarities with some moves in Bharatanatyam and mudras of Kathakali as well as similarities in music and costumes with some other dance forms such as Kaikottikali, Nangiar Kuthu and so on, it was in reality a different dance, not performed for a deity but for entertainment. MKK Nayar concurs that Dasiyattam and Nangiar Kuthu together formed inputs for Mohiniyattam. Geetha explains that while Siva danced the Tandava, Parvathi danced the lasya and that Sringara or the sentiment of love, the king of emotions is the mainstay of the dance. It focuses on both the Sambhoga and Viprlamba sringara types, the former the joy of union and the latter the loss of separation. This has to be expressed and elaborated with Abhinaya and this is the main aspect of the dance form as compared to others which tell a story fully.

Shovana Narayan links Ashtapadi, Geeta Govinda and Sopana Sangeetham to Mohiniyattam and how the verses become an indivisible part of the dance. She also mentions that Mohinyattam was part of the Kathakali repertoire, especially when feminine roles were performed.

Reformist novelist C Chatu Nayar writing in 1891 of course presents the dance in a bad light, in his novel and this has been critically analyzed by Lemos. Nayar may not have been factual, but if one were to take his writing at face value you can see Mohiniyattam at its lowest ebb, it could be described a recital comprising three dancers, of which two of the musicians were also their husbands and the third was the wife of the owner, an old Nair gentlemen who would do anything for money. The protagonist witnesses the tail end of the recital, not having seen any Mohiniyattam pieces, but only the Poli kali which is a chirpy number where the audience throws in money at the dancers ( like in a seedy bar dance) and the dancers incite the audience with erotic gestures, moves and looks. (Lemos analyses this as integral to Mohinyattam which it was NOT – Poli kali is actually a Bhagavathy dance that was included by later day troupes to get the audience to cough up money, just like the Mukutti dance where the dancer loses a nose ring and she goes around, teasing specific individuals in the audience in a sensuous way). Nayar also establishes that these troupes had a very bad image by then and after the dance the dancers shared the bed of the people who invited them for the recital. He considers it a kind of prostitution. It is also stated elsewhere in the book that some dancers sat in the laps of rich patrons and allowed themselves to be fondled. But I think we all agree that it was the decadent variety and not what it once was or it presently is. From the book it also becomes clear that there girls are the ones called tevadichi (devadasi – Thevaradi achi) and kuttachi (folk dancer) and that it is equated to one with very loose morals, with the high ground established by the Christian morality prevalent (Chatu nair himself was trained so and professes it right through the book (The discussion between the husband who wants to sleep with the girls - and his wife, is very interesting in this regard). He then emphasizes that Kathakali on the other hand is a pure dance form.

Note here that the Dasiyattam tradition prevalent in Venad and the tradition brought in by the Padi girls of Cochin who danced the Mohiniyattam at the Althara Bhagawathi temple had also declined to a low level by now. It is possible that the devadais of Venad started to include Mohiniyattam recitals in their repertoire which led to people thinking that Dasiyattam evolved into Mohinyattam. If that were the case, there would be no reason for it to have been concentrated around Palghat and for the summoning of the dancers from Palghat for important performances.

Kanak Rele goes a step further to state that it did have links to the Tamil Avinaya Kuttu which had become extinct early, but remained popular in Cheranaad. She quotes KP Pisharodi stating that these Palghat villages had an influx of people through the Palghat gap from the Tamilakam some 600 years or more, ago, during the Muslim invasions. However I am still not convinced if they then created a starta of lower division Nairs by marriage, though very much possible.

Nirmala Panikkar views Mohiniyattam as a development of Tevedichiattam which lost popularity in temples and was renamed Mohiniyattam in the 14^th -15^th century. But that does not explain how the dancers originated mainly from one locale and comprised Nairs. In a more recent article in narthaki, she opines “The items that got excluded at Kerala Kalamandalam were Polikali, Kurathy, Easal, Chandanam, Mukkuthy and Kummy. All these items are connected with the Kurathy (goddess) cult of ancient Kerala. This led to a situation that the Desi traditions were conspicuous by their absence in the repertoire and later on to a lot of controversies on the esoteric Kerala traits of Mohiniyattam. The indigenous and ancient Kurathy connection of Mohiniyattam will remove all the controversies on the origin and the Kerala identity of this art form. Kurathys are always considered as connected with magical powers, and in Kerala, Kurathy is considered as one of the oldest forms of goddess Bhagavathy”.

So who really thence elevated Mohiniyattam from a dance form once popular in the Palghat – Trichur regions, to a popular dance form? Was it Swati Tirunal, his mother Gowri Lakshmi Bayi, his consort Sugandha Parvathi nee Sugandhavalli or was it the Tanjavur quartet, specifically Vadivelu nattuvan? To get to that aspect, we have to study the mathialkom manuscripts collected by Govindan Nair and Dr Pushpa.

Before we start on this it must be noted that Travancore had dasiyattam dances and many a Padamangalam dasi is mentioned in historical records, but not as Mohiniyattam dancers, per se. That this had an impact in the style of Mohiniyattam subsequently is also apparent. The BBH mentions Mohininatanam during Karthika Tirunal’s time and some opine that perhaps this was the period when it evolved from Dasiyattam and was also later influenced by the Talinaga traditions. Karthika Thirunal. It is said that Balarama Varma, the nephew of Marthanda Varma and the then Maharaja of Travancore, appointed Karuthedathu Chomathiri to make an art-form somewhat similar to dasiyattam. Here again, I could comment that the Chomathiri’s usually hailed from the Nila region.

The BBH critic opines that Swati Tirunal did not create the dance form, but encouraged it and composed several padams in Malayalam for the use in Mohiniyattam, and that Kartika Tirunal maharajah was perhaps behind it. But that would preclude it from going to Palghat, and remaining there and there only. Ramachandran writing about Manorama Thamburati explains - Rama Varma has said that it was written after a careful study of Lasya Tantra. It gives details of hastas (hand gestures), angas (major limbs), Upangas(minor limbs)and Pratyangas (neck, wrists, knees, thighs). It is considered by most of the Mohiniyattam scholars as an important treatise on technicalities of Mohiniyattam, because, one of the earliest references to Mohiniyattam, is in Balaramabharatam. The popular danseuse and scholar, Methil Devika, differs in this, saying the treatise refers, not to Mohiniyattam, but Mohininatanam; it means only the stance that Mohini takes. But Devika too acknowledges the role of Manorama, saying her correspondence with Rama Varma is historical. The fact remains, no Mohiniyattam thesis is there without mentioning the Rama Varma-Manorama Jugalbandi. Palace records show expenditure on Mohiniyattam, as early as 1801, hinting at the efforts of Rama Varma, much before Swati Thirunal.

We find that during the period of Gowri Parvathi Bayi (1815 – 1829) four Mohiniyattam dancers performed in the Natakasala of the palace. We also note that in 1820 one Ayappa Panikkar who came from Palghat with the dancers remained and trained 4 new (local?) dancers in the art of Mohiniyattam. These girls were well compensated by the palace and so recorded. Does the name Ayappa Panikkar show a connection to N Malabar and Nangiar Kuthu?? Perhaps.

Continuing on, we see that the Travancore regents paid Varkala Anantharama Baghavathar for his Mohiniyattam troupe during 1831, showing that the dance had found its place in Travancore. This continues to the next year and we see the appearance of Parameswara Bhagavathar from Palghat in 1832. Five years late he is still there and getting handsome emoluments, and we notice Paravur Lakshmikutti a regular mohiniyattam dancer in the palace also getting rewarded. Two years later we see the arrival of Mohiniyattam exponent Kalkulam Bhaskara bhagavathar, and we see Mohiniyattam nattuvan Sankara Menon in the court. Paravur Lakshmi is still there, getting monies for her home renovation. By 1840, a time when Swati Tirunal is ruling, Parameswara Bhagavather’s third marriage is amply supported by the court, showing how important he was. The court records make fine reading with the details of so many dancers, singers and instrumentalists performing in his court. We can safely assume that Mohiniyattam blossomed and Swati’s innumerable padams (also those by Iraviyamman Thampi and Parameswara Iyer) found enchanting expressions in the dance form. The records show no participation of the Tanjavur quartet or the Tanjavur dasis in this art form or its development.

It is said that post Swati, Parameswara Bhagavathar retired to Palghat and promoted Mohiniyattam there. But then again, we know that the first Mohiniyattam dancers in 19^th century Travancore arrived from Palghat, so while he may have retired to Palghat, what is unclear is if he had anything to do with the dance or if he just concentrated on vocal music at Palghat, post retirement. Perhaps after the loss of patronage in Travancore, Mohiniyattam slipped down to the lower echelons and had only some naduvazhi’s in Palghat promoting the art.

Eventually we get to the dance as we known it today and the work done eminently by Kerala kalamandalam, Vallathol, Mukunda Raja and its earliest dancer gurus. Nandita Prabhu explains - Kerala Kalamandalam was registered in 1927 and the first Mohiniyattam Kalari started in 1932. O. Kalyaniyamma, Appuredathu Krishana Panicker, Madhaviyamma and Madhava menon were the initial mentors who tried to revive Mohiniyaṭtam. In 1950 Tottassery Cinnammu amma joined Kerala Kalamandalam as Mohiniyaṭtam tutor. Her senior disciple Kalamandalam Sathyabhama carried forward this tradition from 1956. A major milestone for the dance form was a Seminar organised by Kerala Kalamandalam in 1968 which lead to further reconstruction of Mohiniyaṭtam. This was the period when Mohiniyaṭtam developed a distinct style which can be called the Kalamandalam style. Kalyanikuttiamma, though one of the earlier students at Kalamandalam developed a style of her own when she started her own institution in 1958 and contributed extensively to develop a pedagogy by defining the Angika aspect of Mohiniyaṭtam. Her contributions gave rise to the Kalyanikuttiamma style of Mohiniyaṭtam.

According to Bharati Shivaji, a leading exponent, four styles are in vogue these days, Kalamandalam style, Kalyani Kutty style, Kanak Rele style and Bharati Shivaji styles. While Kalyanai Kutti’s style is exact, specific and definite, the kalamandalam style is more lyrical. Rele’s is more based on natyasastra, whereas Bharati’s as she explains it, was developed through research, reconstruction and amalgamation of a range of Kerala art forms, where she expanded the movement vocabulary of Mohiniattam, as also its repertoire

Vinod Mankara’s documentary – traverses the routes into the past going all the way to Vijayanagara, Tanjore, Travancore and along the way. He concludes that it was a dance which was always there, represented regionally in different forms and one which evolved over time. Lyrical and beautifully made, it provides a good perspective for a beginner wondering about Mohiniyattam’s origins (His Kalyani btw was the inspiration for my Ammini!). Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s documentary also traces the path of a student, but I saw only some clips from it, not the full movie.

I am not sure that the description of my journey of discovery through all these secondary sources traced any conclusive connection of the dance to Palghat, but the fact remains that the Nila region was home to many a Mohiniyattam danseuse and asans during the 1800-1900 time frame. Today we see variations with new padams, tunes and ragas, as gurus pick up new inputs from their travels around the world. The days of Ammini are long gone, but then again, to get a feel of the days when families lounged on the floor and watched the dancers sway in the dim light of a hurricane lamp, with live music, read on…

Ammini - I am ready, I still have markings of the mailanji on my hands, I have mailanji on my feet and the small arammula mirror I got when we went south the other day for a performance, tells me that my face looks pretty. Sadly the mirror is not big enough for me to see all of myself. My cousin Lakshutti also tells me that I look good. There is only her for company these days, after my mother died of fever many days ago. I can hear my uncle bellowing across the parambu at the field workers, not that the harvest is any good this year, better to finish off and be ready before he comes in after his dip in the pond, ready to take me to the Ambala parambu where the others would come soon.

So as you know already, my name is Amminikutty and I am 17 years old. I like dancing, I don’t really dance for the gods, I don’t dance for the feudal lords though that is what it is all about these days, I don’t get involved in the requests for sambandham after the dances, at least not yet, though Ammama would encourage me to meet the right person from the right illam. I love to dance to the music of my land, especially when Chandu sings it a little different from the kottipaadi seva at the Thiruvilwamala temple. That is when I can forget the poverty, I can forget the difficult life I have, in the clamor of the applause and get lost dancing for the lilting andolika gamakams. Or perhaps it is because I like Chandu too much, but well…that’s another story…

I became a Mohiniyattam dancer after seeing the attakaris at kannambra. The steps were fascinating, the music was soothing and I liked the way the nettuvan treated and trained the dancers. I decided to learn from him. That was 4 years ago. It took me a while and I am now a randam kita dancer, but am not sure if I will ever become Onnam kita. I am a popular dancer because I am pretty, dance well and still single. Usually an attakari dances for about 5 years and eventually finds the right patron to marry and settle down, you see, that is the best we can do and it is better than marrying some laborer chosen by ammama. There is nobody left in my family and ammayi is bedridden with something ailing her chest. They say she will die soon. Somebody has to earn, correct? And I do not hate dancing or my life, anyway……..

I must stop now, ammama has come and we will go in the kalavandi to the mannapra koothambalam today. Nattuvan Raman, Othukaran Chandu and Thootikaran Keluvaar (he is a Tamizhan) will be there by the time I reach. I am ready for my performance………… Are you??

References

Mohiniyattam - A dance tradition of Kerala - Betty True Jones

Devadasi system in Kerala – MGS Narayanan

Bracketing lasya: An ethnographic study of Mohiniyattam dance - Lemos, Justine Alexia

Balaramabharatam BBH– Easwaran Nampoothiri

The art of Mohiniyattam – Bharati Shivaji

Mohiniyattam – The lasya dance – G Venu, Nirmala Panikkar

Mohiniattam – Geetha Radhakrishnan

Nangiar Kuthu – Nirmala paniker

Classical arts of Kerala – MKK Nayar

Social status of courtesans in medieval Kerala – M Sumathy

Indian classical dance – Shovana narayanan

Mohiniyattam – Kanak rele

Charitrathinde edukal – K Govindan Nair, Dr B Pushpa

Swati Tirunal – N Balakrishnan nair

Meenakshi – C Chatu Nair

Mohiniyattam – MKK Nayar

Mohiniyattam papers – Sugandhavalli Bayi & Nanditha Prabhu

Stylistic variations in Mohiniyattam – Nandita Prabhu

Nitya Kalyani (DVD) –Documentary by Vinod Mankara

La Danse De L’Enchanteresse (France, 2007) Adoor Gopalakrishnan

Ramachandran’sarticle

Whither Mohiniyattam – Methil Devika

Maddys ramblings previous articles – Sopana Sangeetham, From Krishnattam to Kathakali, Tanjore and its Carnatic music legacy, The Tanjavur Quartet, Ammini Ammal’s story

My account on Ammini Ammal and her travel to Europe is perhaps a good reference for perspective.

Postscript

I must, above all, thank my friend, scholar and accomplished dancer Nandita Prabhu who provided me valuable reference material, so much of support and critical advice.

My humble thanks to Methil Devika (I don’t know her) who was the real reason for this ‘feeble’ study which took me a very long time and perusal of so many books and resources. When my wife directed me to one of her articles, I was somewhat piqued by her words. Those words however encouraged me to delve into this complex topic which I did, over the course of which I unearthed some details of Sopana Sangeetham which I had posted earlier. I also learned some basic nuances of a now defunct raga named Samantha Malhari and I eventually started to understand Devika’s direction.

However, I found it difficult to agree with some of Lemos’s conclusions in her fine thesis, though the direction she took and the painstaking research are commendable, and I believe it is not impertinent to suggest that like minded researchers also read KM Panikkar’s ‘Some aspects of Nayar Life’, a short explanatory booklet written by a Nair, to understand medieval Nairs a little better. I am in no way qualified to make criticisms, but the history, culture and behavior of Nairs is quite complicated to most people.

Some aspects of Nayar life

Pic – Smita Rajan , granddaughter of Kalyanikutti amma, fromWikimedia commons

As RK Narayan once said, I never tire writing about coffee. This is perhaps my fourth article on the subject, but this time it is about an adulterant added to coffee, called chicory (Chichorium Intybus). From that original purpose, it has morphed into an ingredient integral to South Indian coffee and has the potential to trigger many a deep debate over its merits and demerits, much to the amusement of the western onlooker who still believe that pure coffee is the right coffee (never mind the fact that the supposedly pure coffee from major brands has many more additives and chemicals than you would choose to believe). Alas! Chicory never gets its due and is always treated as a step brother, so I guess it is time to try and change the status quo.

I still remember, as a child, I was the one usually sent to buy coffee from the local grinder. My mother would instruct me to say ‘Robusta or Peaberry with 20% chicory’ and my father would pull me aside as I stepped out, and ask me to change the proportion to 25% chicory. This had repeated itself so many times in the past that it now remains as one of those indelible memories etched in this now old head.

Recently, a reader ‘kannurgal’ professed some interesting advice on how to make South Indian style coffee from local US blends. She suggested a couple of options, such as adding Louisiana chicory coffee to Melita coffee in a 2:1 ratio to create a version similar to the typical S Indian blends. Another idea was to buy chicory and grind it with Malabar monsoon coffee. And that thought took me to the plantations in Wynad where I was born, where my dad was practicing medicine in those days. I still recall going to the tea factories, and the smells come wafting back from Mananthawady, though at that time, the coffee plantations were struggling with the widespread effects of the coffee leaf disease.

Just imagine the scene with an avuncular South Indian wearing his dhoti, lounging on his easy chair in his house nestling in between many others in the busy side lanes of Triplicane, not far from Wallajah road, and his pondatti robed in her many meter long silk saree brings him his specially brewed coffee infused with chicory, see how his nostrils twitch as the smell wafts up from the glass! He takes the glass reverently in his right hand, the dowarah in his left and proceeds to transfer the contents from one to the other till the right temperature for its ingestion, into his portly frame, has been reached and a half inch thick foam has formed on the surface. Then he takes a short sip from the steel glass in his right hand (mind it – right hand!) and his eyes close, his spirits lift and his mind drifts to days long gone, usually his younger days. His wife of many moons is now on her way back, but asks…sariyayirikka? Nodding, our man who has been jolted back to reality, stoops left to pick up the Hindu paper which had been cast aside. He will now continue reading S Muthiah’s ‘Madras Miscellany’, masterly writing even today craftily composed in the old fashioned way by the 85 year old Muthiah, on a typewriter….

Coffee has always been a drink with strong history, which waxed and waned in popularity – from being a favorite at times to becoming a banned substance. Now that brings us to an interesting discussion – somebody tried to ban coffee? Sacrilege!! In 1511 coffee was banned in Mecca as the governor Khair Baig believed it promoted radical thinking and augmented mental stimulation (not done!). Soon it was almost banned in Italy as the clergy believed it to be a satanic drink, but Pope Clement ruled otherwise, even going on to say that it should be baptized. In 1623 it was banned in Istanbul and anybody caught drinking it was lashed for the first offence and packed in a leather bag and thrown into the Bosporus to die, for a second offence. Sweden banned it in 1746 and decided that it should be used as a killer potion for death convicts!! In 1675 it (together with sherbet and tea) was banned in Britain. In 1777 it was banned in Prussia as the king decided that it interfered with beer drinking. He said - “It is disgusting to notice the increase in the quantity of coffee used by my subjects and the like amount of money that goes out of the country in consequence. My people must drink beer. His Majesty was brought up on beer, and so were his ancestors.” Needless to say that all these are interesting stories and make great telling on a rainy day with a ‘Cuppa Joe’ in your hand…

But then let’s get back to the subject at hand, and focus on Chicory, which interestingly turned out to be a wartime beverage additive, and a biblical plant with obscure Indian origins! The cultivated chicory plant has a history reaching back beyond Egyptian times. Its bitter leaves were originally used in salads and was found to be particularly useful in treating intestinal worms, and eventually became popular in German medicine for all kinds of ailments from inflamed sinuses to gallstones. In Europe, Chicory was popularized in Austria after Frederick banned coffee itself. And an innkeeper in Brunswick found that its root when dried, ground and roasted made a bitter but tasty substitute for coffee. Medieval monks raised these plants and when coffee was introduced to Europe, the Dutch thought that chicory made a lively addition to coffee. It became very popular as a coffee substitute and adulterant during wars and in prisons, and has been widely used by the French in Napoleonic wars from where its consumption moved on to the French territories in America. Louisiana started to add it to coffee in the 1840’s (some say it came much earlier with the Acadians when they were ousted from Canada) when Coffee imports were curtailed during the civil war.

For the uninitiated, this herb (which btw a form of endive) had a long white root with a bitter juice. If by itself, it is brewed in hot water, all it produces is a bitter, dark drink without the aroma, flavor, body, or caffeine kick of coffee, but when mixed with coffee, well, that’s another matter altogether…

You will be surprised really, to read all the stories about Chicory, a wayside plant with bright blue flowers. While the Dutch still use it for salads, and have tried various methods to get rid of the bitter tastes, the race which picked up where the Austrians left it were the French who developed a taste for chicory during the Napoleonic era, and continued to mix the herb root with their coffee even after. The Creole French as they say, adopted the taste and made it popular in the USA.

Some might wonder why I mentioned it a biblical herb – Well, it is not proven, but it comes from Exodus 12:8 where it is said - And they shall eat that flesh in the night, roast with fire and unleavened bread, and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Experts opine that Chicory from India or the Mediterranean was perhaps one of those bitter herbs, so mentioned. The word 'Chicory' is apparently derived from the Egyptian word 'Ctchorium' and the plant was cultivated as early as 5,000 years ago by Egyptians as a medicinal plant while Greeks and Romans used chicory as a vegetable and in salads. As is mentioned, references to the plant exist in the writings of Horace, Virgil, Ovid, and Pliny, while Galenus gave it the name 'Friend of the Liver', because of its supposed stimulating effect on that organ.

Simmonds explains its introduction in Europe - The manufacture of a factitious coffee from roasted chicory root would seem to have originated in Holland, where it has been used for more than a century. It remained a secret until 1801, when it was introduced into Prance by M. Orban of Liege, and M. Griraud of Homing, a short distance from Yaleneiennes. This root is not superior to many others which possess sweet and mucous principles, but of all the plants which have been proposed as substitutes for coffee, and which, when roasted and steeped in boiling water, yield an infusion resembling the berry, it is the only one which has maintained its ground.

But as the price of coffee rose up and production failed to catch up with demand, clever merchants cheated using chicory as an adulterant. This became rife and in Britain the use of chicory in coffee was banned altogether in 1832, and for many years it was mired in legal wrangles due to all these nefarious traders desiring to profit, but not with any intention to improve the taste of the resulting concoction. Many representations and articles followed.

Charles Dickens writing in ‘Household words’ (Justice to chicory) following the ban of Coffee and Chicory in London- Because we do not like to receive chicory under the name of coffee, it by no means follows that we object to receive chicory in its own name, or that we consider it wrong to marry chicory and coffee to each other; the alliance may be advantageous, only let it not be secret. Secret marriages can scarcely lead to any good. Any stranger reading an order of this kind, and knowing how many poisonous adulterations are familiarly tolerated in this country, would suppose chicory, which must not be kept in a loose state under the same roof with coffee, to be some very dreadful thing, some dietetic gunpowder that grocers use for the undermining of the constitution in this country. In truth it is, however, one of the most harmless substances that ever have been used for the purpose of adulteration, not excepting even water, as it is obtained in London. In the case of all low-priced coffee- of all coffee purchased by the poor, adulteration with chicory yields profit to the grocer, simply because it yields pleasure to the customer. Good chicory and middling coffee dexterously mixed can be sold at the price of bad coffee, and will make a beverage at least twice as good, and possibly more, certainly not less, wholesome.

He continues - By the combination of a little chicory with coffee the flavor of the coffee is not destroyed, but there is added to the infusion a richness of flavor, and a depth of color—a body, which renders it to very many people much more welcome as a beverage. The cheapness of chicory enables a grocer, by the combination of chicory powder with good coffee, to sell a compound which will yield a cup of infinitely better stuff than any pure coffee that can be had at the same price.

Why did Dickens launch his tirade in support of chicory? The history of the legislation upon chicory, so far as it is necessary for an understanding of the order of last August, may be very briefly told. It was provided by an act in 1832, the 43d George 111, c. 129, s. 5, that if any vegetable substance shall be called by the vendor thereof British, or any other name of coffee or cocoa, the article shall be forfeited, and the owner shall be fined one hundred pounds. The said ban continued until 1853.

But chicory was not just for the coffee drinkers, for example it has been part of many other legends. The Wegenwarte story is interesting– it is lore that a German girl waited and waited for her lover who had gone on a voyage, never to return that she eventually took root and turned into the blue Chicory. Others believed that it provided a measure of invisibility when consumed, so much so that warriors afraid of death hung it on banners while going about the medieval crusades, Californian prospectors kept a bit of chicory root in their pockets while digging for gold, and then again it was supposed to help locked boxes, while others said that the woodpecker got its strength by rubbing its beak on chicory stems, as ladies used it as a cosmetic to remove skin blemishes and (apparently) to firm up breasts after childbirth, while those sick used it as a perfect potion to combat jaundice.

I could not help laughing after reading this outrageous remark from a Frenchman - Mizaldus a French Physician and astronomer in the 16^thcentury- If a Woman anoint often her Dugs or Paps with the juice of Succory (chicory), it will make them little, round, and hard; or if they be hanging or bagging, it will draw them together, whereby they shall seem as the dugs of a maid. God! I can’t believe today’s women applying chicory to their dugs and paps!!!!

The impatient may hasten to pipe in with the question - how did the herb, which was lost out over generations to India, come back to India and become popular as an additive? Well, in Mughal Delhi, coffee drinking was popular. Ed Terry writes in 1616- "Many of the people there, who are strict in their religion, drink no wine at all; but they use a Liquor more wholesome than pleasant, they call Coffee; made by a black Seed boiled in water, which turns it almost into the same color, but doth very little alter the taste of the water: notwithstanding it is very good to help digestion, to quicken the spirits, and to cleanse the blood." By 1780 coffee houses had come into vogue in India, a Madras coffee house was opened, and later one called Exchange coffee house had been opened in 1792 at Ft St George.

The British can be seen at work here and many feel it has to do with what they called camp coffee.

Camp Coffee is a Scottish food product, which began production in 1876 and is a brown liquid which consists of water, sugar, 4% caffeine-free coffee essence, and 26% chicory essence. Subsequently a number of Indian soldiers were exposed to this and the chicory mixed coffee, during the world wars when rationing was resorted to. Some of them started military hotels and messes after coming back to Madras. Whether all this is directly connected to the South Indian filter coffee is not clear, but the common man had close proximity to the British military officer and so the camp coffee or adulterated mixes and/or its taste must have remained in their minds for somebody to develop the concoction later. I would also go on to assume that while the burra sahib consumed proper coffee, he recommended coffee adulterated with chicory for his menial staff, if at all he gave them some.

Perhaps that was the version which became popular among the general public and as time went by, Chicory got accepted as an additive that makes coffee ‘stronger’ in taste.

Aparna Datta in her fine article traces the coffee route and shows that it was a popular and exotic drink offered in shops near temples which was imbibed by curious men, thus finding its eventual route into the Madras Kitchen. But how? She explains - By 1860, coffee cultivation in the Western Ghats had gained momentum, and by the late 19th century, it may be assumed that apart from the coffee destined for export, some bags of coffee found their way into the domestic market. Facilitated by the railways and orchestrated by enterprising local traders and vendors, coffee moved from road-side stalls into the Tamil home, finding aficionados who roasted their own beans – peaberry preferably – and devised their own unique gadgets and utensils for roasting, grinding, brewing and serving. In the process, they elevated filter coffee into an art form and created a coffee culture that practically defines a community.

Very soon coffee clubs increased and even Iyer coffee clubs came into being in Madras. This Madras version is called ribbon coffee or degree coffee, but that is another subject requiring a long discourse on another day nevertheless, to clarify the former, ribbon coffee or meter coffee is called so due to the meter long ribbon look created by a ‘kappi man’ making it. And how is it in other places? The content of chicory is quite high in Kerala, with the percentage going as high as 47% in many brands, with Kerala and Andhra Pradesh recorded as two the states where people prefer higher blends of chicory.

A little aside– what is peaberry and why is peaberry coffee special? Erin Meister explains that it is one of two in the pods in a coffee bean, smaller, denser and cuter than its twin and a mutated one at that. According to Erin ‘Fans think they taste noticeably sweeter and more flavorful than standard-issue beans; naysayers insist they can't tell the difference. Continuing, she says - Because there's no way to tell from looking at the cherry itself whether there's a single- or double-header inside, these little guys need to be hand-sorted after picking and processing in order to be sold separately. As a result, in many cases the peaberries are sold for roasting right alongside their normal counterparts. Occasionally, growers will hand-select the tiny mutants for special sale, sometimes at a premium—not only because of their taste, but also because of the amount of labor involved, as well as their relative rarity.’

Venkatachalapathy’s book, especially its first chapter is perhaps the most illuminating when it comes top coffee consumption in S India – He explains that the habit of drinking a morning coffee came into being around 1915, replacing the morning gruel or Kanji and even coolies had come to demand it during breaks. So much so, it soon became known as kutti-kal or junior alcohol amongst chaste Gandhians.

Muthiah and Chalapathy quote Pudumaipithan’s writings to demonstrate the holiness of chicory - In Kadavulum Kandasami Pillayum, Lord Siva has an encounter with one Kandasami Pillai of Madras and discusses earthly matters. In one sequence they both enter a coffee club (as the coffee pubs were once called) and God tasting the coffee is extremely taken up with the aroma and taste. He says after sipping it that he felt as though he had tasted Soma Bana itself, and declares, “This is my leelai”. Pillai retorts, “No, it is not your leelai but that of the coffeemaker here, who has used chicory!” God reacts, “What is chicory?” Pillai replies, “It is something like coffee but not coffee! It is actually cheating, like some cheat does in the name of God!”

S. Muthiah remarks- One problem with coffee consumption in India is the preference of the consumer for coffee mixed with chicory and upto a 49 per cent admixture is permitted. He adds - Pure coffee is a thing of the past, even in South India. Coffee purists insist that even the 51:49 regulation is not right and that Chicory is good only for improving profits. They say that the damn root masks the intrinsic properties of coffee, suppresses its aroma and destroys the real flavor. But then again, the content of chicory has become a marketing gimmick for most south Indian brands, proudly upping the percentage as time go by…

Today we have many specialty coffees and the monsoon blend from Kerala (perhaps Nelliyampati or Idukki) is picking up steam, what with the pods swollen by the monsoon moisture and providing a special intriguing mellow aroma. As ace coffee taster Shalini Menon puts it, a good coffee taster should have a long nose and a good tongue. I have along nose and I think a reasonably good tongue, perhaps I should have become a coffee taster (a country cousin became a tea taster!) but then I would have to decry Chicory….

And then again, I like the coffee story about Turkish bridegrooms who were once upon a time required to make a promise during their wedding ceremonies to always provide their new wives with coffee. If they failed to do so, it was grounds for divorce! And one must not forget Beethoven who was a coffee lover, he was so particular about his coffee that he always counted 60 beans (whether he did it with purpose is not clear, for he even fired and then re-hired his maid in a day because he couldn’t figure out how to light up his stove) for each cup when he had his cuppa made.

But nothing to beat RKN when it comes to description of the whole coffee making process or for that matter Shoba Narayanan with her reminiscences in Monsoon Diary, all stuff which are recommended for serious coffee enthusiasts..

A bit about Coffee estates in Wynaad – Quoting Waddington, In Wynaad coffee cultivation was first started by military officials. The first plantation was started by a military official at Mananthavady, known as Captain Bevan, who was in charge of the 27th Regiment of the Madras Native Infantry of the East India Company. He bought coffee plants from Anjarakkandy and it grew well. Because of this successful experiment, the then-collector of Malabar W. Shefield encouraged the cultivation by sending Anjarakkandy plants to Wayanad. But the largescale cultivation proved a failure during the period, because of the lack of technical knowledge regarding the process of cultivation. Agents of Parry and Company, while on their way to Baba Budan hills in Bangalore, passed through Wayanad and were struck by the flourishing coffee plants in Wayanad. They were impressed by the growth of the trees and the quantity of the crop. Immediately, they made arrangements to start a coffee plantation near Mananthavady in North Wayanad. Within a few years several entrepreneurs started estates in Mananthavady. Glasson, Richmond and Morris were the pioneers among them.

Then came the gold rush - see my article on it and after that debacle and the leaf disease, tea emerged as a popular beverage, with high demand in Britain, slowly displacing coffee.

Notwithstanding the great benefits of regular or adulterated coffee, an enterprising company has recently launched something called Ayurvedic Roast - a coffee substitute which borrows from both the American tradition of using roasted barley, rye, and chicory, and the Indian Ayurvedic system of health by adding the traditional herbs of ashwagandha, shatavari, and brahmi.

Well well….Not for me though…..

References

Household Words: A Weekly Journal, Volume 6 – Charles dickens

In those days there was no coffee- AR Venkatachalapathy

Herbs of the Bible - Allan A. Swenson

Dictionary of Plant Lore - D.C. Watts

Coffee and Chicory - Peter Lund Simmonds

A Connoisseurs book of Indian coffee – Coffee board & Aparna Datta

From Mocha to Mysore: A Coffee Journey – Aparna Dutta

An interesting account of its history.....

Many years ago, in fact it was some 123 years ago that the name Lakme rose into prominence. Well, all of you will agree that the native version, the name of Goddess Lakshmi was prevalent centuries before that. But Lakme was brought to print and western minds during the late 19th century. It was the name of an opera composed by the French composer Léo Delibes in 1881 based on a story ‘Les babouches du Brahmane,' by Theodore Pavie. But in the modern Indian mind, Lakme has always been associated with a line of pioneering beauty products and fashion shows from the house of Tata.

Nevertheless, let us first take a look at how the French play was written and what it was about. If you recall, sometime back I had written about Mata Hari and how she performed her oriental Indo –Balinese dances to titillate the public some years after. Well, she saw the business sense in all that and working on the mysteries of the orient to her benefit. But this was perhaps the dance opera which showed Mata Hari the potential of yet another kind of Asian spice in the West. The play Lakme as it turns out, included an array of characters, most specifically Lakmé, the daughter of a Brahmin priest Nilakanta living in a temple situated in the Bengal sunderbans. It went onto become a very popular opera and was played over a 1000 times in Paris during the years 1883-1931. And it continues to be played even today in various theatres. Of course it also included a retinue of western characters, especially British officers enamored by the mystery and allure of native traditions and the magnetic lure of forbidden love.

The story of how the play got conceived by Delibes in the first place, is equally interesting and for that you have to study Thordore Pavie and how he got to writing the book on which the play is based. This gent was an Orientalist and deeply involved in the study of foreign languages. During the period between 1835 and 1839, Pavie pursued Sanskrit under Eugene Bournouf in Paris. In 1839 he found an opportunity to travel India accompanying a British Chief Engineer on an inspection tour of Calcutta. That was how Pavie spent two years in India drawing, taking notes, and collecting stories. After going back, he published several of these stories a decade later titled ‘Scenes et recits despays d'outre-mer’. Many of the characters of the play Lakme come out of these tales. Philippe Gille, who was reworking the script for the new show to open in Angers after its successful reception in Paris met up with Delibes and that was when Delibes asked Gille the origin of Lakme. Gille told him that the idea arose after perusing "Les babouches du Brahmane," a story taken from a book whose author was apparently a man named Pavie. Alarmed that they had never sought permission from the author, the playwright rushed to meet him and well, as the story goes - complimentary tickets were the only royalties ever paid to Theodore Pavie, whose work had been the inspiration for the successful opera.

And that was how Lakshmi became Lakme and ended up in France, but ironically, the character in Pavie’s book was named Rukmini!! And so, the wife of lord Krishna remained in India while Lakme, the queen of wealth, went to France.

But how did Lakme find its way back to India from France?

As the popular story line goes - In the first flush of independence, Nehru had written to JRD Tata of his concern over the loss of valuable foreign exchange due to the import of perfumes and cosmetics. He urged the industrialist to explore manufacturing these products in India. Naturally, then Tata

executives turned to France, as it was renowned for its perfumeries. Naval Tata was given the job of developing a division of TOMCO (Tata Oil Mills) that would produce perfumes and cosmetics. But what would they call this division? At that time, there was an opera playing in Paris, which had an Indian theme and in which the Goddess Lakshmi’s name was invoked. Someone who had seen the play suggested Lakme — the French pronunciation for Lakshmi, so the company was named Lakme, as a tribute to Goddess Lakshmi!

So it seemed, but a slightly deeper study suggests that the name was arrived at after great deliberation at the Tata Sons offices at Fort Bombay. In fact, other versions also exist about there being a popular cabaret dancer from India names Lakshmi in Paris and her anglicized name Lakme came to being imaginatively used by Simone Tata for the cosmetics line, which remains to this day, one of India’s most trusted brands.

But the real storyline is not exactly as popularly stated, though pretty close. That story is as interesting as is the person who was at Lakme’s helm from the very start, none other than Simone Tata, the wife of the ‘other Tata’ – Naval Tata. French by birth and of Swiss upbringing, she is even today considered to be the Cosmetic Czarina of India. Brought up in Geneva, Simone graduated in Arts from the Geneva University. As is oft mentioned, she was fond of travelling, and came to India as a tourist in 1953, where she met her future husband, Naval H. Tata. They were married in 1955 and she settled down in Bombay.

How she came to control the cosmetic line making powders, compacts, lipsticks, creams and all that which go on to hide the many blemishes and highlight the lovely features of an Indian lady, is the story worthy of attention. It tells us about the times and the way India struggled after independence to create its own identity. In fact it was as heady as it was turbulent for the new bureaucrats and its inhabitants. With numerous hurdles to cross, not knowing friends from foes in the geopolitical scene, enmeshed in the grip of poverty, but seen as a major player in the world stage, the young India carefully took the first steps led by Jawaharlal Nehru. Today a lot of people find fault with him and Krishna Menon about why they did not ensure the wellbeing of the Indian army and why it was never equipped and trained. But what they do not know, arguing vehemently in the aftermath of the Chinese debacle, is that fluid money was not something India possessed in required quantities then. The tax revenue system hardly existed and the government as well as big Industries struggled to make ends meet.

Lakme was born during such a period. It was also a period when high society obtained its beautification products by import from the West. Lakshmi or the goddess of wealth was most certainly not smiling on her own country in those days and in jest one could remark - perhaps because she was in France!

As the story continues, Indira Gandhi, Vijayalakshi Pandit and Padmaja Naidu rose up in arms representing womenfolk and decided to ask the government what they planned to do with the increasing demand for cosmetics which had until then been imported and were now in the banned list. An angry delegation led by Indira Gandhi was finally met by Nehru’s PA, MO Mathai who was asked why these things could not be made in India, if imports were banned. (Mathai’s recounting of the story is quite hilarious as to how Indira stopped talking to him for a week when he questioned her about the percentage of affected Indian women. According to him, they then waylaid Nehru himself! Not to stop there their offices were flooded with telegrams from irate women lambasting the Finance minister . Finally MO Mathai was spurred into action and contacted Naroji) MO Mathai got in touch with NAD Naroji (then local director for Tata’s in Delhi) of the Tata’s (Even though the Tata’s themselves were not in good favor with the socialist leaning government and the Industrial policy resolution of 1956 was not auguring well with the industrialist), got Nehru’s approval (and a prime ministerial carte blanche to get the project up and running without any bottlenecks) and that was how Lakme was created by the Tata’s with some French collaboration and a government nod and support.

And now the storyline takes a steep dive down India, to the Southern city of Cochin where Tata’s had previously started TOMCO or Tata Oil Mills Co at Tatapuram. JRD’s friend Padshah had met an American named Thompson who was pressing copra for oil in the Philippines and that was how the idea of an oil plant in India was born. He explained to Padshshah that the US needed the coconut oil and that it made great business sense. But the Americans had in the meantime invested heavily on coconut plantations in the Philippines and to protect this investment levied huge import duties on coconut oil from India. As it looks, Thomson in the meantime became TOMCO’s advisor and misspent the huge capital invested by the Tata’s in buying machinery and things like boats and boathouses for himself. He took the Tata’s on a right royal ride, till they saw light and fired him. But Tomco was a reality and quickly diversified into making ancillary products using oil, like soap (Soap John or PT John was the man behind this). Competition with the British manufacturer Lever’s was stiff though the market stabilized however after a price cut attempt by Lever’s failed. Tata’s 501 and Hamam became popular.

But what has TOMCO of Cochin got to do with the fragrant Lakme? Lakme eventually started as a 100% subsidiary of Tata Oil Mills (Tomco) which was part of the Tata Group. Later, Tata Oil Mills decided they needed a Managing Director for Lakme.

Simone on the other hand, had left war-torn Europe and it was in India that she found peace and her future life partner. Was she meant to play the role of the society wife of a well-heeled businessman? Well, as matters turned out, she was contacted by a director at Tata sons and asked if she could join the board of Lakme after it was formed. She was told that it was a small time job, a couple of hours of work every three months. Not long after she realized that it was much more, when she found it a demanding job, though it was an unpaid one, for Lakme had no money to pay a salary. Interestingly when the MD post of TOMCO was offered to Simone, Naval was the first to say No! No!, and Simone questioned him on why he was trying to decide on her behalf… Simone modelled the company around Revlon, evolving in methods as time went. Initially she used her pocket money to visit beauty parlors in Paris and learn the tricks of the trade, the various creams and powders. But then again, marketing it in India was not easy, so the first Lakme Lavender talc was actually advertised as a fabulous French fragrance. The Lakme vanishing cream was launched simultaneously. So that was how she went on to provide yeoman service and by hard work and dynamic focus, promoted Lakme to position it a prominent jewel in the House of Tatas. Since then it ruled the roost until 1986 when it was divested ironically to the same company Tomco had competed with, the Lever organization Hindustan Lever for over 200 crores. Simone continues her busy life immersed in the workings of the Westside stores and other philanthropic matters.

But let us get back to the opera Lakme one last time. Lakme in the story is more popular as a singer amongst her people though the British officer was enchanted by her looks. The costumes and posture of Lakme evoked some amount of curiosity, especially that of Lilly Pons in New York. Her bare midriff caused quite a sensation above an apparently original 200 year old Indian silk skirt which she wore. The play itself got a further boost when British airways picked up one of the songs to play in its commercial some decades ago. GK Bhoghal who studied the play opines that Delibes depiction of Lakme promote a category of female extravagance that surpasses current associations of excess with seduction, sensuality, insanity, promiscuity and sexual deviance.

Like I do sometimes, I have to leave a question at the end, much in the lines of the Canterbury tales, to connect up with the next topic. What connection could Lakme or Lakshmi have with Saint Sarah?

References

Exemplary CEOs: Insights on Organisational Transformation - Shrinivas Pandit

Tata: Evolution of a Corporate Brand - Morgen Witzel

The Arts of the Prima Donna in the Long Nineteenth Century edited by Rachel Cowgill, Hilary Poriss

The Voyage to Excellence: The Ascent of 21 Women Leaders of India Inc -Nischinta Amarnath, Debashish Ghosh

Theodore Pavie's ‘Les babouches du Brahmane’ and the Story of Delibes's Lakme – Charles PD Cronin & Betje Black Klier

The Creation of Wealth: The Tatas from the 19th to the 21st Century - R. M. Lala

"Jeh", a Life of J.R.D. Tata - Bakhtiar Dadabhoy

Lakme the play – Synopsis by NPR

Lakme is set in British India in the 19th century. Nilakantha, a Brahmin priest, is bent on rebelling against the occupying British, who have forbidden him from practicing his religion. When Nilakantha goes to attend a gathering of the faithful, his daughter Lakme and her servant Millika are left behind. The two go off toward a river to gather flowers and sing the famous "Flower Duet." As they approach the water, Lakme removes her jewelry and leaves it on a bench. Nearby, British officers Gerald and Frederic are on a picnic with two young English girls and their governess. The girls notice Lakme's jewelry and want sketches of the pieces. Gerald agrees to stay behind to make the drawings. Lakme and Mallika return, and Gerald hides. Then Mallika goes off, leaving Lakme alone. When Lakme spots Gerald, she's frightened and cries out. But when people come to help, she sends them away. Lakme's heart is doing flip-flops over this young stranger, and he's taken with her as

well. But Lakme knows it's dangerous for them to be seen together, and she tells Gerald to forget he ever saw her. When Nilakantha returns, he's furious at finding Gerald with Lakme and says the officer will pay for his affront to Lakme's honor. Nearby, British officers Gerald and Frederic are on a picnic with two young English girls and their governess. The girls notice Lakme's jewelry and want sketches of the pieces. Gerald agrees to stay behind to make the drawings. Lakme and Mallika return, and Gerald hides. Then Mallika goes off, leaving Lakme alone. When Lakme spots Gerald, she's frightened and cries out. But when people come to help, she sends them away. Lakme's heart is doing flip-flops over this young stranger, and he's taken with her as well. But Lakme knows it's dangerous for them to be seen together, and she tells Gerald to forget he ever saw her. When Nilakantha returns, he's furious at finding Gerald with Lakme and says the officer will pay for his affront to Lakme's honor. Gerald is recovering in the forest, with Hadji watching over him, when Lakme arrives. They hear singing far in the distance, and Lakme tells Gerald it's a band of lovers going to drink from a sacred spring whose waters confer the gift of eternal love. Lakme wants to get water from the spring herself, and when she leaves, Gerald's friend Frederic turns up. He reminds Gerald that he's been ordered to a new post, far away. Gerald knows he must fulfill his duty and leave Lakme behind. When Lakme returns from the spring, she senses what's happening. Knowing she's about to lose Gerald, she finds a flower that's known to be poisonous and swallows it. Overwhelmed by her act of devotion, Gerald drinks from the cup of sacred spring water. Doing so is a holy declaration of love — a vow of fidelity that even Nilakantha can't revoke. The poisonous blossom takes effect, and Lakme dies in Gerald's arms as her father looks on.

Operation Longshanks and the Calcutta Light Horse

The Second World War had gripped almost the whole world in its vise like grip. Some countries entered into the war arena with a good amount of confusion and trepidation, some were forced into it, some watched from the edges, affected though by the fall out. Indians as a whole were not too fearful about the whole thing except when the Japanese planned their incursions through the North East. Most of the Indian populace were more interested in wresting themselves away from the British yoke while some served the British forces in faraway lands, fighting somebody else’s war. Some supported the Germans and the INA’s activities in Japan. Of course there were some tremors when the axis ships passed by shore lines, though some stopped for some refueling, R&R or some such thing as Ruby recounted in her book on Cochin. Up in the North East, a lot was going on though that story is still not very well known to Indians, like this story. Some months ago I decided to work on uncovering the CBI Theater in the North East and one event that surfaced was the fascinating story of Ehrenfels. It was the fodder for a book called The Sea Wolves (Boarding Party) and an insipid movie by the same name, starring Gregory Peck, David Nivien, Roger Moore etc…

India on the whole was well under British control in those years, and in 1939, when the 2^nd world war started, Europeans were in the thick of it and many a war theatre was played in those lands. The British bureaucracy in India were considering what their future would be after the war and some of them were planning their future in India or completing their travel back to Britain or other locales like Australia. The estate folks in Assam continued their laid back lives and visited Calcutta at times, meeting up and enjoying colonial life, and a few of them had some years back formed the Calcutta Light Horse in 1872, after the Anglo Boer war becoming a Cavalry Reserve in the British Indian Army. But before we get to these folks, let us see what triggered all these events.

There were a few places in the Indian mainland which were independent and beyond British Jurisdiction, examples were Goa, Mahe and Pondicherry. While the former was Portuguese territory, the latter were French. As the world war erupted, the Portuguese were considered neutral and as Decosta notes ‘from the British perspective, Portuguese non-belligerency was essential to keep Spain from entering the war on the side of the Axis’. As the war progressed, British sea channels were severely affected by an effective and aggressive Nazi U boat force. The cargo ships plying raw material and personnel between the distant theatres and supply centers in India were attacked incessantly by these U boats which Churchill considered alarming "The only thing that really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril”. Anti-submarine tactics were still to become effective and it was a period German submariners considered “die glückliche Zeit" or "the happy time.

But just as the war clouds darkened, on 28^th Aug 1939, a German vessel named ‘Ehrenfels’ which was heading out from Bhavnagar towards Bombay, instead, slipped hurriedly into the Marmugao port of Goa for its own security, as was stated. The next day another German ship ‘Drachenfels’ which had actually left Goa bound for Rotterdam returned to Marmugao port and docked there for good. Three days later, the ‘Braunfels’ headed to Calcutta from Djibouti also berthed at Goa. Roughly a year later, in June 1940, an Italian ship ‘Anfora’ docked in Goa. The story of these four ships and their crew is what this is all about and one which was kept secret by the British and Indian governments until 1978. Interesting, right? Well, that it certainly was and as we unfold events around this story, we will travel down from Assam to Calcutta, then to Cochin and finally north to Goa. We will meet many nationalities, Indians, Germans, Brits and what not. As events turned out, the previously introduced motely group called the Calcutta Light horse were to get connected to this somewhat important operation of the SOE in India.

As the German U boats became very successful, British politicians got more nervous, war leaders got unsettled and it was discovered that these U boats were being led to their prey, which were the well laden British cargo ships headed out of to India by somebody, a spy perhaps. Without precise coordinates of their prey the U boats would be lost in the vast ocean. How did they get information every day and with such precision? Through bursts of high frequency radio transmission at predetermined times when the U boats surfaced. Where did the transmission originate? From one of the ships docked at Marmugao - Goa. Who delivered the information? An nationalist Indian spy network which risked their lives to get the information regularly to the Nazi transmitter.

The Nazi admiral Karl Doenitz’s chess game in the oceans had just started and the first two groups operating out of France sunk a number of ships in the waters off Africa, some 166,000 tons of it. The next group was supported by an intermediate supply ship and were directed by the abovementioned Indian spy ring operating out of Bombay and Goa, with the help of the transmitter on one of the 4 docked ships. With just the loss of one U boat (U197) they destroyed 31 allied ships totaling to 168,000 tons.

How did the Germans get up-to-date information from around the world? Well, it is said that they had their sympathizers amongst the INA spearheaded by Bose, but it is also stated by Ralph Bergstresser in his book on Nikolai Tesla that many of these spies were equipped with a special wrist watch based on tesla’s invention which could transmit to 900 miles (I am not sure about the veracity of this, as nobody else has mentioned it, but I do believe that Tesla was so far ahead of his time, and won’t be surprised that he had patented such an invention, the world transmitter!) and that he saw it with some German spies in India. Anyway the Indian (Bengali) sympathizer provided information on departures, speed, cargo and timings to the captain of U181 through the Ehrenfel’s secret transmitter by their radio officer named Pollard (who spoke 7 languages and was also an engineer and code decoder – it is also rumored that an Enigma coder was used) in code. In fact the Japanese had withdrawn to the Bengal seas and left the Arabian to the Nazi’s because they had better access to the Indian spies. The Indian spy network was run by Trompetta or Robert Koch from Goa.

Why could these ships in Goa not be taken? Because they were in Portuguese territory. If a publically visible preemptive strike was launched, who knew what could happen to the Portuguese alliance? It may even tip them and the Spaniards into the Axis lap headed by the Germans, so the situation was very dodgy. The British SOE were ordered to act. But note here that by now it was 1942 and three years had passed since the war started, so the determination that this was indeed the case took quite some sleuthing.

Going back to the 1939 time frame and Goa to retrace the steps of the crew of the four ships, we see that they were in a pitiable state indeed. Many of them deserted, some of them sought asylum in Goa until the war ended and they also complained to the International Red Cross that they were being ‘interned’ by the Goan authorities. They had no resources and little stomach for this kind of life. In fact one Mr JA Rikil of the IRC was even sent for an interview with some money by the Germans. Many passed time doing little with limited funds and whiled away time painting lizards that visited them and all kinds of other silly antics.

Well, in the meantime, the SOE, later known as Force 136 had set up shop in India. That by itself is a great

story and we will cover it in more detail separately. Its purpose supposedly, was to incite, organize and supply indigenous resistance forces in various enemy-occupied territories and sensitive areas. The Indian mission was set up in Meerut by a former businessman, Colin Mackenzie of J. and P. Coats (remember Coats thread?), a clothing manufacturer and the organization was called GSI(k). As it happens, the responsibility for covert action to take out the hidden transmitter aboard the Ehrenfels was given to one Col Pugh of the Indian Police (an SOE member), who was also a honorary member of the Calcutta Light horse, a group of motely middle aged or even older men who mainly lounged around in the Club drinking gin tonic and talking about the fortunes of the allied forces. A meeting held in SOE’s offices in Meerut was overseen by Mackenzie, Stewart and Pugh. Initially he and Stewart hatched an ill-founded plan to first kidnap the spy master, then bribe the commander of the ship. Stewart and Pugh made their way to Goa, posing as representatives of a trading company, secured Tromepta (Koch) the spymaster and his wife in Dec 1942, and placed them in protective custody in British India. Shortly afterwards the transmissions began again, so it became clear that a new conduit had been found to get the information to the ship. Then it was decided that an attempt must be made to meet Roeffer and bribe (this was presumably operation Creek) the German captain (with a sum of £20,000) of the Ehrenfels to desert. This attempt failed.

Eventually the SOE acted on its own, and18 men were chosen to move against the ships and its crew. These men of course had no idea about the objectives, but it remained on Col Pugh’s shoulders to get them weapons trained in time. They had no official backing, not even funds to mount the attack, but well, for many of those tea estate type retired guys, it was a heaven sent opportunity for adventure and a fine way of showing their patriotism. They all agreed, even though it was made clear that they were on their own, and that no recognition, no medals or even a mention would be made of the event. In fact their mouths were also sealed, until 1978!! Each of them took leave from their jobs stating they were going for a training course in Goa and started getting ready for the mission, by now named Operation Longshanks.

Pugh set about finding a vessel which could be made available to transport them to Goa. In the end he managed to obtain the use of a hopper barge ‘Little Phoebe’ with a Bengali crew, a ramshackle tug which had been commissioned in 1912 and had a maximum speed of less than nine knots. In this smoky barge, Stewart, Pugh and a selected group from the Calcutta Light Horse led by Grice were taken to Goa after going to Cochin by train, with plans to split into three groups and board the Ehrenfels, one to take control of the bridge, another to destroy the anchor and the third to destroy the radio.

Their comments about Cochin are funny. Reaching Cochin from Madras by the mail, we read Leasor’s comment. “Our destination is Cochin. Cochin? That sleepy little hollow, a one horse town where even the horse left years ago”. Well they stayed at Hotel Malabar and the Harbor house. They lounged near the pool or went cycling around the town and they spent four uneasy days in Cochin, waiting to board Little Phoebe.

As this was going one, Jock Cartwright another Calcutta Light Horse member had been sent to Goa overland. His task was to lead away as many sailors and crew of the Ehrenfels and other ships. Cartwright bribed a brothel-keeper in Goa to offer free services that night to those seamen. He also managed to bribe a Goanese fidalgo to throw a party and invite the many port officials and ships officers. He finally made sure that as the party ended there were no taxis available to take the officers back to their ships.

March 9^th1943- The boarding party headed by Col EH Grice met with little opposition, and the Ehrenfels's radio transmitter, which was the principal target, was quickly put out of action, while the captain of the ship Roeffer and four semen were killed in the light action which followed. But Roeffer who had foreseen that this would soon happen had already instructed their crews to prepare for a possible attack by the British, and plant charges in all ships which could be exploded quickly so as to scuttle their ships rather than allow them to be captured. As the boarding party from the Phoebe seized control of the Ehrenfels, it was assumed that this was the beginning of the British attack and the charges were quickly exploded. The ships were soon racked by the explosions and sank one by one. The people onshore aghast by these quick happenings were led to believe that the nervous crew fearing an attack and out of depression, drunkenness and despair had set fire their ships. Little Phoebe quietly slipped out of the harbor during the melee but also with a fear that one last transmission might have alerted the U boats which was probably on their tail. But nothing of that sort happened and all the British made safe return to their home bases. I will not go too much into the complete storyline and events and you are welcome to get that account from the book by Leasor.

Newspaper reports (Times of India) announced that the ships were scuttled by the drunken crew and though it had a good amount of truth, the fact that it was all started by Pugh and his men after they boarded the ship was never ever leaked out for 34 years following the incident. In fact even in 1978 it was assumed that the British were just trying to make a claim and that they had nothing to do with it.

But while all of this follows Leasor’s demi fictional writing, what was the real outcome of the boarding? Both the Cruickshank book and Dr Shirodkar’s study provide clues. You must recall that Capt Roeffer had already a good idea what was going to happen, in fact he had been told so by the SOE agents who had previously attempted to bribe him to sail the ship out of the harbor, and he knew they were coming. Also Koch had been kidnapped and so it was a matter of time. While the barge neared the Ehrenfels, it was never lit up as usual dark and was presumably awaiting the attack. The barge was apaprently hailed in English and before much could be done, the charges on the ship were starting to go off. Soon the other ships also caught fire and sank. It was by pure luck that the blame was laid on the ship’s crew for their scuttling and the SOE as well as the British escaped any recrimination from the Goan’s and the Portuguese and an international wartime scandal with severe recriminations was miraculously avoided.

The transmitter was of course destroyed and the shipping losses dropped drastically. But how much of it was due to the light horse men boarding the ship? That is a question which real historians have not satisfactorily answered though Leasor believed otherwise. The British SOE records roundly declared the Operation to be a disaster and McKenzie did get into trouble for clearing it (only the bribery plan had been approved, not the call for direct subversive action or any sort of violence). SOE’s chief Gubbins met up with Colin Mackenzie the one legged SOE station chief of India, as the latter was recalled to London to account for his apparent disregard of orders over the operation in Goa. Gubbins was quite impressed by him, as it appears and did not accept his resignation but Mackenzie was severely reprimanded.

More of the public and the press had in the meantime accepted that the Germans had mutinied and scuttled their own ships and the SOE actions escaped detection. In fact the Goan court found the Germans guilty for disturbing the tranquility of the Goan port and sentenced. 111 seamen out of which 34 were Italian were detained. 12 Italians and 21 Germans were obviously on shore partaking in the festivities, so they escaped jail. I do not know when the detained seamen were released, but the matter was laid to rest though the affected parties continued to appeal and complain of travesty to justice.

People may wonder why the operation was initially called Longshanks, well it was due to Stewart’s long legs. As for Lewis Pugh he was promoted to Major General with a CB, CBE and three DSOs. He retired from the Army to the family estate at Cymmerau in 1961, and lived in the house and developed its gardens, together with his wife until 1978, and thereafter at Wonastow House, before dying in 1981.Shipping losses reduced to single digits after the operation and life went on at the Calcutta club as before. The Light Horse Bar, located at the Saturday Club (Calcutta) in Wood Street Calcutta, named after the regiment did brisk business.

The waters and mud of the Goa harbor were not going to swallow the wrecks. Ehrenfels was salvaged in 1950 and scrapped later. Drachenfels was sold in December 1948 and scrapped in 1950. Braunfels disintegrated in the waters and Anfora was raised 1948 and scrapped in Bombay 1949. Some of the German men continued to reside in Goa after the war ended. Fritz Dimsak, one of them ran a watch repair shop near the Panjim. The others, Karl Tiegel and Karl Breitkopf set up some businesses in Vasco-da-Gama after marrying locally and raising families there.

The U181 or its ‘wolf pack’ did not get any more messages from Indian spies, and its commander Wolfgang Luth spent only a few more months captaining it. The U boat after a successful run, sinking 27 ships worth 138,000 tons and was transferred to the Japanese navy as I501. It was finally scuttled off the coast of Malacca after the war, in 1946.

An SOE report stated - Operation LONGSHANKS was an SOE effort to capture Axis shipping in the Portuguese colony of Goa. Although the mission was a failure, the Germans scuttling their vessels before they could be captured, three anti-Nazi German seamen took the opportunity to surrender to the British. These men served on SOE's strength in India they were repatriated to Germany and rewarded at the conclusion of the war in the Far East.

Who were the Indian German spies? One of them is stated to be named Ramdas Gupta, a friend of NSC Bose, however I have not been able to make much headway into his involvement. He was apparently part of a network of informers at the shipping offices in Bombay, and organized by the German spy master Koch a.k.a Trompeta resident in the neutral Portuguese territory in Goa. It is also rumored that as the barge reached Cochin before the mission, wild statements were bandied about that it would leave for the ocean to capture a submarine. One can perhaps assume that these rumors reached the Ehrenfels before the barge with the boarding did and that was why Roeffer was ready with the plan to scuttle the ships.

The members of the mission got back to Calcutta, rejoined their jobs. Interestingly, one of them, Jack Breene, an insurance partner discovered that it was his own company which had underwritten three of the ships which he helped scuttle. He did not utter a word, but of course.

And thus a movie was made with an impressive star cast, Gregory peck, Roger Moore, Davis Nivien, Mark Zuber and so on, but it was somewhat less explosive on screen than the story itself, though doing reasonably well at the box office.

References

The Sea wolves – James Leasor

Sea wolves - the movie

World War II in the Pacific: An Encyclopedia edited by Stanley Sandle

SOE in the Far East -Charles Greig Cruickshank

CLH Blizkrig in Mormugao harbor – Dr PP Shirodkar

Pictures - courtesy of Arnhemjim

And how Annie hall road got its name

Annie hall road – why was it called so? During my College days, Balan’s book lending library used to be situated on that road. My friend Venu used to go there often, me not so often, but I used to borrow books from Venu and read them at College. Most would have thought it was a name given to the road by the British and some of the older folk would have connected to Annie Besant. As I spent a while thinking about that memory flash from the past, I decided to delve deeper and check up on Annie Besant’s stay in Calicut. That was how I got sidetracked into studying Manjeri Rama Iyer, yet another doyen of yesteryears who was widely ignored in the annals of history barring a few mentions, mainly because he supported and promoted the aspirations of lower castes of Malabar. In fact there is not even a biography written about him to date while lesser mortals have voluminous books written detailing their smaller claims to fame. And then again, I also recalled my earlier promise to cover this illustrious person soon, so got on to the task in right earnest.

To meet him, you would have to go to the Calicut of the 1900-1950 time frame. I tried to recreate the feel and flavor for the place in my mind, from mentions my father and various relatives made, by reading sections of a poignant autobiography by an interesting soul named AR Subramaniam and from recalling Pottekat’s books. As they say in Hindi – who bhi ek zamana tha, or as shall we say, athum oru kalam ayirunnu. And as you will find, Ramaier was not just a freedom fighter fighting for Indian freedom from the British, but was above all one who helped large masses of people in Malabar and Kerala obtain freedom from the many social evils of that time.

Yes, in the 50’s, Crown Theater existed but was owned by Cherukandan Maistry who also owned a hospital on Annie Hall road. That was the time when rikshawas and jutkas plied the various streets and Kallai road which was broader and busier intersecting Annie hall road had shops and vegetarian hotels which many remember, punctuated by the strident horns of a rare car that passed by or the tinkle of a cycle bell pedaled by an industrious peddler. Sometimes you could see a koya with his striped lungi pass by dragging his filaria afflicted leg or an Ithatha with her head demurely covered, quickly flitting by with her wares. Nair’s with dhothis and an ever present towel over their shoulders, clerks with shirts on, and Menon’s with a turban could also be seen often. It was just another day in that town which once upon a time was the cynosure of the medieval world’s eyes, the capital of the spice industry and a bustling entrepot. After the multitude of wars which decimated its treasuries and hastened the decline of the Zamorin’s the town was just a sleepy and muggy place, where the British could no longer be seen, barring an odd sayip like Bolland or Thorne or Evans. Imagine, this was where it all started, the colonial sagas of the Portuguese and the English.

But in the 20’s, life was changing and people led by the leaders in the North were clamoring for home rule and self-governance. Local leaders were being talked about and one of them lived in the very location we are at, the Annie hall road. Days passed to months and years, they all fought their wars and private and personal demons, they all strived for change and in 1947 India finally became independent.

Fast forward to the 1950’s - Houses on Annie Hall road were mostly built on a higher elevation from the street, and if one were to look down, you will see what ARS Iyer saw and wrote about. He says ‘Annie Hall Road where our home Janaki Vilas stood was also home to a famous son of Calicut and his residence was less than 100 yards from our home. He was Manjeri Rama Iyer, lawyer, social worker and founder of the Theosophical Society in Calicut…… I have often watched the venerable old man walking on the Road clad in the skimpiest of clothes past our home picking up or pushing with his walking stick garbage on the road, a routine gesture of keeping the environment clean.’

Many of the landmarks of today existed, like the SM street, Radha theatre and Parsi temple, and people as we see even today, hung around at the Mananchira maidanam. What we miss are the news hawkers that Pottekat used to write about, the man shouting at the top of his voice that day’s important news - the one who was selling the Mathrubhoomi – those days the daily evening newspaper. The Anjaneya Vilas Brahmins and Modern Hindu Hotel are gone, but the public library existed in the corner and still does. Hawkers were selling and yelling about all kinds of things and well, like in London’s Hyde park, there were people also exhorting about religion and politics in that very corner where Pottekat’s statue now stands serenely looking on into the street which he so beautifully described in Oru theruvinte katha. That was also the time (this was earlier - Pre-40's) when there was no electricity distribution and one left the locale before it became too dark. There were lamp posts with kerosene lamps, and the fascinating chapter by ARS Iyer explains – “In those days the lanes and bye lanes were not lit well after dark and we normally make it home before it gets too dark. The lanes which we normally take as short cuts to reach home were dotted with lamp posts with only kerosene lamps encased in a glass container as electric street lights were a rarity in those days. A municipal worker carrying a tin of kerosene, a few wicks and a cleaning cloth and a ladder on his shoulders would stop at each of these posts to fill in kerosene in the lamps, change the wick if necessary and wipe clean the glass case of the lamp. He would lit the lamp by sun set every evening which would burn throughout the night giving light to people to walk safely. I have often watched these men at work fascinated by the clockwork regularity with which they provide the lights to the common man.”

You may wonder why I mention these things instead of talking about the person we set about to rediscover, Mr Manjeri Ramaier (that was how he spelled his name, not Rama Iyer). We will, worry not - but you see, to experience something properly, you have to be mentally there, you have to understand the ‘mahol’ and if it is Calicut - my dear little city, well I will use some extra literary license in describing it at least for my sake, if not for the uninterested. So now that was done, and also assuming that you have tried to follow the accounts of the Moplah revolt, the 1921 rebellions etc. which I talked about at length in ‘Historic alleys’, I will get to the topic, which is all I could gather about the erudite Manjeri Ramaier, lawyer, social worker and politician of Malabar. Much more than all that, he was simply a nice man, one I would have loved to know and meet.

He was born on July the 5^th 1877 to Sundaram Iyer and Lakshmi Ammal, passed his matriculation and FA with distinction from Manjeri and went on to do his BA in Madras Christian College, passing in 1896 and later, his Bachelors in Law in 1898. So we see him as the century turned, back at Calicut, making a decent living as a well-known criminal advocate in Calicut living at Annie Hall road.

Manjeri Subin SundarRaj, his great grandson explains - It was from Kallingal Madathil Rarichan Moopan, an affluent landowner and chieftain of Kozhikode that Manjeri Rama Iyer bought the land where Annie Hall, the home that later became Besant Ashram and till recently the State Committee Office of Mujahid Centre is situated. The Kallingal Madathil family’s Kallingal Bhagavathi Temple, which later attained fame through K.N. Ramadas Vydiar and nalluveedu paramba which lay opposite and where Manjeri Rama Iyer’s house was situated, were all owned by Rarichan Moopan. There was a special room for Dr. Annie Besant atop Manjeri Rama Iyer’s house. Bishop C.W. Leadbeater, close friend, associate and member of the Theosophical Society too had stayed at Besant Ashram. It was during their stay at Besant Ashram that Dr. Annie Besant and Leadbeater authored the book ‘Invisible Helpers’.

M Rama Iyer

One thing the reader should understand that those early decades of the 20^th century were not like today. There was no equality, the caste rigors were stringent and the Moplah unrest at its nadir. There was less amity and more enmity in Calicut, and Calicut in the past was always famed for its amity between cultures. In these depressing times, the principles of Theosophy started by Mme Blavatsky, the Russian émigré and propounded by Anne Besant from Madras were influencing the educated masses enmasse. While VK Krishna Menon embraced it at Tellichery and headed off to Madras leaving Malabar for good, people like Manjeri Ramaier and many other Malabar nationalists who were part of the Malabar Congress committee, took it up seriously. C Sankaran Nair, G Parameswaran Pillai and Dr TM Nair were also among those who took up the cudgels in addition to congress political activities and rose against the Brahmin and upper caste issues plaguing Malabar then. Exhorting people to think rationally and propounding Vivekannada’s teachings, Rama Iyer took on Buddhism and became a theosophist. In his efforts since 1911, he was joined by an equally famous character named Mithavadi C Krishnan. They started a struggle against child marriage, untouchability and many other social evils present then and even created the league of liberal Brahmins or the Bharat Samaj. But well, for eating and living with untouchables, he was soon out-casted from his community.

At Calicut, the Tilak brand of home rule did not find favor and after 1915, Rama Iyer was the fiercest proponent for the Besantine Home rule league. He championed it vigorously spearheading the local chapter of the 27,000 members working for fruition of Besant’s vision. Perhaps he too stood at the Town hall or Mananchira corners exhorting people to support self-rule. Ramaaier soon became the President of the Home rule league in Malabar while KP Keshava Menon its Secretary. Not only were self-rule aspects discussed, but also other issues such as sanitation, elementary education for all etc.

M Kumaran

Mitavadi (Murkoth Kumaran picked this name up from a speech of Gopalakrishna Gokhale) or ‘moderate advocates’, a weekly-handwritten pamphlet airing such matters was started in 1907 from Tellicherry by Murkoth Kumaran but was later shifted to Calicut (Kumaran resigned owing to a silly fight with Sivasankaran – an event which was a tragic loss to literature and an active press) to become first a magazine and later a daily, by Krishnan vakeel. The articles of C.V Kunhiraman, Manjeri Rama Iyer, Ramavarma Thampan, Mooliyil Kesavan and so on figured prominently on the pages of Mithavadi.

In the meantime, we see that Ramaier had adopted Buddhism and renamed himself Angarika Raman. His friend Mithavadi Krishnan vakeel did likewise by converting to Buddhism. Opposite the Connolly Park, there existed a well-stocked library and a Budha vihara with a Buddha statue brought from Ceylon by CC brothers. A couple of Bodhi trees and the Vihara were the handiwork of Ramaier and Krishnan vakeel (see the picture of the tree – courtesy Hindu May 26th, 2013). Govinda Menon, Ayyathan Gopalan, Appu Nedungadi (Kundalatha author and Nedungadi bank founder), Manorama Kunhikrishna Menon etc were all his friends or ‘team’ as we say in Calicut. Their next action was the well-publicized Tali temple entry. But first some background.

The biggest issue in those days was getting people to unite in the midst of caste inequalities. Then again, the nationalist movement in Malabar during the Pre-Gandhian era was led and maintained as an upper caste organization. The Tiyyas stayed away and something had to be done to break the impasse. The Tiyya reasoning was that the British had actually helped them obtain a better standing in society, so they did not want to go against them (as explained by Murkoth Kumaran- Ente jeevithakatha) and secondly they feared that upper caste dominated Congress might revive caste-ism if they won. The Tiyyas formed a 'Passive Resistance League' and decided to launch agitations against the social separatism promoted by the higher castes and demanded representation for Tiyyas in the elected bodies. This was also the period when certain roads and temples were closed for such polluting castes, and one of them was the road leading to the Tali temple. Another problem was education and so another demand was to open Zamorin’s college to all castes.

The Annie hall group however, in the true spirit of a theosophist participated in many activities designed to highlight such problems and bring warring factions together. They travelled in the company of polluting castes; attended their marriage ceremonies and convened ‘Mishrabhojanam’ of mass lunches at Annie hall. And thus we get into the Tali agitation incident.

C Krishnan Vakeel

A noticeboard was hoisted in the Tali samooham road to restrict the passage of the polluting castes and this provoked political activists of Malabar like K.P. Kesava Menon and Manjeri Rama Iyer enough to join hands with C. Krishnan in defying the order. The new Zamorin’s manager JC Thorne had earlier forwarded to the District Collector F.B Evans, a memorandum signed by more than a hundred upper caste persons requesting him to prevent the lower communities from using the Tali temple roads. Evans did not accept the petition and went on leave for two months, but coincidentally JC Thorne was appointed as acting collector. On 1st November 1917, with this authority, Thorne had two notice boards installed on the Tali road announcing ‘no passage of lower communities’. The notice said that ‘since the untouchables like Thiyyas, walking along the steps of this temple and along the roads around the temple pond is against civility, the above communities should not use those roads henceforward, and is hereby informed that those who breach the notice would be responsible for all the expenses incurred to the temple and would be punished as per law’.

Manjeri Ramayyar did not waste any time in breaching this law and so he and his Tiyya friend C.Krishnan travelled along the Tali road in a horse cart on the same day when the board appeared. After the act, he wrote a letter to Thorne, “…since your notice limits the rights of a major section of the subjects of His Majesty the Emperor, we have immediately utilized our right by walking along the Padinjare Samooham Road (Western Samooham Road), one among which has been mentioned in your notice. We would be thankful to you if you take immediate action in this case of violation of law.” Neither the Zamorin nor Thorne reacted strongly, they thanked Iyer for his letter and the matter was judiciously dropped while the Tiyyas celebrated their success, but the act did not result in any great change other than bringing larger awareness.

In between all this came up the issue with the Gibraltar confinement. At a meeting in Madurai during February 1918, George Joseph commented that for achieving Home Rule, people should agitate within India and recommended that representatives be sent to England to demand self-government for India. George Joseph was one of the three members of the first batch of Home Rule Deputation. B.V. Narasimha Iyer and Manjeri Rama Iyer were the other members accompanying George Joseph to London. This deputation set out for England in two batches on 10th March and 18th March 1918. Before reaching London, they had a halt at Gibraltar. At Gibralter, their passports were seized and cancelled by the British, so they had to turn back to India. Syud Hossain whom we talked about earlier was also a member of this unfortunate group.

The next case again involved Manjeri Ramaier and Dr K.V Choi, a Thiyya, who walked along the temple tank near Chalappuram in 1919. The temple authorities filed a criminal case against Choi in the Sub magistrate’s court, Calicut. The New India of 22^nd February 1919 reported it as a sensational case of pollution and this was the first case of its kind in Malabar. C Krishnan recommended that Choi request his close friend Manjeri Ramaier’s help and Iyer defended Dr.Choi to win the case.

As we head towards the 20’s, we can see that a split was starting to come about those who supported the Montagu Chelmsford political reforms and those who did not. The former, the Besant-ites which included Ramaier were for home rule and the latter the Gandhiites were for full independence. The cracks were evident in 1919 when Besant was rebuffed in a meeting at Manjeri in spite of strident speeches by Ramaier and support from the Nilambur Raja. KPS Menon, Rangaswamy Iyengar and Raman Menon supported the Congress independence moves and a miffed Annie Besant walked out. Soon after, the Khilafat movement started and it was finally time for Ramaier to slowly leave the scene, which he reluctantly did, but all the while remaining a theosophist.

The situation became ominous by the 1920’s. This was when the Malabar Moplah riots destroyed the calm in the region and set many self-rule actions back. The British blamed the congress and the ‘fanatical Moplah’, while the affected general public laid all blame squarely on the Moplahs. Manjeri Ramaier reacted strongly by stating that the sword that was used to cut human throats in Eranad was to be in fact directed against Mahatma Gandhi and Khilafat leader Shaukath Ali. Iyer was not just a supporter of the Hindu downtrodden, but also the affected Moplah. The Mappila Muslims, were subjected to extreme tortures under the British military expansions to Malabar in the early 1900’s. Manjeri Ramaier is quoted to have said as follows, “There were no provisions to win bail for a detained Mappila Muslim. No recommendations worked out in favour of him. None among the witnesses dared to give statements in favour of a Mappila Muslim, while they were trialed under riot charges by the British. When somebody came up to give statements in favour of the Mappila Muslim detained under trial, he too was made a culprit under similar charges. Once the Mappila Muslim gets detained under riot charges, he was obliged to prove his innocence on his own rather than the one’s making accusations proving him guilty”.

The Bodhi Tree

During 1928, the Simon commission was passed and a meeting was held in Malabar to boycott it. The Malabar conference was held at the Townhall Calicut, and Dr. Annie Besant organized it exhorting people to object and conduct a hartal as they arrived in Calicut. P.K. Kunhisankara Menon Manjeri Ramaier, K. MadhavanNair, P. Ramunni Menon, U. Gopala Menon, P.Achuthan and K. Madhava Menon did the required propaganda supporting public demonstrations. So on 3rd February 1928 as the Simon Commission landed in Bombay, a successful hartal was observed in Malabar, as in other parts of India. Students abstained from attending the class, lawyers did not turn up at the courts, shops were closed Black flags fluttered everywhere. At various public meetings resolutions were passed protesting against the Simon Commission‘s visit. It was stated to be a success.

Manjeri Ramaier then took up the initiative in promoting Khadi and the boycott of foreign clothes. On 9 November 1929 The Kerala Yuvak Sangh was organized at Calicut with Manjeri Rama Iyer as president. The sangh was to carry on active propaganda for donning Khadi, prohibition of liquor and starting again the traditional Kalari system. As expected, this organization was declared unlawful through a notification in the Fort St George Gazette in 1932.

Meanwhile, Ramaier continued on with his work to spread Besant’s ideology. The Mangalore theosophical society owes its success to Margaret Cousins and Manjeri Ramaier. But by 1930 Ramaier formally left Congress and in the Payyanur conference even opposed Nehru’s resolution of Purnaswaraj.

Returning back to Annie hall road and the fourth decade (I must apologize for not spending more words on Annie Besant and Leadbeater’s work in Malabar, which I promise to make good in a forthcoming article) Iyer took to journalism and law, having left politics. As Manjeri Subin Sundar Raj, his great grandson explains - Sir C.P. Ramaswami was brought to Kozhikode by Rama Iyer and at Besant Ashram he was entrusted with the vakalath to defend Annie Besant upon allegations propagated by renowned philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurthi’s father, that her people had kidnapped Jiddu’s brother Nityananda. It was the result of admiration and a sense of innate closeness with Dr. Besant that made Manjeri Rama Iyer named his house ‘Besant Ashram’ and the adjoining lodge ‘Annie Hall’. The Municipality widened the existing narrow lane and it was rechristened ‘Annie Hall Road’. He continues - At a point in history when inequality and abhorrent customs were rampant, Besant Ashram was the platform where strong voices were raised, revolutionary ideas were born and radical actions were taken against such oppression.

I still recall going to the Sreekandeswaram temple grounds to listen to an S Janaki concert and later another where my wife had sung. At that time, I did not know that this was the handiwork of stalwarts like Ramaier who wanted a temple for everybody, to be built in Calicut (Sree Narayana Guru had, I believe, come for the consecration event).

Manjeri Rama Iyer who was ostracized by his own community for his affinity towards the downtrodden and the lower castes, never looked back. He held the position of Diwan for the Nilambur raja after leaving congress and in 1937 for a while after which he became an ascetic. He sporadically continued with journalism, writing and editing for West coast spectator and Santhana Dharma and with Manjeri Ramakrishna Iyer (Secretary -Buddhist theosophical league) wrote the first guide book on Buddhism called Buddhadharmam. He continued with his social work until he died in 1958, aged 81.

His children, especially his daughter Kamalamma (Kamalambal) followed in his footsteps, working with Annie Besant (not to forget, Iyer’s wife was also very much involved in uplifting women’s inequality matters). She was the first president of the Malabar branch of the Women Indian Association. She passed away, just 9 years after her father. She merits an article on her times and interestingly, I started my own life in Calicut attending kindergarten in her personally managed school, the Balavrindavan, at Chalappuram. And look at it - here I am sitting and wondering how small this word is, as I see how our mundane lives crisscross at some point or other!

An example of his oratory and conviction can be seen in this simple utterance - Ramaier’s precondition for Home Rule was to break the shackles which bound us. He said in the 1917 Calcutta annual convention - "This resolution calls for social freedom by which we shall shatter the shackles that bind the lower classes. They are the foot of tile nation and if you and I would climb the hill of Home Rule, we must first shatter the shackles on our feet and then and then only will Home Rule come to us. You cannot be political democrats and at the same time social autocrats. Remember that a man, a social slave, cannot be politically a free man. We all have come here to see the vision of United India, not only politically united but united all along the line. Therefore, let those of us, who are Brahmins, who belong to the higher castes, go to our villages and shatter the shackles of the low castes, people who are struggling against our own men, the social Bureaucrats of our own land."

Sadly, people like Rama Iyer cannot be found anymore, perhaps our creator Brahma is on an extended vacation…………………

References

Manjeri Rama Iyer and Home Rule Agitation in Malabar - TP Sankarankutty Nair

Manorama Article – translation by Manjeri Subin Sundar Raj
ARS Iyers autobiography
Social and religious transformation of Kerala with special reference to Brahmananda Sivayogi – VN Sujaya

George Joseph and the national struggle for freedom – R Renjini

The Quest for Social Justice: Malabar, 1882-1947 – PM Ismael

Women In public Life in Malabar- 1900-1957 – V Vasanthi

Print and public sphere in Malabar: a study of early newspapers (1847-1930) - Stella Joseph

Neo Buddhism in Kerala: The Legacy of Mithavadi C Krishnan

I apologize for the length of this article, for it far exceeds the attention span of a lay blog reader. My hope is that this will interest somebody someday.

Pics – Ramaier (KFCS Souvenir 2013), Bodhi maram (Hindu), M Kumaran (wiki),

The King, the Fugger and the ‘perdido’ nau….

The India run was like no other adventure. The sailors on that Carriera da India which left out from Lisbon March 1533 on the 30 meter long Nau Bom Jesus were a motley collection of priests, sailors, soldados, degredados, nobility and officers, totaling to 250 or so. Only two sets of natural phenomena separated them from life and death on the voyage, not to mention disease. The natural phenomena were the summer storms near the Cape of Good Hope, South of Africa which they would round and then slingshot off in a tangent to ride the monsoon winds of the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea heading to Cochin and Goa. The distance of 12,000 miles separating Lisbon and Cochin was remarkable in the sense that it not only tested man’s valor and courage, but also his persistence and health. The voyager’s intention was not just to procure all the black gold of Malabar they could lay their hands on, but also make riches in trading the goods their carried on their carrack. The Estado da India was already in conception and a robust trade was in place. And so the Portuguese braved these terribly long voyages, financed by their king and his friends, some of them who were immensely rich, like the Fugger’s of Germany, who by themselves could decide the fate of many a monarchy in Europe.

On the other end of the route, they dealt with rich Indian middlemen. Let it not be understood that the ships came empty and returned full to the brim, in fact they were heavily laden both ways, as trade progressed into the second decade of the 16^th century.

The regimento (sailing directions) from the Casa da India situated on the mouth of the Targus were straightforward in the case of the Armada of 1533, a measly set of just seven ships. Round the cape, and proceed to Cochin and Goa. The departure was as planned, in March and the naus or carracks were to berth at Goa by September. I am sure most readers would have assumed that riding monsoon and storm winds was not for the faint hearted, and it was not like one of the modern cruise liner trips. The journey was at best, one which could be termed violent and filled with nightmares of all sorts, one the fear of the unknown brings in. Sailors thus reported of dragons, huge snakes, people with many heads, mermaids and so on, brought about by delusion and intense boredom coupled with the vigorous swings of the ship’s floor and horible sea sickness. Beating drums or playing tambourines as mandated did not quite help, nor did confessions to the priest and telling taller tales. In fact many a priest after hearing the violent confessions was reduced to shaking caricatures in cassocks. Handling some of the mutinous types and violent quarrels between soldiers were but natural activities that any experienced captain had to handle. He had to be tough to handle punishments like getting the guilty walk the plank, subjecting them keel hauling (dump them with a rope tied to their waists and drag them along the waters for a period of time) or pinning the worst offender’s hands to a mast with a deep knife thrust. Four hour watches had to be kept and if one had to relive himself, he had to enter a lavatory cage suspended over the rails, where the wary would look down with terrible consternation at sharks and dolphins and other animals swimming under, in the hope that the creature above was prey. On stormy days, they went down to the bilges at the bottom of the ship to relieve themselves and that make the voyage a very stinky one indeed, even after vigorous cleaning by the ships boys.

The crew ate only one hot meal a day, usually around noon. Because there were as yet no galleys aboard ships, meals were cooked over a fire kindled in a box of sand on the open deck. When it rained, food was eaten cold, but hot or cold, a sailor’s diet was monotonous. It consisted of salted pork, a bit of cheese, some beans, onions, and the staple of all nautical diets, ship biscuit. Supplies, stored in leaky barrels, soon went bad. The meat putrefied and weevils attacked the biscuit. Antonio Pigafetta described the food Magellan’s crew subsisted on: “They ate biscuit and when there was no more of that they ate the crumbs, which were full of maggots and smelled strongly of mouse urine.” When even the crumbs gave out, men captured the ship’s vermin and auctioned them off as food. Pigafetta reported that “a mouse would bring half a ducat or a ducat. To wash down their unappetizing meals, the crew had water and wine, both of which quickly spoiled in their wooden casks. The wine turned to rancid vinegar. The water became so foul and smelly that sailors held their noses while drinking it.” So do you envy the Portuguese sailor?

Those six months on board an ‘Indian Run’ Nau were hell. Many a sailor wondered why he endured it, some of course for the adventure and prospective riches, some for deliverance from their prison sentences and some for glory. Some others just got pulled along. The Portuguese even had a proverb “If you want to learn how to pray, go to Sea!!” Scurvy, thirst and all kinds of things were braved, for the king and the lord! And I must now bring one fact to your notice. If you look at merchant ships worldwide today, a good number of the sailors and officers hail from Goa. Well, after all some of them could just be descendants of these early sailors. Every year an armada sailed out with goods and came back laden with riches a year later. There were some losses, but manageable in the scheme of things and after all, it was an era where human life was expendable (not that it is not these days!). The profitability was quite high and the riches at Lisbon accumulated, as the Estado Da India and the Casa Da India (India house) kept becoming bigger and more bureaucratic.

The winds of trade were however more predictable. The monsoon was a southwesterly wind (blowing from East Africa to India) in the summer (between May and September) and then abruptly reversing itself and became a northeasterly (from India to Africa) one in the winter (between October and April). The ideal timing for a ship getting out of the cape was to catch the late summer monsoon to India, and return with the early winter monsoon, minimizing its time at sea. But then again, winds die and the ships would wallow in the sea waters where sailors went crazy of thirst, hunger and malnutrition. Perhaps it was better to follow words of wisdom and leave in February, but it was not always possible to outfit these ships by then. Anyway as you can see it was critical to reach the East African coast in time before the SW monsoon. The ships would then stop at one or more staging posts on the African East coast, fill up with rations and catch the monsoon at the equatorial line. If they were late, they had to take a diagonal cut into the wide ocean to slingshot the monsoon, but this as you can imagine increased the mortality rate owing to riding the violent storms without rest, coupled with malnutrition and sickness. There were so many more things to consider while putting together the regimento, but let us not clutter our mind with such things for it will dull your senses and put you to a sleep before I complete the story.

But I must not forget to tell you about the doldrums. Well, today the word means different, but it had much to do with winds or the lack of it near the west coast of Africa south of Sierra Leone (Let not your eyes widen, we are not talking about Sunny Leone the damsel who is popular for other matters, this here is a place in Africa…). It is a low pressure area where the oceans are still and only a skilful or lucky captain could steer a sailing ship through it using little breeze and the ocean currents. Get past it and you have passed your first obstacle enroute India. The next few weeks would be straightforward sailing to the cape of storms or the Cape of Good Hope as it was more properly called, riding the Brazilian current. But as you hit the tip and cross it, the next obstacle presents itself, the contra Agulhas current on the east coast which speeds down to collide with the Brazilian current. Stay away and cross it courageously, but not in a fleet or as an armada, for the losses, god forbid, could be huge. Spread out, and converge back to the East coast past the eddies, that was the advice of the experienced or so they thought, for it was easier said than done, as not only the currents, but also the winds created havoc, well actually whirlwinds. You also had to stay clear of coral reefs and shoals around Madagascar. If they got through, they stopped at Mozambique for repairs and for picking up more items for the India trade, namely elephant ivory, gold, coral and pearls.

By now it has been close to four months already, since the ship had left Lisbon and it was time to head north and turn eastwards at the Seychelles islands for the final burst to India with the monsoons. If they could not manage it they headed to Malindi and remained there for a year. Goa, with its better harbor and greater supply base, served as the first anchorage point of Portuguese armadas while Cochin, with its important spice markets, remained the ultimate destination. Yes, riding the monsoon winds also required skill, but the additional pilots from the African ports provided the required skill and guidance to the Portuguese.

Who were the people who decided the destinies of these brave or foolish people who fought through their destinies and tussled the sea gods? They were of course the traders and the merchants who wished to profit. In reality they were the ones who actually decided the fates of the people who rode the ‘carriera da India’ and what these merchant ships carried or not carried. We have the merchants in India, we had the merchants in Portugal and Germany and we had the conduits or middle men like the Zamorin and the King of Portugal. And so if you walked around the streets of Lisbon before the dammed 1755 earthquake, one could hear statements ending in a sigh like “I am neither an Indian merchant, nor yet a Fugger, but a poor boy like yourself” (Gusman d’Alfarache).

Recall also that the very first armada that set out with Vasco Da Gama was in 1497 and once the flood gates were opened by him, many followed with regularity though many a ship was lost near the cape. It is approximated that some 806 naus sent on the India Run between 1497 and 1612. Of those, 425 returned safely, 20 aborted their voyage and returned, 66 were lost, 4 were pirated, 6 were destroyed, and 285 remained in India.

But let us get to the period of the story, for the year was 1933. Oh! What a year that was for mighty and rich Anton Fugger, who decided to go into self-exile. Jakob the rich of Augsburg had already passed away and the riches were left to his nephew Anton. They controlled vast copper and salt mines in Europe and provided finance to the nobles who traded with the East. In fact their efficient banking and supply chain ran like clockwork. But life is never simple and the envious did not leave him or his family alone, and as the Fuggers were Catholics in a Germany that was swiftly embracing protestant Christianity, the rest of the people ganged up against them. Marx Ehem and Anton Fugger ended up in a tussle on Ascension Day in May (this was after the ships left, but gives you a feeling of the times) and Anton was locked up in church for a day as punishment and released after he paid bail or compensation. The furious millionaire left Augsburg and went into exile to his village of Weisenhorn (As years passed, matters improved, but that is another story). Anyway, the Fugger’s had by them become immensely rich and had far more creditors than they could manage. They were also venturing out into the newly discovered South America where Anton got the Spanish license to colonize Chiel and Peru!

Lisbon had been suffering too with floods, sweating plagues and pestilence (there and in Europe) since the late 1520’s and the earthquake in 1531 added to its miseries (Perhaps the curse had come from Malabar which they were raping in the meantime!). The Spaniards were seething in anger as the papal bull was broken by the Portuguese when Magellan ventured into Spanish waters. The king Joao III or John III was proving to be a bad manager of his finances, racking up huge debts in his Moroccan and Indian ventures (Imagine a two million cruzado deficit during 1522-1544). This coupled with the problems Anton Fugger was going through, perhaps resulted in the smaller Armada in 1533, just seven ships.

And so the armada readied itself for the Carriera da India. The Nau Bom Jesus was one among them and all of 400 or so tons in displacement. That the Portuguese knew how to build sturdy ships is clear, but you must also understand that the life of such a ship was not more than four or five years. Usage of nails, galagala caulking, lead in the seams, and a final black coat of pine tar from Germany gave these ships a sinister look. The heavy guns and cannons they carried for defense made them difficult to confront. The crew comprised a captain major, a deputy, a captain, a record keeping clerk (the royal agent – like our Barros or Carrera), a pilot and a deputy pilot. Then came the master, the boatswain, ships boys, pages and the sailors or seamen. We can also see chaplains, German bombardiers, stewards, specialist technicians like carpenters, caulkers and barber surgeons in this group.

The armada comprised the Flor delamar captained by Jaoa Pereira, Santa Barbara captained by Lourenco Da Pavia, Santa Clara captained by Diogo Brandao, Cirno (Cisne) captained by Goncales Coutinho (perhaps he was the guy who first sighted Mauritius!!), Sao Roque captained by Simaoa de Viega, St Barthalomeou captained by Nuno Furtado da Mendoca and Bom Jesus captained by Dom Francisco de Noronha.

Noronha was not feeling right as he twiddled about with his shining astrolabe, and something told him that this would become a major ordeal, call it a sailor’s hunch or intuition. The rusted astrolabe discovered 475 years later would prove him right. In India the Portuguese had decided to move north from Cochin. Goa had been taken and the Portuguese were settling down, Vasco da Gama was back but died soon after and after a few mediocre administrators, Nuno Da Cuhna took charge. A large amount of finances were demanded from Lisbon, so also guns to secure their foothold. The 1533 armada perhaps was loaded up for this very purpose with copper and gold. The Moghul king Baber had passed away in 1530 and Humayun had taken charge, and the Shah Bahadur of Cambay was toying with the idea of signing a treaty with the Portuguese to keep Humayun at bay.

The Bom Jesus was loaded with 18 tons of Fugger’s copper and 4 tons of tin and pewter ingots for trading, with this heavy load serving as ships ballast. Elephant tusks were also loaded in large quantities, and large amounts of gold (20,000 coins), copper and silver coins (Personal effects such as syringes and mercury used to treat syphilis, astrolabes, charting dividers, pots, pans, plates and so on) as well as cannons and guns, muskets and swords. We know that Indian trade was done only in cash and little barter, and that was why a lot of cash was carried in gold, the tusks were sent so the craftsmen in India worked on it and finished goods were sent back to Portugal. The ship must have been armed with some 180-200 small iron and copper guns (some later ships had as many as 366!). What was the copper doing in the holds? Well, they were melted down to make coins by the Indian kings. The profit in the sale of copper was quite large as a quintal of copper costing 4.5 Cruzados at Augsburg would be sold in Cochin for 14 cruzados. The freight and handling cost was 4.5 cruzados, so the profit was 5 cruzados per quintal. Cherina Marakkar at Cochin was one would buy a lot of it and it would go on to be sold to make coins and other.

As the ships crossed the doldrums, it was winter time in the African south. Six of the ships got through, one did not. The fate that befell the Bom Jesus was simply announced as ‘ship lost’ – Perdido!!

But to get to the ship’s story, we have to speed through to the year 2008, a full 475 years later and go to a place called Orangemund in Namibia situated on the west coast of Africa. After completing a huge sand seawall the Diamond Mining Company De Beers were carrying out a surface-mining operation when a geologist found a spherical rock in the sand to realize it was a copper ingot. It became clear later that this was Fugger’s copper ingot for it had the trident trademark on it. Other evidence quickly pointed to a Portuguese shipwreck. Mining was halted excavations were started and soon the 1533 Portuguese wreck was uncovered by April 2008. Treasure hunters were kept away as it was one of the world's most zealously guarded diamond mining area. Perhaps it was worth even more than the diamonds that could be mined in that area!

The ships of the armada which sailed down the Tagus River were built for the voyage and two of them were brand-new and owned by the king himself. One of these two was the Bom Jesus (Good Jesus) captained by Dom Francisco de Noronha. How do we know that the ship dug up at Orangemund was Bom Jesus? As we saw from previous studies, the Casa Da India and its records were destroyed in the earthquake and the fires, but some papers survived. In these old Portuguese navy annals, the following critical epitaph is provided. The Cirne and S Roque will arrive in Goa in September, not the Bom Jesus. Periera is still in Africa, at the Cape of Good Hope. Noronha’s ship capsized near the Cape and nobody escaped, perhaps by his carelessness at the critical moment while the other nau’s scattered and escaped.

This shows that the tragedy occurred near the Cape in the winter storms and the ship was blown backwards and further north to the Orangemund area. Everything points out that the vessel is the Bom Jesus of the fleet of 1533 that didn’t succeed to pass the Good Hope Cape and that turned back and sunk near the sands of Namibia. We also read that the combination of thick fog, strong winds and heavy swells make the Namibian coastline quite a hazardous area for ships. Just how risky the area is, is clear since some 300 shipwrecks have already been located, with a further 200 relics that cannot be identified. The cold water of the Benguela Current is also dangerous for shipwrecked sailors, for death can result after five hours after exposure to water of 15°Celsius or less. As the Bom Jesus would have capsized offshore, most if not all of the sailors must have perished in the freezing waters and strong currents that make swimming very hard. Of the 21 Portuguese ships lost on their way around Africa to the east between 1525 and 1600, only the Bom Jesus was recorded as being lost near Namibia. And so the Orangemund became its graveyard. - Diogo Affonso who captained the Santa Clara also states that he saw the Bom Jesus founder off the Cape of Good Hope.

We also note from studies by Roff Smith about the intriguing pointer to the Bom Jesus from a letter unearthed in the royal archives. Dated February 13, 1533, it reveals that King João had just sent a knight to Seville to pick up 20,000 crusadoes' worth of gold from a consortium of businessmen who had invested in the 1533 fleet that was about to sail for India. As he concludes, “Spanish investors, it seems, had an unusually large stake in the 1533 fleet."

As Smith explains, It is easy to envision what might have happened next: The storm-battered ship was caught up in the powerful winds and currents that surge along the southwest African coast and was driven helplessly northward for hundreds of miles. As the windswept scrub of the Namib Desert hove into view, the doomed nau struck an outcrop of rock about 150 yards from shore. The shuddering blow broke off a big chunk of the stern, spilling tons of copper ingots into the sea and sending the Bom Jesus to its grave.

Did anybody survive? We cannot say for no human remains have been found save some human toe bones in a shoe found pinned beneath a mass of timbers. Did some of them walk on, surviving in the wild or did they intermingle with the Kaffirs as they called the natives? It is possible as we saw in the case of the crew of the Grosvenor. Perhaps, we may never know.

References

Convicts and Orphans: Forced and State-sponsored Colonizers in the ... Timothy J. Coates

The Fuggers of Augsburg: Pursuing Wealth and Honor in Renaissance Germany - Mark Häberlein

Indo Portuguese trade and the Fuggers of Germany – KS Mathew

Relação das náos e armadas da India (page 49)

Bom Jesus picture – Thanks to linked site
Thos who wish to see the wreck pictures click here

Annaes da Marinha Portugueza, Volume 1 By Ignazio da Costa Quintella

Maritime Archaeology and Trans-Oceanic Trade: A Case Study of the Oranjemund Shipwreck Cargo, Namibia- Shadreck Chirikure, Ashton Sinamai, Esther Goagoses, Marina Mubusisi, W. Ndoro

Livro em que se contém toda a fazenda & real patrimonio dos reinos de Portugal, India ... - Luiz de Figueiredo Falcão (pages 156, 157)

Shipwreck in the Forbidden Zone – National Geographic - Roff Smith

The 16th century Portuguese shipwreck of Oranjemund, Namibia - Francisco J. S. Alves

Decay or Defeat? Ernst Van Veen

Pics – Courtesy Wikipedia

Notes

1. The Relação das náos e armadas da India, Livro Contem toda as well as AJR Russell Wood (the Portuguese empire 1415-1808) states that another armada of 12 caravelas redondas and One galleon (bigger nau) sailed to India in 1533 under the command of Dom Pedro de CastelaoBranco in Oct 1533.

2. There is a paragraph about the sailor’s food extracted from a paper where the author's name is not provided. I do not know the author of that fine paper, but thank him for the contribution and would be pleased to add his name here if he gets back to me!

I have been a little bit tardy with writing over the last two months, but then again there were no dearth of reasons. We had to deal with a tragic loss, the tumult following it and undertake a short trip to India. As you can imagine, traversing these waters were not easy, to say the least.

What started as a relatively straightforward chemotherapy regime ended with severe complications and my mother in law who was a healthy soul otherwise, was gone in a jiffy, to join the many others of our parental generation as a photo on the mantel. She was gentle person, loving and full of life, always inquisitive of things new. I still recall how she used to race cars on the iphone or complete Sudoku puzzles with adeptness that is alien to us. She had hardly a qualm facing the unknown, like traveling alone at her age to the US with little mastery over English. But well, only memories remain now of that dear person. Soon my wife and her brother were busy tying up all the loose ends after their mother’s untimely departure like closing accounts, handling the paperwork, shuttling between offices, banks and so on. I joined them and trudged through Calicut and some of those offices with a heavy heart, helping them sort out matters and bring to a close, life in a vibrant house which had been my mother in law’s abode. There is so much I could write about her and perhaps I will, in bits and pieces as time goes by.

Calicut is as it always had been, but this time too, a whole lot of construction was going on and I won’t be surprised if it ends up as a city with no familiar landmarks for people of an older generation visiting it after a period. Paragon still lords as ‘the restaurant’ in town, but it was a new place on the highway bypass called Oven that blew us away with an astounding Fish biryani, this time. The Punjabi Dhaba was drab, and the M grill so so. The veg scene was pathetic, but the Ojin bakery was a revelation in the midst of Ramzan with so many different kinds of Muslim delicacies that vanished off the shelves as soon as the sun set. Kumari’s chips across Paragon took over from our favorite chips shop closer home as the latter had gone down in standard, and chomping down a pack of 50 grams of freshly made varuthakay, sitting in a leaky autorikshaw careening through the waterlogged streets of Calicut, while it rained cats and dogs, is something only natives can understand.

The beaches were crowded and I was surprised when my BIL suggested we drive a little further to South beach. Well, well, see how things change, we have a South beach now, not one to rival Miami, but one nevertheless that sported a ton of people looking across the waters, but nary a bikini clad beauty or a muscle toned beach bum. The youngsters looked across the waters perhaps dreaming of a job in the gelf, or how to square things up with a girlfriend, the older people enjoying the moment, groups of friends, a few couples in love, a large number of noisy black birds which Edward Lear succinctly described as ‘ Ye crows of Malabar, What a cussed bore you are’. The peanut sellers, the salted pickle sellers, the toy sellers, they were all there, rain or no rain.

In the midst of all this, I came across an anomaly. You agree how difficult it is to see order and efficiency in general when it comes to India, right? It is difficult to expect anything like that starting from the airport. But a visit to the village office close to the city jail was the first of the revelations, and the straightforward way in which the young officer dealt with and completed our case was nothing less than a pleasant shock. A visit to the Akshaya Kendra near Westhill topped it for it was here that we came across a super-efficient office, which of course looked nothing like one, just an open room with 4 people. The young lad sitting there, multitasking with a couple of computers, handled crowds with total panache, and dealt with our case with such efficiency, in a few minutes which I know from experience would have meant weeks of visits and prods and pushes to get done, in the older days. Three days later the cards which we had applied for were available. Seeing youngsters like Backer Shamil made me so much more hopeful of a vibrant India in the future.

Movies like ‘How old are you’ and ‘Bangalore days’ were the main topics of aimless conversation and I must admit that I enjoyed watching both of them enormously. Only recently did I find out that Shahabaz Aman the singer hailed from Calicut, and if I had known, I would have said hello to him, for we share a fondness for Mehaboob the late singer.

And we had yet another surprise when a tree fell over nearby power lines and shut down power to the area, but lo and behold it was sorted out in a matter of hours as a result of KSEB using contractors to do such repairs. In the old days it would have taken so much more time, I guess!

The book scene was tepid to say the least even though Mathrubhumi had opened a swanking new bookshop near the indoor stadium and DC books did not have many new history books to sell. Basheerka’s (Vaikom Mohammed Basheer) daughter works there and watching her face while I requested for the new compendium of Basheer’s stories titled Balyakalasakhiyum kure pennumgalum, could not help but smile. Nevertheless I collected good bunch of books (40 pounds) which were stacked into my usual book repository, a locally procured duffle bag which had been used often to bring them across these continents many times. The heavyweight was of course Bhaskaran Unni’s ‘Pathonpatham nootandile keralam’. As usual it was fun trudging those streets dhoti clad with my trusted kalan kuda (a relic from the 80’s) but all that was brought down with a thud when a shopkeeper gently explained that rarely did somebody wear a double dhoti or carry such an umbrella there days.

Ah! Who cares, and so I went and purchased one more dhoti, with a vengeance.

SM Street was crowded like hell, and on holidays, Street hawkers took over, loudly hawking their wares under the very nose of the great soul who brought fame to the street, none other than SK Pottekat. Mananchira maidan and the pond looked well cared, and I could not but help think of the days when the Zamorin’s family (15-17^th century) bathed there. Nevertheless there was a furor across the pond, where the heritage Comtrust building was put up for grabs, for CHF has taken up the issue against destroying that famed landmark from the city.

So much was happening, so much was there to see and experience, but I had little time amidst so many formalities to be sorted out. I could not meet any friends and a week later I was off to Palghat to spend some time with my brother.

I had never expected Palghat to change, but here too bridges and buildings were being built and this was where we got to experience a new vehicle, gaining popularity, the Tata magic. It was fun going around in Muraliettan’s (he is younger than me though) bright yellow vehicle, well protected from rain. Yet again the vegetarian restaurants like saravana and kapilavastu were mediocre. The farmers were reasonably contended as the monsoon though late had arrived. The Temple was being run smoothly though some silly issues were gaining political momentum. The young and proficient Chenda drummer Sreedharan had obtained a puraskaram, a recognition and wedding bells were in the air as my niece had just got engaged, awaiting a wedding next year. A mandatory trip to Coimbatore showed how life across the border could be, well, somewhat dry though robust from a business sense. Pallavur, a place which was so distant from technology, was now in tune with smart phones sported by most and ipads and the such even though not commonplace, used by some. I was pensive as I sat and looked across the fields, and at the pond which we used to frequent in our younger days and a memory of a particular day surfaced (a story is in the offing as you can imagine).

Our trip is never complete without a trip to Guruvayoor and that went smoothly, and interestingly we drove through the locale where Arnos padre (I had written about him earlier) lived and preached. The mandatory ICH visit was also done and the cutlets pioneered by AKG were stuffed in with gusto and I did spare a thought for Pepita Seth who compiled such a lovely book entitled – Heaven on Earth – Guruvayur.

The pattar at Pallavur had in the meantime delivered the special order for chuttu murukkus and packets of chips, halwa had been picked up from Kumari’s. It was time to leave, but not before going to Lakshmi stores at Tali, across the temple. Nothing beats the mixture he sells (made in Palghat though) and this time we also tried his palada pradhaman, and a medu vadai – phew! both were astounding.

Time to return, and as the day neared, my wife and I were saddened by the fact that we could never again

come back to a home with a caring parent. But I suppose that is life….The departure across the seas took us to Dubai where we met with some close friends. The lush green of Kerala, the drip drip and pitter patter of the monsoon rains were quickly wiped off our thoughts, to be replaced by the intense blinding light, dust and heat of the desert and the loud hum of the road and the ever present air conditioners. The city or what one should say is a metropolis continues to surprise me, and the one which we used to visit during most Ramadan and Haj holidays in the late 80’s bears no resemblance to the ultra-modern city we see today teeming with Bentley’s, Ferraris and Lamborghini’s (We did visit Jas island and the Ferrari world!). And a friend treated us to a great dinner at Asha’s a restaurant owned by Asha Bhonsle. I did not forget to tell them the story of how usha utup convinced RD Burman to compose Chura Liya with Asha based on If it’s Tuesday it must be Belgium!

And of course you come across many a lowly laborer from Kerala who casts an envious look at the well-heeled tourist or well to do businessman. That is the person who eventually goes back and builds that garish looking ‘gelf’ house across the street and then travel back to Dubai in a state of penury, to become part of yet another slavish contract. The arrogance of the British expat whom you come across now and then, brings up a snigger in me, for I know them better, having lived amongst them in the UK. Dubai (and perhaps the Far East) is the only place where they can overlord these poor laborers. Armed with lowly qualifications, but possessing a better command over spoken English and coupled with a staunch color preference by the Arab, they rule the roost there. Again, a vagary of life!

Back home…Raleigh made sure we would not forget the monsoon rains so soon, and the rains here have been equally persistent and heavy. Time to get back to the routines and catch up on other matters….

The Colonel Thirumeni of Travancore

I had spent my high school days in Trivandrum and it was not difficult to bring up the tidbit from the deep recesses of my mind that the University stadium in those days, had a GV Raja Pavilion. I was never too familiar with the name and I had not much of an idea about the great person who had the name of Lt. Col. Goda Varma Raja (GV Raja). Recently an avid reader requested me to introduce this luminary someday to readers and when I chanced on a chapter covering him in a nicely bound book detailing the life and times of Utharadom Tirunal Marthanda Varma, I decided to give it a go. These days the Uthradom Tirunal is being mentioned often in not so very glowing terms, in connection with the wealth in the Padmanabha temple vaults and well, I guess sooner or later the matter will be dissected and hotly debated by the people of Travancore. They enjoy such debates, if you ask me, and I can say so from my life amongst and understanding of the populace there.

The book itself is nicely written by Uma Maheswari and you can also see some fine sketches by another fellow blogger Sharat Sundar. One thing you will notice is the font used for the titles where v looks like a b and this presented some difficulty in my locating the book in our library system. As I quickly glanced through the pages, one face was arresting in its native beauty, that of Radha Devi, Uthradom Tirunal’s wife. It is documented that as she was a non-vegetarian, and a special kitchen was constructed in the palace for the lovely lady!! The same fact was noticed and highlighted by Pres Dr Abdul Kalam who had written a preface to the volume! But well, let me not digress and please allow me to introduce you all to Goda Varma.

The young lad born to Ambalika and Puthusseri Narayanan Nampoothiri in Poonjar in 1908 was educated at the Mar Dionysius Seminary at Kottayam (another source however states he was educated at SMV school) and later at the CMC College there. After these early days, the rebel in the young mind surfaced when he and his brother were not granted permission to pursue higher studies. They went on a hunger strike and the police who got involved following a formal petition by the elders, threatened action, but even this was of no avail. The matter was eventually resolved and GVR joined medical school at Madras but discontinued it in 1933 after an alliance was fixed with Karthika Thirunal Lekshmi Bayi, the Princes of Travancore, whom he married formally in 1934. After this and a honeymoon in Kovalam, he moved to Trivandrum. This pleasant stay in Kovalam was perhaps the reason why he became a great promoter of beach tourism in Kerala and went on place the state on the global tourist map.

But all kinds of sports and games fascinated him, especially tennis and cricket. Not only those, but also other activities involving physical training, for when the Trivandrum university got established in 1937, Goda Varma found himself appointed as the president of the board of physical education and commandant of the university labor corps. External coaching was introduced by him when he hired AG Ram Singh as Cricket coach. But here was where he crossed swords with Sir CP Ramaswamy Iyer and soon resigned this position. Anyway by then he had also become a Lt Col in the Travancore army.

While his younger days were spent in the pursuit of excellence in football, tennis and cricket for his young wards, he himself continued with other sporting activities like golf, rock climbing, surfing and flying through his middle ages.

The King Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda varma reminiscences (data sourced from Thrippadidanam by Uma Maheswari, duly acknowledged with many thanks ) .…………..

“If Kerala and India has a place in the sports world, it is because of Col GV Raja. In fact his vision was to put Travancore on the world map by first creating a world class international airport here (took a long time for international status - until 1967). For its development and for tourism promotion, an airport tis not just a necessity. In fact he wanted to get the ITI building demolished to make way for the airport.

He started the labor corps in 1937 after the Travancore University was established since he always wanted students to work. In their parades, he led them with a rifle in one hand and a shovel/spade (mammatti) in the other. The helped in the building of roads and bridges. Today that is all gone, though we have NCC in its place though it partakes in no labor activities. Do you know, he was the person who after an official visit to Pangode and seeing soldiers sleeping on the floor ensured they had beds, ever after?

When he wanted to promote tennis, he brought a coach and that was the all India coach Ranvir Singh. At first the tennis club was at Rathapuram in Sasthamangalam. The shirts had a black and orange color and were initially imported from Britain. At that point of time, Travancore was the only club which had all of nine courts! The very famous Ramanathan Krishnan used to practice in those courts. He did not just hang around at the upper ranks, but spent time with lowly ball pickers (Maniyan or Thankappan are examples who rose to the rank of State tennis players).

The story of how Tilden, Koshay Emerson and Ramilen played an exhibition match in Trivandrum is very interesting, just imagine how it would be if Federer and Nadal played a match in Trivandrum today? Well it was like that in those days with these luminaries. And so they came there after all of GV Raja’s unstinted efforts.

He got a set of four courts built where the senate hall stands today, in a week, but then there was a problem. As there were no floodlights, the game was slated to start at 2PM. it was very bright and the visitors hesitated to come out and play that afternoon (to me that was plain ‘gora’ petulance, the clay court tournaments and the other opens are played in blazing sunlight and with a good amount of discomfort!). As it appears GV Raja had to resort to some threats to get them out and come out they did to play on till 6PM, thus heralding Travancore to the tennis scene!

Well, you may not know, he was the person who discovered Vijay and Anand Amritaraj! He was the one who insisted that they be taken for the Davis cup, but there were protests as they were not members of the team. Varma insisted. As there was a shortage of finances, support came from JRD Tata and Vikram Sarabhai. It was after this tournament that GV Raja argued for and obtained the inclusion of an Asian zone for the tournament.

When the Trivandrum airport finally got international status in 1967 and a service was organized to Colombo, there were no takers. They would all go to Madras or Trichy to get to Colombo, mainly because of a special reserve bank requirement to obtain and submit a special P form to fly out of Trivandrum. GV Raja eventually got involved, and had the form requirement withdrawn. He was also the person who got the Pushpak trainer aircraft introduced in the Trivandrum flying club against unnecessary objections about its airworthiness. After GV Raja proved that they were unfounded, other clubs also introduced the Pushpak in their clubs!

Later there was a demonstration show involving many fighter jets from Nagpur to Trivandrum. When a problem arose about getting fuel for these planes which had to fly 2500 nautical miles, GV Raja was the man who came up with a workable solution of getting fuel to various Kerala airstrips using bullock carts.

Quoting the maharaja - Interestingly it was also GV Raja who brought together the cosmonauts and the astronauts together at Delhi (I myself could not find any details of this meeting though!) and had them sit at the same table! He had Yuri Gagarin, Neil Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins together with their country secretaries and ambassadors at the same meeting at Delhi! Perhaps this was the time when he jokingly apologized to Indira Gandhi as she had to stay awake till 430AM to watch him land on the moon!

You may not know this, but he was the President of Kerala Cricket Association for 13 years from 1950 to 1963 and was the first person from Kerala to become an office bearer of the BCCI; when he became its Vice-president. His services were treasured in posterity by the people of Travancore and the G. V. Raja Pavilion in the University Stadium, Trivandrum as well as the first and the premier Sports School in Kerala are named after him. To commemorate his memory, the G.V.Raja Indoor Stadium was started in a very good and convenient building previously owned by the Maharajas of Travancore. Widely regarded as the Father of Kerala Sport, the birthday of Raja, falling on October 13 is now celebrated as Sports Day in Kerala since 2007. The GV raja pavilion was inaugurated by Pres VV Giri who remarked that it was possible only because GV Raja was travelling, or else he would have forbid such things!

Col. Thirumeni as he was fondly known, got an indoor stadium built at Shangumukham, a roller skating ring, the Veli boat club, and the Sreepadam stadium at Attingal. In 1953 he was involved in conducting the Trivandrum-Kochi swimming competition after he formed the aquatic association and as we saw before, with his great interest in tennis, was also the president of Lawn tennis association. He had established the sports council in 1954, which was apparently the first of its kind in India and took the initiative to form a Golf club association in Travancore. Cricket, football and tennis were his favorite games. He was the person who started up mountaineering activities (this was after he did a mountaineering course in Switzerland and the establishment of the institute at Darjeeling) at the funnel rock in Neyyar dam and other nearby hills and it is said that he even promoted surfing so that the youth imbibed a love for adventure.

Most of information provided above can be found elsewhere, but there is a little known fact about him and his relationship with Sir CP Ramaswamy Iyer which is not talked about. This is brought to light in KPS Menon’s couriered letter to Nehru a few days before Indian Independence, while he was serving in China.

Goda Varma was one who supported Travancore’s accession to the Indian union, and felt that the caustic tongued Dewan was trying to take advantage of the situation. The letter was perhaps written just before the CP assassination attempt was made on 25^th July after which Sir CP left Travancore. The situation slowly changed with the creation of the Travancore Cochin state in 1949 and finally in 1956, the formation of Kerala.

Going back to 1947, the exasperated Goda Varma secretly wrote to KPS Menon, his friend. KPS Menon transferred this information to Nehru. The letter reads as follows, quoting KPS Menon and provides an interesting account of the times and situation in Travancore.

I do hope something will be done to bring Sir C. P.—for he is Travancore today—to his senses. I reproduce below for your personal information an extract from a letter I have received from Goda Varma Raja, brother-in-law of the Maharaja of Travancore.

"Here in Travancore I don't know how things are going to turn out. I am almost enclosed in a water-tight compartment. On principle I am against my taking (because of my position) any active part in the day-to-day politics of the State. At the same time I cannot agree to things which are against the real interests of the Maharaja or the people. There is a lot of loud talk on independence. It might be good or bad according to circumstances. But the whole thing is vitiated by the advocacy and energy put into it by Sir C.P. This man is clever, able and learned. All this makes him dangerous. I told him some years back that if he cannot behave like a gentleman he must keep out of my affairs. He has yet to learn completely the wisdom of that suggestion.

"To me Travancore can make a real contribution to the greatness of India. The talk of independence I hear from the papers is just creating an opportunity for Si C.P. to have his own way while others break each other's heads or pour abuse at each other. My personal view is that Travancore should have gone into the Constituent Assembly and made a real contribution in its work. Then if the final shape of things did not emerge as befitting the status and self-respect of Travancore it will be time to make a fight for it. Brave and confident people need not be afraid of consulting each other."

KPS continues to Nehru - Men like the writer of this letter dare not speak out. And the press is gagged. Incidentally, I see that that statement of about Travancore has leaked out in a wildly distorted form. A Chinese paper here contained a translation of a report in the Forum of 13th July to the effect that I had tendered my resignation to you in order to go and have it out with C.P! I wonder if it will not be better to let my statement be published after all. When no Travancorean in Travancore dare speak out, those outside must. Besides, when an officer of the Foreign Service has reached the rank of Ambassador, is he to be debarred, as Bajpai is trying, from expressing his views even when they are altogether consistent with his Government's? And in the present case the views were expressed by me, not as a member of the Foreign Service but as a Travancorean, pained to see his State taking a wrong turn at a critical juncture………………

Besides his contribution to sports and games, the genial Raja was also instrumental in sowing the seeds for the growth of tourism and aviation in the State. His life was always filled with adventure and some amount of danger and was once attacked by a tusker He later wrote, “I escaped with no serious injury, except a four inch hole on my right thigh. My football days might have triggered off some reflexes, but I have been forced to remain in bed. I may console myself that it took an elephant to do it”

In 1971 he went to Amritsar, to participate in All India sports Council Conference. He made an unscheduled trip to the Kulu Valley on 30th April 1972. With friends Bolina, the then Aero Club president, and Swaranjit Singh, they flew in a three-seater aircraft which suddenly nosedived and crashed. GV Raja always had great desire to see a Viscount Flight landing in Trivandrum, but tragically, its first landing was with his corpse in it.

Fellow blogger Abraham Tharakan fondly remembers theKarthika Thirunal - wife of Goda Varma in his blog and provides valuable snippets about the sportsman prince as well.

Goda Varma’s concise bio reads thus - Sri P.R. Goda Varma Raja Avargal (b. at the Kanijiramattam Palace, Poonjar, Kottayam dist, 17th September 1908; d. in a plane crash in the Kulu Valley, 30th April 1971), Hon Lt-Col 1st Travancore Nair Infantry, Chair Kerala Travels 1959-1971, Presdt Aero Club of India, All India Lawn Tennis Assoc, Trivandrum Tennis Club (TTC) 1938-1971, Kerala Sports Council (KSC) 1954-1971, Kerala Cricket Assoc 1956-1963, and Kerala Flying Club 1959-1971, Vice-Presdt All India Council of Sports, the Swimming Fed of India, and the Brd of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), Dir India Tourism Development Corp, rcvd: Coron Medal (1937), son of Srimathi Ambalika Tampuratti, of Poonjar, by her husband, Sri Puthusseri Narayanan Nampoothiri - issues - two sons and two daughters:

His grandson through his daughter Gouri Parvathi Bayi is my favorite musician these days, Prince Rama Varma as he is popularly known.

And that brings me to an oft quoted amusing anecdote from Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of Pres Roosevelt. After a visit to Kaudiar Palace, she wrote in Life magazine, 'I went to Travancore, where I met Chithira Tirunal, the Maharaja. He introduced me to the Maharani, who was not his wife, but his mother, and the heir apparent, who was not his son, but his brother. I have not understood the system. But I am glad that the power is vested with the women.'

References

Thripadidanam – S Uma Maheswari

Travancore – the footprints of destiny – HH Uthradom Thirunal Marthanda Varma – as told to Uma Maheswari

Bio source – Christopher Buyers

Twilight in China – KPS Menon

Kerala spirit of sports article
Hindu Newspaper reports

Photos - Wikipedia etc duly acknowledged with thanks

Parayail Abraham Tharakan – Fondly remembered

Our association started sometime in 2006 after both of us had decided to enter the blogosphere. Since then I have followed his voluminous output with so much respect, so much interest and much kinship, for we had similar tastes though so apart in age (That comparison was not to signify how far in age he was, but how young at heart he was). Interestingly we became good friends after he helped me source an article on Mehaboob the Singer. We had never met and even though Abe, that was how I called him, invited me on a couple of occasions to his ancestral estate located at Olavipe as his village was called, I never managed to get to traveling down south to meet him and his family. I think he was bit miffed by that, and I had always had that lapse prick my conscience, and it continues to do so.

Abe communicated less after his heart attack in 2009, but continued his presence on his blog as well as Mysore blog park, a portal where both he and I contributed thanks to a person named GVK or GV Krishnan (an eminent journalist, now retired), who brought us together. In fact at that time, our small group comprised a few likeminded individuals, some of whom who write less these days. As you can see from Abe’s blog Song of the waves, he continued to be a voluminous writer, posting many hundred posts in these 8 years.

Olavipe Thekanat Parayil Abraham Tharakan aged 81 (a.k.a Papachan) - On the professional front, he used to be a General Manager for the Kerala unit of Apollo Tires and a director for Excel glass. Abe was also a sports buff and cared much about its development in Kerala. He wrote a number of articles on those subjects, be it hockey, cricket, athletics or tennis, his favorite. I am sure he would have been the first to rejoice that Sania Mirza had won a grand slam title for the mixed doubles at the US open this year, after many years. Ironically, his last post was titled ‘God bless Indian sports’. Abe had represented Kerala in Hockey as its goal keeper in 1950.

But you can see from his posts that he enjoyed politics, TV and all that was happening around him while living at Madras, often traveling back to Kerala for family meets at Olavipe. I assume nostalgia caught up and he soon moved back to Cochin for good in 2011. He loved photography, be it quaint objects, flowers or trees. There is so much more to Abe I presume, though I knew him only a little and that too, through the bits and bytes that we put up on the virtual world called the internet.

Yesterday I got the information of his passing through a comment from a mutual friend Ashvin on my latest blog where I had mentioned him. Sadly his younger brother had passed away just a fortnight ago.

May his soul rest in peace. God Bless………………….

Abe - The waves may have become still but the songs will remain in our memories…

Abe’s blog – Song of the waves

Murali's visit to Olavipe

Tracing the curious story of ‘The King of the Coast’, an American in Kerala

From the headstone of James Darragh’s grave, we get the following additional information.

James' wife Mary, and their daughter Ellen, would have been unlikely to have kept close to his first daughter. Their return to Ireland suggest a rejection of life in India as well as in the USA.

Given the attitudes of the time - regarding Mary's mixed race, and possible illegitimacy too - it may be that no-one openly talked about her origins.

This could have lead to several of the confused reports of the time about ‘second' wives and Ellen being her sister (rather than her half-sister).

References

The Carpet and upholstery trade review and the rug trade review 1896

Brooklyn Daily Eagle of Dec 12th 1908,

Brooklyn daily eagle May 14 1911

On a Human Note – Dom Leonard Vickers (A touch of God – Eight monastic journeys)

Letters from Malabar and on the Way - By Henry Bruce

Gateways of Asia – Aleppey – Hans Schenk

America's Successful Men of Affairs: The city of New York - edited by Henry Hall

The Wide World: The Magazine for Everybody, Volume 42 – An Indian Venice by CE Bechhofer

The history of trade union movement in Kerala – K Ramachandran Nair

Darragh tombstone

Pics

Darraghs Mill Quilon

Other sources – Google images…

Afterward

I apologize for the length of this article, my heart just did not allow me to cull it…

The 1940’s were certainly turbulent if you look into the history of mankind. Half of the world’s population were striving to gain independence from imperialist powers and deliverance from famine while the other half fought for all of six years over a multitude of issues. Turbulence in Ethiopia, Spain, China and other parts of Europe led to the declarations of this global war in which many fought and died. What earthly importance did the hilly and difficult terrains of Afghanistan and its warring tribes have in this war? One only needs to look into any Asian map to see the Afghans sandwiched between India and Russia and notice a great strategic importance.

For the British, the Jewel in the Crown India was under threat. They always feared that the Russians would find ways of wresting control from them and presumably the Russians did have some ideas of that sort. The first Afghan ruler who signed a treaty of friendship with Russia was Amanullah in 1921. But he was soon gone, by 1928. Nadir shah who ruled between 1929 to 1933 was wooed by both the Soviets and the British. But when the 2^nd world war started, the nature of the game changed as a third party who was present in Kabul, gained some importance. That was Germany, and some 120 of its citizens working in Afghanistan. Let’s go to Kabul of the 1940’s to see what was going on. You will find all kinds of interesting people playing their cards in this game, Subhash Bose, Hitler, Canaris, Churchill, Peter Fleming and so on…

But to get to the details, you have to first of all know about the Abwehr, the intelligence agency which was part of the well-oiled German war machine in those days. Abwehr was the German war agency which dealt exclusively with raw human intelligence, obtained from field agents and other sources. In 1939 Canaris, the head of Abwehr was tasked with planning a Russo-German invasion of India, perhaps to be strategized only on paper to counter the British when needed, as a threat. Hatched in Istanbul by Eppler Gafer, it was initially unraveled in Masuleh - Afghanistan, with a fellow conspirator Ghulam Barakatullah who had connections to the influential Mirza Ali, the Fakir of Ipi. That operation was known by the code name Operation Tiger and to get some perspective it is probably a better idea to start with a previous article of mine detailing the adventurous flight of Subhash Bose from India to Germany. Bose had planned to seek support from Hitler in his fight against Britain and that was what took him to Berlin in 1941, where ACN Nambiar had already set up stage. The Germans were not too receptive to the Indian guest, to start with. Why so?

Hitler had neither the plans to invade India nor to help the Indian legion make a charge into British held India, as Bose desired. His intention was to take control of the Soviet Union and wait on the wings of India to use the situation for further negotiation with the Allies in dividing up the world. Hitler had always been clear that Indians needed to be ruled by a superior white British government and also agreed that the Brits were doing a good job at it (For him, the Indian freedom movement was just a rebellion of an inferior Indian race (Asiatic jugglers) against the superior English Nordic race! And that the Nordic race had all the rights to rule the world.). For Hitler, the Indian congress were a waste of time and he recommended as follows to Lord Irwin in Nov 1937 “Shoot Gandhi, and if this doesn't suffice to reduce them to submission, shoot a dozen leading members of Congress and if that doesn't suffice, shoot 200 and so on until order is established. You will see how quickly they will collapse as soon you make it clear that you mean business”. Goering supporting Hitler, quickly labelled Gandhi an anti-British Bolshevik agent in India. But these were not clear to Bose (though he had complained about Hitler’s remarks in Mein Kempf) and if he had really understood all this he would never had wasted time in Berlin, The Nazi’s had no intention of helping Bose (in reality Hitler considered hobnobbing with people like the Agha Khan) and that was the reason why the disillusioned Bose eventually drifted away to Japan.

But let’s get back to the Northwest frontier where Germany had already established their place as a third power after the British and the Russians. By 1924 the Germans were running a popular school called the Nedjat German School in Kabul. Later, the Germans were able to sign an agreement with the Afghans in 1937 (Todt agreement) to supervise road construction all over Afghanistan. In 1937 a Lufthansa line was established to Kabul, a Telefunken radio link was set up and Siemens put up a 20kW broadcasting station. The few Germans were well respected in Kabul and they were seen as more lenient towards Islam in general.

All this was fine, but the Pathans of the NWFP were restless, their rights to raid the fertile lands and people of the plains had been disallowed by the British in return for some money, insufficient as it always was (essentially economic and their implementation of their moral codes (Pukhtunwali), which imply retaliation and blood feud (Badal) in settling old disputes). Here is where you get to hear of the Fakir of Ipi or the Waziri warlord Mirza Ali Khan who rose to fame in the notorious Islam Bibi case. With his leadership Waziristan became the most notorious area of tribal unrest in the British Empire on the eve of the Second World War. Mirza Ali also provided support for Abdul Gaffer Khan’s leadership to the red shirts. They were also allied with Gandhi and Indian congress. The fakir was difficult to catch for he played a cat and mouse game, forever on the move as the scarlet pimpernel of Afghanistan.

Back in Germany, the Abwehr decided to increase their presence in Kabul. I am sure you all remember TEL or TE Lawrence, a.k.a Lawrence of Arabia. Well, to a certain extent it was his strategy and success that was followed and mimicked by Hauptmann Theodor von Hippel who once worked under ~~him~~ Canaris, in the formation of the Branderberger commando unit. Hippel planned to insert élite units, meticulously trained in sabotage and well versed in specific foreign languages, operating behind enemy lines and wreaking havoc on the enemy's ‘command, communication and logistical’ units.

Abdul Majid, the Afghan economy minister who had traveled to Berlin, in the meantime suggested a pact with the Germans stating that they would support Germans against the British so that the suffering Afghans could be liberated and in return economic support and access to the sea. Agha khan also tried his hand at winning Hitler’s support, but failed. Anyway after a number of subtle but failed overtures, the Abwher decided to place their agents in Kabul. The frontline attachment 200 was to be led by Oberleutenat Dieter Witzel Kirn (Code name Pathan) with his team of specially recruited men aimed to establish camp near the Indian border, establish a transmitter and start radio transmissions. He was also supposed to create a good rapport with the Fakir of Ipi and get the people to back the Axis powers.

D Witzel

That was the beginning of Operation Tiger. The time period being the summer of 1941 and a time when Operation Barbarossa was being executed with the German all-out attack on the Soviet borders. Some 4 million soldiers were on the move, to capture the USSR and complete Hitler’s ‘Generalplan Ost’. Operation Barbarossa was the largest military operation in world history in both manpower and casualties and was to become a major failure when it faltered at the gates of Leningrad.

The German legation in Kabul comprised their commercial attaché Carl Rasmuss, Dieter Witzel or The Pathan and two radio operators Doh and Zugenbuhler. They were the people who oversaw Operation Tiger and Operation Fuerfresser (Fire eater). The intention behind Operation tiger was to foment a full scale uprising on the frontier and was initially scheduled for Sept 1941. Two more agents, Prof Manfred Oberdorffer (code name Keil) and Fred Brandt (code name Arma) were also deputed under cover of their professions namely tropical medicine and entomology, with both purportedly working on finding a cure for leprosy. They were tasked with establishing contact with the fakir of Ipi. Further they had to train the locals in explosives and so on, and this was the sub operation code named Fuerfresser. In addition to training the locals, the so called Bose organization from Germany was to be inserted into the borders to join the masses streaming in revolt into India against the British. That was the full grand plan of the operation Tiger, the Grobiensatz. The Germans had an Indian contact who would help them, that was none other than Ram Bhagat Talwar of the Kirti Kisan party, whom I introduced in the article detailing Bose’s flight.

Talwar was certainly a devious man and very clever one at that, he was perhaps the most difficult to follow and a master of his trade, that being deception and agent extraordinary. Who were his masters? British? Soviet? German? Short, lean, handsome, fit, intelligent, able, quick witted, cool headed and self-assured, this young fella born in the NWFP knew his territory better than anybody. As we get into our story, this staunch communist was all of 32 years old and known as the guide who would frequently lead his communist friends from India to freedom, through Afghanistan. He had just completed the task of getting Orlando Mazotta, NSC Bose through enemy hands and sent him off to Berlin and his brother had been hanged (for assassinating the British Punjab governor in 1930) by the British testifying his hatred for the English. The Germans trusted him implicitly and he became their link man in Kabul. The Abwher would pay him what he asked in return for guidance.

The Russian NKVD was a law enforcement agency of the Soviet Union closely associated with the Soviet secret police and was known for its political repression during the era of Joseph Stalin. It is best known for the activities of the Gulag and the Main Directorate for State Security (GUGB), the predecessor of the KGB. Talwar signed up with the Russian NKVD sometime after Bose left for Berlin, perhaps in June 1941. Though the Russians were a little leery, they finally agreed to his recruitment as agent (Code name Rom) and explained to him that they would carefully edit and redo any document Talwar passed on to the Abwehr agents.

In Kabul, a radio station run by Iqbal Shedai called Radio Himalaya also broadcast daily, which Bose did not quite like as they had different ideologies. Bose wanted a Free India radio, to rule the airs. But soon the British learned of Bose’s presence in Berlin and made a splash stating Boses’ fascist leaning, prompting a number of issues which hastened his eventual departure. Bose in the meantime was appraised of the Abwehr operation in Kabul and he was in agreement with the general idea. Bose also wanted an airstrip to be established in tribal territory there so that the commandos and Indian legion forces to be deployed in large numbers, since the FW Kondor transport plane needed a long runway to land. The border unrest was in continuous foment by the Fakir of Ipi and the British spent a lot of time fighting the Waziris. In India, C. F. Andrews made an eloquent plea decrying the situation: "We cannot stand out boldly for disarmament in Europe while carrying on war in Asia."

The German attack on Russia was in full swing and the Middle East and India were forgotten for a moment, and the Afghans were relieved to see their hated enemy being attacked up north in Operation Barbarossa. But the hated Soviets were soon to become members of the allies and more strongly allied with the British. And the Afghans were in deeper trouble as they could no longer play one against the other. As the war progressed and the invincible German forces faltered at Leningrad, the Afghans felt cornered.

The German station Chief Hans Pilger was by now considered too passive by Berlin and was ordered to be replaced by the outspoken Otto von Hentig. The British would have none of it, they reacted by demanding expulsion of all 120 or so Germans from Kabul. They also informed the Afghans that Hentig was the man behind the earlier Shami pir folly and that Hentig should be thrown out. The Afghans refused and the British retaliated with economic sanctions of some sort by stopping petrol Lorries (US GM make) from plying to Kabul.While the Hentig appointment was being hotly debated, two of our german agents in disguise (keil and arma) and scouting for leprosy cures were caught with ammunition and money meant for the fakir of Ipi. In the ensuing firefight ‘keil’ Oberdorffer was killed and brandt escaped. As the story of German covert involvement became overt, Hentig remained at home and those at Kabul were ordered to lie low and not antagonize the British. Things normalized and the Lorries with petrol crossed the borders once again.

The situation swung in a different direction after the German decline in Stalingrad. The Germans had gone silent in Kabul and the British ratcheted their strength a notch.The British applied pressure on Kabul asking them to decide who they were aligned with if they needed British support. They asked for all Germans to be expelled from Afghanistan.

The orders for German expulsion resulted in the departure of 204 Germans and Italians by Oct 1941. Only four of the original team remained, Witzel, Doh, Zugenbuhler and Rasmuss. Around that time another operation (somewhat lukewarm as it turned out) code named Elephant was launched, to place agents in Bangkok to liaise with Bengal. Nevertheless, Operation Tiger was still on the anvil, but yet to get executed.

Back at the Russian borders, a number of Muslim Red Army prisoners had been taken and it was an Uzbek then living in Germany (he fled communist USSR in 1922 and moved to Berlin) named Veli Kayum Khan, heading the operations of Operation Tiger B who was given the responsibility of recruiting willing soldiers from the prisoners of war. The intent was to create a Muslim regiment to fight at the Eastern front. The grand mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin Al Hussayni, a friend of Hitler and Himmler, provided the jihad endorsement (His own story is fascinating, for he was the only person close to the Nazi warlords who was allowed to escape as Berlin fell and was never tried for war crimes since the British (Arthur Giles) wanted him to become a leader to unite the Palestinians. The plan to fly the FW200 Kondor aircraft with personnel was becoming problematic and soon the plan was changed to drop them in Turkmenistan.

Witzel continued his work diligently and the Operation B personnel had by then been deputed to Afghanistan. Witzel reported that over 5,500 supporters of Bose had lined up in Afghanistan and 2,000 of them were armed British military deserters. These people were training local guerilla leaders and getting ready to fight the British. Bose in the meantime created a number of cells operating all over India who were reporting British movements (recall my article on the Ehrenfels?) sabotaging the railway and jute factories in Calcutta, to name a few. But was Witzel providing correct information to berlin?

At Kabul, Bhagat Ram Talwar, (axis code name RK) was keeping Berlin informed of various developments. The Italians in Kabul provided some amount of training to the Indians who had gathered, like Talwar, Sodhi and Ganguly and who sent their own reports to Berlin and Bose. In the meantime RK obtained more and more money from the Nazis while providing them faked reports purportedly from Bose’s organization in Bengal. The reversals in Russia and other events resulted in Operation Tiger being postponed several times. Bose had in the meantime moved to Japan and Singapore had fallen. The Japanese march through Assam into India was now a definite possibility.

Rassmuss gave Talwar all the money and wireless equipment demanded, but he would faithfully turn them over to the NKVD. The complete details of Axis activity gleaned by Talwar was thus passed on to the Russians. The NKVD also tested Talwar often to see if he could handle a double agent stress. Well, as we will soon find out, he was not just a double agent, but a quintuple agent (remember that he had a number of dealings with the Italians as well) .The NKVD asked Talwar to shed off his communist leanings

Uttam Chand was the shop owner in Kabul who provided housing to the Indians. He was soon picked up by the Afghans when his British passport expired and expelled to India where he was promptly arrested by the English. Harminder Singh Sodhi had in the meantime become an agent for the Soviets providing whatever he knew to the Russians and focused on heading the communist Kirti party’s work in India based on Soviet instructions rather than Bose’s or axis. He was also arrested by the British soon after. So as we see, Talwar, alias Rahmat Khan alias Ram was soon all alone.

In Jan 1942, the Abwehr airdropped 100 trained Indians from the Indian legion into an area deep in East Iran. Their mission was to reach India via Baluchistan and carry Sabotage acts and eventually prepare a national uprising. This was code named operation Bajedere. In March 42, Witzel asked Berlin for permission to commence preparations for Operation Tiger by visiting the borders and starting training of tribesmen. He got it only in June, but it resulted in nothing under watchful eyes of the Afghan police. Meanwhile the fakir of ipi was having his own tussles with the British and kept on demanding money from the Talwar in return for his support. Talwar in the meantime gave the Nazis fanciful accounts that preparations for a major revolt in the tribal areas was well underway. He also made a request for sabotage material (while at the same time ditching dynamite supplied by the Italians) and half a million Duetsche marks to bribe the Fakir of Ipi. Ribbentrop from Berlin approved a million! Things were coming to a head.

In June 1942, the NKVD’s Ovakimyan met with SOE’s George hill to discuss mutual cooperation and to work jointly against the Germans, perhaps fearing that Uttam chand and Sodhi would talk and reveal Bhagat Ram talwar’s role in Kabul. For the first time in history two secret agencies agreed to share Talwar, the double agent. The NKVD in return wanted information on Japans moves against China.

We mentioned that Talwar was a multiple agent. We know already that he worked for the Italians, the

Germans and the Soviets. Who else did he work with? Here enters a very interesting man, a writer who strayed into the activities of the SOE, none other than Peter Fleming who had come to join the Indian raj as the head of the SEAC’s deception division. Peter frequently used AIR radio broadcasts to convey secret messages. The stock trade of the DIB’s SEAC was manipulation of double agents. (Peter’s brother was Ian Fleming who later wrote all the 007 James Bond books – so now you know where the inspiration came from). Peter was given charge of running Talwar and that was how quad agent Silver was created.

Silver and Fleming got to work, the ensuing reports fed to the Germans claimed that Bose’s organization in India was massively supported and leady to leap in support of the Germans! Fictitious organizations like the All India national revolutionary committee and the Provisional central committee were mentioned.

RK or Talwar was already a quad agent, but the reason why the Abwher used his dispatches so implicitly needs a little diverse thought. Interestingly, Witzel and Rasmuss did not pass this on to Berlin and focused on sabotage and other similar efforts. However Silver’s demand for 5,000 pounds to start a wireless link between Delhi and Berlin was quickly complied with. Many more similar monetary demands resulted in Silver collecting a considerable fortune. Why did the Germans not pass on all the information? Perhaps they had their own suspicions about the facts and were using his dispatches only to cling on further their own careers.

Soon after all this, the British arrested all the German agents (perhaps with Talwar’s help) and activities ceased. In 1943, Witzel and Doh were released under a British guarantee of safe conduct. Rassmuss fled (after the NKVD tried to recruit Rassmuss) through India. Pietro Quaroni the Italian later exposed the full Axis network in Kabul to the British, in his testimony. The soviets in the meantime also told Rassmuss about Silver being a multiple agent. But Talwar continued his trips to Kabul and kept in touch with Witzel who was back in Berlin. We do not know for sure if Rassmuss worked for the British while in India following his flight from Kabul, but he certainly did not tell Berlin about Silver.

Nothing more was done with respect to the originally planned NWFP operation. And with that came an end to Operation Tiger or the German plan to invade India through the NWFP.

The winter of 42 was when Emile Schenkl delivered Bose’s daughter. Things were turbulent in India, his people were starving and Bose was upset that in this critical juncture, he could not travel to India. So after handing over Azad Hind to ACN Nambiar, he left for Japan in the U boat 180.

Canaris fell afoul of Hitler for various reasons. The Abweher was abolished and Canaris was arrested on 23 July 1944, in the aftermath of the plot against Hitler and executed shortly before the end of the war, along with Oster, his deputy. As we all know, the Axis powers lost the war and all the surly characters met with just ends.

Peter Fleming returned to Britain and did other things, but whenever his feet touched the magnificent tiger skin which adorned his study floor, he remembered his grand times in Delhi. I do not know if he ever remembered Silver.

Silver’s complete story is not detailed here, for there is so much more, and can be a book by itself. In any case, what happened to him? As Mihir Bose explains in his article ‘Everyone’s man in Kabul’ - In 1976, when Bhagat Ram wrote his autobiography, aware that Bose was now a hero of India’s freedom struggle, Silver decided he could not tell the truth. He wrote of Quaroni and Rasmuss but there was no mention of the Russians, Fleming nor of his nickname, Silver. This most remarkable spy carried that secret to his grave

Bose it appears, sadly knew nothing about Silvers deception and vanished in 1945…

Dietrich Witzel, code name Pathan, was later involved in the UPA movement in Ukraine, leading the FAK 202 and was awarded an Iron Cross. Later known under the name Dietrich Kirn, he became a writer of some repute.

After the Germans were expelled from Kabul, a period of mutual cooperation continued between the USSR and UK against Nazi Germany until the end of the war in 1945.The Fakir of Ipi continued on, even though Quaroni himself admitted to his British interrogators that he had realized during the summer of 1941 that the Axis plans to use the Faqir of Ipi were a sheer waste of time and money. After Partition the Fakir turned into the most vehement tribal opponent to their Pakistan takeover. The Fakir made a series of overtures to Pandit Nehru, whom he allegedly addressed as 'King of India’ - but to no avail. In1954 his Commander-in-Chief, Mehar Dil, surrendered to Pakistan and this brought the Waziristan insurrection to an end. The Fakir of Ipi passed away in 1960.

Afghanistan continues to be a place where intrigues are wrought, wars are fought and death can be seen every day, even today. As Lord Curzon once said: 'I do not prophesy about the future. No man who has read a page of Indian history will ever prophesy about the Frontier……………….

References

India in Axis strategy – Milan Hauner

Dealing with the Devil: Donal O'Sullivan

The Deceivers: Allied Military Deception in the Second World War- Thaddeus Holt

Subash Chandra Bose in Nazi Germany – Romain Hayes

The Brandenburger Commandos: Germany's Elite Warrior Spies in World War II

Franz Kurowski

Raj, Secrets, Revolution: A Life of Subhas Chandra Bose - Mihir Bose

The Jew is Not My Enemy: Tarek Fatah

Orlando Mazotta - Bose's flight to Berlin

Notes:

History will refer to two Operation Tiger’s annals, and there is another little known Operation Tiger from the WW II. It was a botched US rehearsal of the D Day landings at Normandy, carried out at Slapton Sands in the UK. Due to an error in transmitting frequencies, the Germans picked up the radio signals and US forces were attacked by German E boats who saw they had no escorts. Close to 800 sailors and soldiers were apparently killed and the story was hushed up.
Shami Pir folly - A number of Wazirs cross the Afghan frontier with the object of looting and of stirring up a rising against the reigning Afghan house as a result of an agitation headed by Syed Mohammad Sadi or Shami Pir (Syrian imam), a priest from Damascus whose family was connected with the ex-king Amanullah. After collecting a British bribe, Pir went back to Europe.

When music and dance ruled

Some months ago, we traced the route taken by exponents of Carnatic music in the Vijayanagara kingdom to Tanjore, where the Maratha Nayaks patronized them. That there were a number of music and dance forms in vogue already, is pretty clear, but with time new systems became the norm. The new forms flourished but with pressure from the British rulers and missionaries, some of the old practices were getting forced out. One of the older forms that underwent change was what was termed Dasiattam and four brothers known as the Tanjai nalavar got involved (together with some others) in its revival and restructuring into what we know as today’s Bharatnatyam. However for certain reasons they were forced to move to other regions. Let’s go to the Tanjore of those periods and retrace the steps of the famous Quartet to Travancore and their stay there.

The history of Devadasis is very often misunderstood and confused with anglicized definitions of courtesans (A courtesan was originally a courtier, which means a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person) and prostitutes. In Kerala and Tamil regions, the meanings of the words Tevadicci and Kuttaci are often intermixed with these wrong English terms mostly due to the influence of missionaries of that time. But I will not get into that study as yet, let us be content with the fact that these dasis actually sang and danced (also, let’s not dwell upon other aspects of their decadence, as yet). Their dances were usually conducted in temples and palaces, to the accompaniment of Carnatic music. Due to various socio cultural reasons, there was a degeneration of this art and this resulted in them getting a very bad image. The 1800’s were thus a period when the Devadasis were decried, stigmatized and their art forms derided. Their nautch (Natch in Hindi, anglicized) dance otherwise known as dasiyattam was on the chopping block. It was during this period that dasiattam moved to the royal courts to become Sadir or court dance and this eventually metamorphosed to Bharatnatyam.

Art especially temple dancing, is not a money maker and always required a carefully selected patron. Since multinationals and industries did not exist then, exponents relied on individual patrons or the state. The early patrons of these arts were either the kings or rich brahmins, rich traders from the vaisya communities. The selection of a patron was very important, and many factors came into play such as their wealth, standing and learning, for it was the only route for the family of a good looking dasi with some dancing ability to climb up the social ladder. Typically they hailed from the isai vellalar communities who even had a matrilineal (for girls) naming convention (Pillai added to the male names). Sringara rasa and Bhakti got interspersed over time with dasiattam. And so when they danced, the varnams sung took to praising not just the lord, but also the patron in many cases.

The nattuvanar, most usually male, was integral to a dasi’s performance, he was the dace conductor who knew the music and choreography intimately. A senior teacher, and in many cases he took to managing the group. His nattuvangam involved playing the cymbals, holding the rhythm with jatis, sometimes singing the song and controlling the laya or tempo of the dance. Now as you can imagine this was a tall task and required one to know and master so many sub arts, so it took a long time for one to become a nattuvanar and not many made it. And dasis were also particular, for the dancer needed to be familiar with the style of a nattuvanar before performing with him, so this led to creation of teams performing dasiyattam or in later days Bharatanatyam. The older teachers passed on learning to the younger ones through a gurukula system. And thus was formed gharanas or banis as they were called based on individual styles of Nattuvanars.

One of the first Bharatnatyam bani’s was originated by the Tanjavur quartet. They created a powerful and long line of dance teachers and masters and somewhat of interest is the fact that they never married into families with devadasis in their lineage. As you can imagine these four brothers (also isai vellalars) who we will talk about were amply endowed with brilliance, and in certain cases, genius. They were Chinnaya, Ponnaiya, Sivanandam and Vadivelu. Their compositions were the ones which mainly set the trend and defined the repoitre in today’s Bharatnatyam performances.

The Isai vellalars (music cultivator) are also known as Melakkarar or Molakkara Mudaliar, as times went by, reversed the roles in their community with the suppression of the dasi's involvement with patrons and bringing about elevation of the standing of male teachers. But let’s not speed by, we are still in the times of the quartet, in Serfoji’s court, the early decades of the 19^th century. For that is where the ekartha prayoga (single theme - different but interlinked combinations of Natya, Nritya which was the ‘Ekartha’ style) style of Sadir dance was recomposed by the brothers to form the unlinked prithagartha prayoga structure or ‘margam’ used today - stretching from Alarippu to Tillana (Alarippu, Jatisvaram, Shabdam, Varnam, Padam, Javali, and Tillana), demonstrating multiple themes and incorporating jathiswarams, varnams, swarajatis and tillanas.

A note to keep in mind – Sadir and natyam re-composition was not just carried out by the Tanjore quartet, but also other famous banis and nattuvanars of that period such as Sabhapati, Gopala Narayana and Sivarama subayya.

Serfoji inherited a great musical tradition in his courts from his ancestors, great contributors to the schools of Sadir and Carnatic music (see my previous article). He was not only trained in local arts but was also schooled in the western fashion by CF Schwarz and even though the English rulers were in full control, they allowed him to continue as a titular monarch thus providing him the time to scholarly pursuits. The musical department of his court was headed by Varahappa Dikshitar of Varahapayyar. The four brothers who served in the court reported to Varahapayyar.

This family with a strong musical tradition started with Gopala Nattuvanar who served in the Rajagopalasvami temple at Mannargudi, and as the chief musician of the court of King Vijayaraghava Nayaka in the seventeenth century. The family later moved to Madurai, and then to Tirunelveli. During the rule of King Tulaja II, three brothers from the family, Mahadevan, Gangaimuttu and Ramalingam went back to Tanjore. Gangaimuttu had two sons, Subbarayan and Chidambaram and Subbarayan (chupparaya) fathered the Thanjavur Brothers. Subbaraya in those days was responsible for the female dancers performing in the royal court.

Ponnaiah was a composer and vocalist, Chinnaiah was a choreographer, Sivanandam excelled as a mridangist and nattuvanar, and lastly Vadivelu was a composer and violinist. Originally these brothers recited the tevaram and led dance performances at the Brihadiswara temple. Chinnaiya (1802-56), the eldest of the four, was a great teacher of dance, and in addition was supposed to have been one of the few males who actually performed the dance dressed as a woman (and taught men to perform during the mattu pongal). He later moved to the Mysore court of Krishnaraja Udaiyar III (1811-68). Among the compositions of the Quartette, a few are dedicated to Krishnaraja Udaiyar III. Those compositions are mostly the creations of Chinnaiya. He also wrote a Telugu text called Abhinaya Lakshanamu, a reworked version of the Sanskrit Abhinayadarpana of Nandikeshvara and narrated to him by his father. Ponnaiya (1804-64) was prolific composer among the brothers. Systematization of the Sadir Kacheri is credited to him. Most of the compositions by the brothers on Brihadishvara as well as several Nritta compositions (Jatisvarams and Tillanas) are attributed to him.

Vadivelu, an accomplished vocalist, composer and violinist was the youngest and is said to have accompanied himself on the violin, which by itself is a rare accomplishment at those high levels. Their musical abilities were tested by three prominent female dancers: Kamalamuttu of Tiruvarur, Sarasammal of Thanjavur, and Meenakshi of Mannargudi, who likely performed at Serfoji’s darbar. During their stay in Tanjore, they perfected the use of the violin, the clarinet, structuring of the Sadir, and training of so many dancers and documenting of their efforts. Sivanandam brought in the western Clarinet as an accompaniment for Carnatic music, and Ponnayya created many famous kritis in praise of Brihadiswara. Vadivelu contributed significantly to dance also. The brothers propagated the Pandanaloor style of dance. Navasanthi Kavithuvam, a traditional dance form was pioneered by the quartet

While one story has it that Baluswamy, Muthuswami dikshitar’s brother picked up the violin upon the insistence of Manali Chinnaya Mudaliyar, and thus brought about the introduction of the violin into the Carnatic scene, another has it that it was Vadivelu who initially studied the violin under his teacher Schwarz (some others say that Varahapayyar chose the violin over the piano and later taught Vadivelu). Vadivelu later became a disciple of Muthuswami Dikshitar when he spent four years in Tanjore. He mastered the instrument and became so proficient that Thaygaraja, it is said, would summon Vadivelu often to listen to the new instrument. All four were called `Eka Chanda Grahi,' for they had the ability to repeat what they have heard just once.

As Arul Francis a modern day teacher summarizes - The greatest works of the Tanjore Quartet are the varnams, which contain depictions of the ecstasy and torment of romantic love, as well as depictions of states of spiritual rapture, interspersed throughout with abstract dance sequences. The dance compositions of the Tanjore Quartet form the classical canon, or the supreme masterpieces, of Bharatanatyam.

Mural at the Big Temple - The quartet

All was going well in Tanjore until Serfoji appointed the young son of his mistress to take over temple affairs much to the disgust of the brothers and this led to their walkout from the court. The story is somewhat like this - As luck or lack thereof would have it the brothers quarreled with the King around 1830 and were promptly banished from the court due to the relationship between Serfoji and a young boy who was trained in dancing and music by Vadivelu, and due to the preference shown by the king to the boy instead of the illustrious four. It appears that the boy was felicitated during a Chittira Thiruvazha, instead of the quartet. The foursome showed their irritation by refusing to sing standing up or something of that sort. The inebriated (?) king curtailed their temple honors and that worsened the issue further, eventually resulting in their banishment.

This was in the 1830 time frame from what we can gather. When Serfoji passed away in 1832, he was succeeded by Shivaji 2 and that was when Ponnaiya and Sivanadam returned to Tanjore upon his invitation. The brothers had originally traveled to Swati Tirunal's court in Travancore at the behest of the Swati’s teacher and Dewan Subba Rao who hailed from Tanjore.

Vadivelu was then 22 years of age, and he was soon appointed as Asthanavidvan of Travancore court for 8 years. Vadivelu’s skills as a vocalist, dance expert and violinist immediately caught the fancy of Swathi Thirunal. Vadivelu was a scholar in Tamil and Telugu and his violin mastery is said to have been unmatched. Swathi was convinced of the importance of violin to Carnatic music and he ordered it be used in concerts after gifting a rare violin made of ivory to Vadivelu, in 1834. Though people mention this often, I have not yet concluded my studies on the topic – for Vadivelu is believed to have a role in codifying and transforming the Mohiniyattom dance form of Kerala which both Swati Tirunal and his ancestors had favored in the Travancore courts. In addition to his own composition Vadivelu is known to have been the reviewer and critic of Swathi’s music and dance compositions.

Kamakshi Ammal was another accomplished singer who accompanied Vadivelu to Travancore together with the Tanjore sisters Sundara Lakshmi and Sugandha Parvathi. Kamakshi was an ancestor (her great granddaughter Jayammal was Balasaraswati’s mother) of the great dancer Blasaraswati and spent some 8 years in Travancore.

Vadivelu lived close to Karamana at Shankara Vilasom in Pazhayasala, close to the Killiyaar (parallel to the south end of Chalai Street).

Anyway the combination of Swati Tirunal and Vadivelu resulted in the creation of many varnas, Swarajatis, Padas and Tillanas. But it is also said that they had a fall out once after which Vadivelu left Travancore and moved to Harippad. He did move back after the intervention of other senior members of the court and we often hear of the varna he composed in praise of his patron upon his return. This apparently had just the opposite effect for Swati Tirunal had changed by then, and was mentally troubled with all the problems from the British resident. Swati Tirunal’s anger at the flattery resulted in Vadivelu changing the text of the Varna ‘Sammugamu’.

He was as you recall familiar with Tyagaraja and it is said that Swati Tirunal, after hearing Vadivelu sing Tyagaraja kritis wanted vadivelu to go to Tanjore and invite Tyagaraja to Travancore. Tygaraja declined. This trip is also often mentioned and in Ulloor S Parameshwara Iyer’s poem Kattile Pattu, one can get some details of the visit and the fact that Vadivelu was robbed of his possessions, but had them returned after the robbers listened to Vadivelu playing the violin.

Vadivelu passed away in 1846. The ivory violin gifted by Swathi Tirunal can be seen at the Quartet’s ancestral home at 1818, West Main Street, Behind Brihadeswara Temple, Thanjavoor even today. Though Vadivelu himself was never married, descendants of the other brothers carried on the work and trained many great dancers of Bharatnatyam. Bharata Natya exponent Kittappa Pillai, himself trained many famous dancers such as Vaijayanthi Mala Bali, Indirani Rahman, Yamini Krishna Moorthy, Suchetha Chapekkar etc

It is also said that many of the kritis composed during Swati’s period were set in the Sopana Sangeetham slow style perfectly suited for Mohiniyattam which Swati favored. But what we see today as Swati Tirunal’s work is faster and owes the transformation to some polishing and resetting by Muthaiah Bhagavathar and Semmangudi, more about it when we discuss the details later.

Inputs from RP Raja’s work on Swati Turunal

Vadivelu was the most proficient vocalist in his court and an excellent choreographer. After leaving Tanjore, and facing the wrath of Serfoji who even burnt their house (unlikely since the house is still in use), they lived in a village called Orathunadu (perhaps near Tirunelveli- Which was part of Travancore in those days) for a year or two. They reached the Travancore palace in Jan 1832 and the entourage comprised not only the four brothers but also their father Subbarayan and Chidambaram (uncle) three years after Swati Tirunal had become the ruler. Serfoji passed away in March 1832 and Sivaji who took over invited the brothers back, but only Ponnayya and Sivanandam returned. So that makes it clear that two of the brothers lived only for a few days in Travancore. Krishnaraja Wodeyar invited the brothers to Mysore and Chinnayya left Travancore for Mysore where he propagated the Mysore Bharatanatyam style and composed many kritis. Swati Tirunal constructed two houses for the brothers, Sankaravilasam for Vadivelu and Chempakasseri Veedu for Chinayya (?). Both brothers were formally employed by the court in June 1832 on a monthly salary of 15 gold varahams each.

Until then the entire group were paid on a daily rate. But here comes a little mystery for we read that Chinnayya passed away in Trivandrum in 1839 and the government spent over 30 varahams for his funeral (other sources indicate Chinayya died only in 1856). Was that when he moved to Mysore? So why the mention of a death and a funeral? Was it done in spite since Swati was upset that he moved to Mysore? Anyway court records show that Vadivelu’s salary was doubled and that he died in 1846, and was cremated perhaps at the Puthencotta cremation ground. Six months later Swati Tiruanl also passed away, silencing the duo’s prodigious outputs. The music and dance at Swati Tirunals Natyagraha was slowly silenced, and the singers and dancers started their move again, towards British madras.

The exact period which Chinnaya spent in Mysore is not clear and many source indicate he was invited by Chamrajendra which is not correct as Chinnayya passed away even before (1856 if the later year is correct) Chamrajendra acceded the throne. Also since he composed kritis dedicated to Krishnaraja Wodeyar, he could not have passed away in Travancore in 1839.

Anyway, purists are upset and disturbed that Bharatanatyam scene today. The Margam evolved by the Quartet in a structured manner introducing nritta and nritya, including abhinaya, to make the transition from one to the other easy and smooth fashion for the artiste and the viewer alike, is dying with the introduction of Neo classical and many other modern infusions. But then again that is how it is. Dasiattam and Ekartha gave way to Bharatnatyam, now it is mutating again, and it is but natural, for man is never satisfied…..

In upcoming articles, we will study the origins of Mohiniyattam, we will delve into Sopana Sangeetham and also spend awhile on early dasiyattam performances which caught the fancy of Europe.

References

Bharatnatyam – from temple to theatre – Anne Marie Gaston

Theorizing the Local -Music, Practice, and Experience in South Asia- Richard Wolf Harris (Listening to the Violin article by Amanda Weidman)

Singing the classical, voicing the modern – Amanda Weidman

Unfinished Gestures: Devadasis, Memory, and Modernity in South India -Davesh Soneji

Development of Sadir in the court of Raja Serfoji II (1798-1832) of Tanjore – VS Radhika
Tanjore and its Carnatic music legacy - Maddys Ramblings

Radhika’s book has in many ways been invaluable for many of my studies. It continues to provide me so much insight.

Images

Tanjavur quartet painting courtesy Hindu

Tanjore quartet Lineage – Sunil Kothari

Quartet Home – Hindu

Dasiyattam and the first professional performances by an Indian dance troupe in Europe - 1838

1838 was a year of many events, some routine but some of greater importance. For example it was the year when the world’s first photograph of a person was taken by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre of the Boulevard de temple. It was of a person in a top hat, getting his shoe shined at the corner. It was also the year when The Times of India, the world's largest circulated English language daily newspaper was founded as The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce. The Morse code had been invented, Queen Victoria’s coronation took place, proteins were discovered and the Duke University was established here in N Carolina. On the colonial end, the French were negotiating with India on new slaves for Mauritius after a British ban on slavery. The British were not too happy either, for they had lost the first Afghan War. The French presence in India was miniscule, with just Pondicherry near Madras and Mahe in Malabar.

But this is not about all that and traces the travails of a young girl called Ammani, starting at Pondicherry and across the seas to France and other European cities.

At Tiruvendipuram or Tiruvaheendrapuram - 6 leagues away (33km) from Pondicherry, ceded to the British (In 1712, by the Raja of Ginjee) by its previous rulers and now in the Cudallore Taluk, the Tengalis and the Vadagalai sects were feuding as usual, and the priests of the Devanatha temple would soon be asked to intervene, as it had high standing in the South Arcot district. The 2000 odd year old Devanatha Vishnu temple planned and developed by Adisesha and dating back to the period of the Chola ruler Vikrama, was busy and as usual, during prayers, the singers sang devaram while the dancers danced (like many other Vaishnavite temples, this one too had a number of temple dancers and singers in their payroll).

As I mentioned previously in the article on the Tanjavur Quartet, the history of Devadasis is very often misunderstood and confused with anglicized definitions of courtesans and prostitutes due to the influence of zealous missionaries of that time. But I will not get into that study as yet, let us be content with the fact that these dasis in the service of the lord actually sang and danced (let’s not dwell upon other aspects of their decadence, as yet). Their dances were usually conducted in temples and palaces, to the accompaniment of Devaram singing set to ragas or older panns. The 1800’s were a period when the Devadasis were decried, stigmatized and their art forms derided. Their nautch (Natch in Hindi, anglicized) dance otherwise known as dasiyattam was on the chopping block. Father away, in Tanjore, the Quartet had finished laying the margam for the new attam, (known today as Bharatanatyam) and some dancers were slowly adapting to it. However the musicians in Tiruvendipuram were perhaps slow on the pickup of new instruments like the violin. In any case, Ramalingam a nattuvanar of the area, continued with his old methods and managed his small troupe ably.

The nattuvanar, most usually male, was integral to a dasi’s performance, he was the troupe conductor and dace choreographer who also knew the music aspects intimately. His nattuvangam involved playing the cymbals, holding the rhythm with jatis (tha dhi dhinna…), sometimes singing the song and controlling the laya or tempo of the dance. Now as you can imagine this was a tall task and required one to know and master so many sub arts, so it took a long time for one to become a nattuvanar and not many made it. And dasis were also particular, for the dancer needed to be familiar with the style of a nattuvanar before performing with him, so this led to creation of teams performing dasiyattam or in later days Bharatanatyam.

His troupe comprised himself, Ramalingam Mudaliar, Tillammal the Taikelavi in charge of the girls aged 30 (perhaps 50 in reality), a Thooti player and singer Saravanan, a maddalam player Devanayakam and three young dancers. The dancers were Ammani aged 18, two sisters Sundaram aged 14, Rangam aged 13 and accompanied by a little understudy aged 6, Ramalingam’s granddaughter named Vedam. Tille was apparently the mother of the two sisters and Ammani her niece.

Whether they expected the invitation from the French in Puducherry is not clear, but it came like a bolt from the blue and was fraught with all kinds of danger and social issues. It involved crossing the seas to France and Europe and spending a period of 18 months singing and dancing in those unknown places. It also involved crossing the oceans. The troupe acceded to the request, perhaps due to economic hardship or some other reason such as repression by the British. Much effort was put in to secure their release from temple services and eventually they reached the French Notary’s office to sign a well preserved contract, written in French. The event organizer or promoter to acquire their services was one EC Tardivel who had come all the way from France.

Tardivel had decided to bring these exotic dancers (by this time the Portuguese term Bayladeria or female dancer shortened to Bayaderes was used to signify Devadasis) after he felt a certain interest among the French populace to see these dance forms of the orient. Marie Tagiloni, the ballet dancer had already portrayed the part of the temple danseuse in her act.

As events would transpire, the agent in Pondicherry (One Kanakambaram) established contact with Ramalingam and worked out a contract agreement. A decent contract, it was clear in daily and starting/ending emoluments for each member, other allowances, facilities offered as well as penalties for any girl falling pregnant (they would be sent home without any share of the profits).

Interestingly you can see that the girls were literate, they signed their names in Telugu (Saravanan signed his name in Tamil). The contract period was 18 months from the date of embarkation, free travel and maintenance, and not including per diem, a sum of Rs 500.00 per head in addition to an advance payment of Rs 500.00 per head, all in all a handsome compensation in those days.

A report in the ‘Word of fashion’ dated Sept 15th provides some more details. Tillamal the taikelavi, was not happy about the young girls leaving, even after signing the contract. A lawsuit threat however brought her to her senses and she acceded. A Brahmin boy besotted (one sided attraction apparently) with the pretty lass Ammani came to the harbor with entreaties for her not to leave and even jumped into the water, but eventually swam back ashore after the ship departed. The girls were nonplussed, proved to be merry on the voyage, even though the men were melancholic and seen praying often.

They arrived in Bordeaux on 24th July 1838 after a long voyage, and at this juncture one may of course wonder if the members ran a risk of losing caste as a sea voyage would typically entail. Perhaps the purification costs were part of the remuneration, perhaps they were already excommunicated and lost their temple positions.

The group are soon reviewed, with reports on their looks, likes, dislikes, food and manners. Tillammal is considered surly, one who has surpassed the love of men, one who never smiled. Ammani from the outset is hailed as the perfect creature, noble and gentle. Vadyam, Vedam or vaidyam, is cast as an impish tot. They are shown around Paris, and eventually quartered in a little bungalow near the Seine with a guard in front, lest they be kidnapped or people climb over the fence. Some even suspected that they were imposters and Ribaud even rubbed their skins to check if the black would come off to ensure they were indeed from India. The French who had until then seen a localized version from Tagiloni, were all agog seeing this entourage.

Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic was the person who got much involved with the press portrayal of the Bayaderes, for he tracked their performances and was smitten by Ammani. Perhaps he was already influenced by Baudelaire about the greatness of the Orient and mentioned India in his writings, though he had never visited the country. As Figueira puts it – He found their dancing an endless enchantment, with his poetic fantasies coming to life. Interestingly, Ammani impressed not only Gautier, but also his friend Gerad de Nerval who mentioned Amany often in his works.

We get a nice description of Ammani from Gautier who met them at the cottage for a private performance – He mentions the olive gold color of her skin, silky rice paper texture to touch, rounded hips, pure in blood compared to the mixed European, oval head, straight nose, pointed chin, low cheekbones, lovely face all in all with a true small mouth. The eyes are simply beautiful, ecstatic languorous and voluptuous and a half smile completes a glorious look. Huge pendants, adorn her ears and the holes still leave a gap, where one could insert a thumb. The lobe top is riddled with openings plugged with small wooden bits for keep it open. In addition, what upsets them all, the left nostril was pierced and a diamond ring inserted. Two or three copper bangles are seen around her wrists; the upper arm is fitted by a kind of bracelet of an inverted V shape. She wears a sari and between her blouse and pants, the space showing bare flesh is much appreciated. Amber and sandalwood incense smells complete the experience.

A lot of mysteries are cleared here, that dasiyattam dancers were not bare breasted, that they wore their hair in a bun behind and that they wore white saris for the dance. They were dressed a little differently in the sense that they had dancing pants on, North Indian style under the sari. The thootti provided the sruti, which the French found boring (Gautier mentions that the music is soft and only enjoyed if the dancers are dancing round you) and a monotone which it is supposed to be, since its holes except for one are plugged. Some of the songs used were dreamy, and light (lilting Devaram – tevaram verses). The dance itself is very original and involves much eye and head movement, and steps in synchronism with the drum beats and cymbals used by the musicians. The last number, perhaps a tillana or a kummi is similar to a Celtic waltz.

The public performances in August that year got tongues to chatter in Paris. The playbill details the events - A salutation, Robing of Shiva, Dance of the melancholy, The doves and the Malapou. The dancer’s days were full and no less than two dozen performances were completed in a month, spanning the theaters of Paris, Versailles and Tivoli. Many articles are testament to their popularity and Ammani’s (known as Amany, Ammale or Amani to the press) statue was soon cast in bronze by Jean August Barre. The statue itself is interesting. As you can see below, an early sketch of the same shows her wearing an Andhra style checkered sari, while the bronze statue is a mirror image of the former. Perhaps Barre made a set of two, I am not sure.

A report in Le Figaro 27^th August stated - the ticket sales for the shows set a record and they were sold out days in advance with the result that the season was extended. The Bayaderes it seems took Paris by storm – for the Figaro report says - One finds the word ‘Bayadère’ printed and lithographed everywhere; paper, marble, cloth and plaster reproduce their names, their traits.

Nevertheless, the music is not considered great and is remarked as somewhat primitive. Hector Berlioz states (translation by Inge Van Rij, acknowledged with thanks) - I don’t know if you still remember the peculiar music that accompanied the movements of the Indian bayadères who appeared, around ten years ago, at the Théâtre des Variétés? It consisted of some faint sounds murmured in a low weary voice by those of the bayadères who weren’t dancing; chanting that wavered exclusively on the minor third, around a single tone, continuously sustained by a fife into which an Indian blew, while the rhythm of the dance was marked with the fingers of his right hand on a small drum. If someone had told us that the flute of the Indian musician only produced a single note that was prolonged indefinitely like the buzzing of a wasp, and that his drum only produced a feeble and muted sound, comparable to that obtained by lightly hitting the fingers against the body of a hat; that the bayadères, in the supposed song that accompanies their dance, contented themselves by murmuring every now and then, in an undertone, some words on the note prolonged by the flute of their musician, while embellishing only as required this note by means of two other sounds that form with the main sound the interval of a second or minor third, like la la la—ti do, la la—do ti do la, and continued in this way for an hour, most likely we wouldn’t have wanted to believe it.

It is almost clear that the performance had a Vandanam or invocation, Jatiswaram, Varnam and a Tillana. Perhaps the small girl performed a Padam.

Athanaeum - Paris, Aug. 1838. A performance before the monarchy - the Bayaderes whose performance at the Tuileries, before the Royal Family, is elaborately discussed this morning in the Journal des Dibats, after that journal's most flowery fashion. These nymphs are five in number….. While dancing, they are accompanied by three male musicians, of an inferior caste, each of whom bears his part on an instrument of but one note; the band consisting of a tiny pair of cymbals, almost hidden in the hollow of the hand, a pipe, and a tamtam. ………… But, nevertheless, their dancing and their costume, as first displayed to a select set of connoisseurs, underwent considerable modification and veiling before they were exhibited to royalty. On the former occasion, the breast and shoulders were closely covered with gold tissue, and immense petticoats perfectly concealing the shape were gathered round the hips, but all between these two masses of drapery lay bare. To present thus the torrid zone of the human form at court and upon the stage, was pronounced not comme il faut; when, therefore, they danced before Louis Philippe, the Bayaderes were totally enveloped in scarfs.

The writer questions - Everyone in Paris, however, will go to see them once, which will suffice to make their trip lucrative. But, after all, was it fair in M. Tardivel to kidnap these poor creatures, and bring them to Europe, where they must lose caste, and where their devotional pirouettes can only last as long as other nine days' wonders?

Yates’s son explains what happened next (though I do not believe they lost any money in the bargain since all shows were full) - On one occasion a rumor reached London that a great success had been achieved in Paris by the performance of a set of Hindoo dancers, called "Les Bayaderes," who were supposed to be priestesses of a certain sect; and the London theatrical managers were at once on the queue to secure the new attraction. Three of them—Laporte, of the Italian Opera; Alfred Bunn, of Drury Lane; and my father set out for Paris much about the same time; it was diligence-traveling or posting in those days, and the man with the loosest purse strings went the fastest. My father had concluded his arrangement with the "Bayaderes" before his brother managers arrived in Paris. Shortly afterwards, the Hindoo priestesses appeared at the Adelphi. They were utterly uninteresting, wholly unattractive. My father lost £2000 by the speculation; and in the family they were known as the "Buy-em-dears" ever after.

The dancers thus moved on to perform at the Adelphi in London where mixed reviews came out. Some liked it, but many did not.

Finally we get a decent description of the dances as understood by the western eye from the Spectator V 11- First, the two young girls, Sundaram and Rangam, advance, and their performance maybe regarded as a type of the rest; for though slight variations of action distinguish each dance, the general character of the style is the same in all. They keep time to the music with the simultaneous movement of every muscle in their bodies and limbs, rolling their lustrous black eyes, and muttering a low chant incessantly, like beings under the influence of some magic spell. Their motions are not so violent as to seem to require effort, and are entirely free from contortions; yet, notwithstanding the air of Oriental languor and repose, the muscular energy that is thrown into every movement makes the process exhausting; and on one occasion we detected what appeared to us an indication of fatigue on the part of one of the girls, attended with a momentary pause, which the other seemed to recognize; and the final salaam, when they bend themselves almost double, the hands meeting over the forehead, seemed a welcome relief. They scarcely stir from the place they occupy, and their principal bodily movements consist of turning round and crouching down, and in this position throwing out first one leg and then the other, resting on the heel: they use the heel as much as the toes. The prevailing movement of the arms is horizontal, crossing the face, and seeming to touch the nose; the long slender arms, and taper fingers pointed with sharp nails, darting to and fro with angular action. There is very little if anything of flowing and serpentine movement of the limbs: nearly all is abrupt and rectilinear, but continuous. The inflections of the body are graceful, but its twining’s are not developed by corresponding movements of the limbs: one action resembles the effect of a choking sensation ; the upper part of the spine curving, the head poking forward, and the eye-lids and brown being drawn upwards. This dance is called "The robing of Vishnu “ The pas dc deuz concluded, the sweet little Vedom performs an elaborate dance of less violent action, termed “The Salute to the Rajah;" her brilliant eyes and teeth of dazzling whiteness seeming to light up her infantine countenance with pleasure. The tall graceful AMANY then steps forward, with a melancholy aspect, and an air of languishment, and rolls her lustrous eyes, that seem suffused with sorrow as if they would literally dissolve with melting tenderness: her movements are more grave and slow, for she is performing “The Widow's Lament;" and she chants audibly a measured strain of woe. The matron TILLE, who all this while has not ceased waving the horsetail fan before the image, now resigns that task to the infant Vedom, and joins Amany, and her daughter and niece, in " The Malapou, or Delightful Dance;" a sort of Indian quadrille, in which the four performers keep their respective places, and the principal movement is bending the body from side to side, and making the arms meet in a graceful curve above the head. Meanwhile, the two cousins have performed “The Dagger Dance, or the Hindoo Widow‘s Excitement to Death; " which is of a more theatrical character than any other, but without the vehement and startling action of ballet-dancing. A fifth dance, “The Carrier Doves," has not yet been performed at the Adelphi: this, we suppose, is kept in reserve.

It is clear from the above that many of the moves are from the dasiyattam routine….

The new sporting magazine was distinctly unsporting - What utter—abominable—inexplicable nonsense. Yet again, what clear—nice—perfect managerial humbug! It is quite clear that the blacks will be slaves; Inkle, Mr. Yates—Yarico, Miss Bayadere!— "White man don't leave me,"—and depend upon it my dear Saundorouna, Ramgoun, Veydoun, Amany, and Tille,—as long as white man can get one single farthing out of your dingy persons and most unpoetical postures—white man will not leave you. Money, and money alone, will, according to the proverb, make the Bayaderes to go, as well as the mare. The thing is a dead failure as a dramatic exhibition…………. So disreputable an attack upon the gullibility of the English public has not been attempted since the man advertised to enter into a quart bottle, at the Haymarket Theatre—or since Yates proposed enacting the part of Cassius at Covent Garden! I wish I had my entrance money safely back in my pocket again.

James Ewing Ritchie wrote - The dancing Bayaderes, who visited London some fifteen years back, were shocked at what they conceived the immodest attire of our English dames, who, in their turn, were thankful that they did not dress as the Bayaderes.

Let us look at their daily routine. Quoting the Spectator v11 - The Bayaderes have not changed their custom since their arrival in Europe. They live on rice and vegetables, cooked by themselves. Each morning they rise with the sun, descend to the fountain, or the imitation of a fountain, which is prepared for them, and there make their ablutions. They return then to their apartment, and remain there the whole day. The day is passed in singing or sleeping. They do not know how to do anything, and they do nothing. But they are gentle and sweet-tempered, and their indolence does not create either jealousy or quarrels. Their conversation is as quiet as their manners. It is a kind of whispering, timid and monotonous, of which their countenance renders the expression more faithfully than their lips. A day thus passed should be very tedious, but they do not know what ennui is; and it is quite clear that their health is not injured by that idleness. The men keep company with them, but at a respectful distance. The law forbids their approaching or touching the Bayaderes. At night they all lie down to sleep in the same apartment, upon mats, rolled up in their cloaks; the men at the top of the mat, the women lower down. In a few minutes all are asleep— for their simple hearts know no passions—they have neither love our jealousy; still, Tillé watches over all, and remains awake till they are sound asleep

Others focused on their customs - On the arrival of the Orientals in London, their (oriental) feelings were greatly shocked at seeing the flesh of the ox (a sacred animal in their country) exposed for sale, and lying familiarly by the side of unhallowed mutton. We would ask the concoctor of this piece of romance how it was possible for the young ladies (never having witnessed the dissection of the beast from which beef cometh) to discover that the formidable sirloins, briskets, and steaks before them, belonged to an animal at all analogous to the magnificent and sanctified ox of their native country? This is drawing the long bow with a vengeance…………..

Some others opined that it was much better to watch Taglioni’s or Duvernay’s imitations. The Aldine magazine was forthright - The leading speculation at the Adelphi, this season, has been the exhibition of the Bayaderes; a failure, we presume, so far as the treasury of the theatre may be concerned. To us, the dancing of our own chimney-sweepers on May-day is a thousand times more amusing. Still, as the bona fide dance of a foreign, remote, and very ancient nation, the display of the Bayaderes is not without interest.

The London program comprised the acts of laws of Brahma (actually the play - Widow of Malabar), Robing of Vishnu, Salute of the Rajah, the Hindu Lament, the dagger dance and the Malapou.

Actors by daylight stated over many reports - At Adelphi, the young women appeared in A Race for a Rarity, The Law of Brahma; or, the Hindoo Widow, and Arajoon or, The Conquest of Mysore, whose plots were merely frames upon which to present occasions for the Indians to dance. The Bayaderes received unanimous praise in the London press for their exotic dancing and they remained at the Adelphi throughout the fall. Most of the nobility went to watch it. Some opined that the dance by Amani should have been done by the whole group, others liked the dagger dance by Sundaram and Rangom. They received good applause and the scenic effects of the last two acts great. Lady Morgan, the prince and the princesses attended. Since the troupe do not touch utensils touched by Europeans, the entire kitchen of the Yates home is allocated only to the Bayaderes supervised scrupulously by Tillammal.

Then they moved on to perform at the Egyptian hall, Piccadilly. The announcement read M.

TARDIVEL'S MORNING EXHIBITION of the BAYADERES, or Indian Dancing Priestesses, who will have the honor to present themselves at 2 o'clock. At half past 2 will be given the Toilet of Vishnu; at a quarter before 3, the Pas Melancolique; at 3, the Salute of the Rajah; at a quarter past 3, the Pas de Poignard; at half past 3, the Malapou. During the intervals of exhibiting they will promenade and converse with any lady or gentleman who may understand their language. The doors open at half past 1. Admission to the whole 1s.

A conclusion is worth reading - This Hindoo dancing is totally different from either; it is the pantomime of emotion-exhibiting the flow of soul, not of the animal spirits. Regarded as one style of the poetry of motion, it is to European dancing what we suppose the Greek music to have been in comparison with that of modern times-rude and limited, but withal expressive.

Holloway’s ointment were perhaps sponsors for Yates’s exertions (note that contemporary Swati Tirunal ordered a consignment of 6 jars). An advertisement followed (Fly p23) - Secret of the Elasticity of the Bayaderes -These surprising dancers have astonished the Parisians and Londoners by their unparalleled elasticity of movement. Taglioni, Duvernay, and the Elslers, celebrated as they are, must in this instance give place to their Indian rivals. Now, the question is, how is this accomplished? We must let the public into a secret. There is an unguent in great repute for an immense variety of external disorders, such as gout, rheumatism, glandular complaints, scrofula, wounds, &c, which is also admirable in giving suppleness to the joints land limbs; and, of course, the Bayaderes, at the suggestion of Mr. Yates, were only too happy to avail themselves of its use. The unguent alluded to is Holloway's Ointment…ta ta……

They covered many more parts of Europe, but from some of the reports, they were not very well received.

Finally let’s get to Strauss and the Indian Galop - The malapua – malpua delightful dance, a quadrille by the bayaderes …..Perhaps danced to a tillana at the end of their performance. As the description in the CD explains - In the summer of 1839, the Bayaderes reached Vienna and performed at the Theater an der Wien. All kinds of Indian festivals were arranged and Strauss wrote a composition as well, commemorating the event. Whether he was inspired by Ramalingam’s Tillana or not is unclear (I doubt it) but he had more success selling it compared to the Indian troupe who by then were doing dances based on their managers whims and far from the margam they set out with.

But the Indian Malapou Galop remained – a chirpy piece (hear it by clicking this link) composed in the honor of the Bayaderes which many opine, had no connection musically to anything remotely Indian.

In all they covered a good distance from Bordeaux to Paris to London to Brighton, and from there to Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, The Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. They also performed in Frankfurt, Mannheim, Karlruhe, Aschaffenburg, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Mainz, Weimar, Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin, Potsdam, Wroclaw, Prague, Vienna, Linz, Munich, Augsburg, Stuttgart, Strasbourg and Bordeaux. I look forward to the works of Joep Bor and Tiziana Leucci who are working on the project reconstructing their complete tour.

What happened at the end? Did they return and live on happily ever after? Perhaps, though Gautier wanted his heroine to meet a tragic end, at least in his thoughts and mind. He mentions that Ammani hung herself in a fit of depression on a foggy day in London, which was most certainly untrue since no death record exists of such an event. But Gautier remembered Ammani for the rest of his life and mentioned her often in his writings.

References

There is no anachronism: Indian Dancing Girls in Ancient Carthage in Berlioz’s Les Troyens- Inge Van Rij
Mamia, Ammani and other Bayaderes: Europe’s portrayal of India’s temple dancers – Joep Bor
Les Bayaderes – Gautier (Le Orient – Tome second)
The Exotic: A Decadent Quest By Dorothy Matilda Figueira
Widows Pariahs and Bayaderes – Binita Mehta
Fifty years of London life: memoirs of a man of the world - By Edmund Hodgson Yates
Revue universelle: bibliothèque de l'homme du monde et de l'homme Politique, Volume 35 (Pages 201-203)
Gautier on Dance – Ivor Guest
Etudes et Recherches Sur Theophile gautier Prosateur – Jean richer
Translating the orient – Dorothy Matilda Figueira
Charlotte Ackerman – Otto Muller

Notes

1. While it is stated in the contract that the dancers are from Tiruvendipuram which is 6 leagues from Pondicherry and that they danced for the Perumal temple there, there are some inconsistencies.

a. The girls are grouped as pagoda Brahmins, but they are most certainly isai vellalars or kaikolars if they were weavers.

b. It is intriguing that they were wearing white clothes, more like Mohiniyattam dancers. Ammani’s dance feature is somewhat reminiscent of Mohiniyattam.

c. The contract mentions witnesses from Malabar - They are Appuchetty and Subramania Pillay son of Parasurama Pilla, Malabar inhabitants residing in Pondicherry, who are well known to and have accompanied the dancers. So did they come from Malabar? Was Ammani really Ammini from Malabar?

2. The Holloway ointment aspect is intriguing. How did Swati order 6 jars around the same time? Did he hear about it from the returning dancers, and have it ordered for his own court dancers?

3. Barre’s statue of Ammani is described as follows by Sotheby’s - its auctioneers - An exotic statuette of the Indian dancer Amany, by Barre, portrays her dancing the Malapou, or dance of delight, in a public performance at the Théâtre des Variétés, Paris, in August 1838. Beautiful details such as the coils of her hair and sparkling brilliance of the tinsel and glass jewelry that adorned her make this a truly sumptuous piece. Signed and dated 1838, it is estimated to fetch £6,000-8,000

4. The Otto Muller book provides an interesting amount of detail of the dances themselves though it is a work of fiction.

Images

- The Bayadères, Amany, Saundirounn, Tillé, Ramgoun & Veydoun dancing the malapou, accompanied by the bard Ramalingan and musicians Saravanini & Devenayagon. By Hamerton, Robert Jacob, courtesy NYPL collections

- Other pictures from the web

An erudite Sanskrit scholar from Calicut

Peeking out from the murky depths of the history of Malabar during the Mysore invasions is an interesting person, and a Sanskrit scholar with the title Manorama. I was always intrigued by this quick witted lady who proved to be quite a character even in exile and one who competed in the mostly male dominated Sanskrit literary sphere of Kerala during those times. She did not write any treatises or books when she left us at the age of 65, but her character and wit in an age of despondency, enthralled many a learned person, from the king to the common man, leaving an endearing memory of a scholar poetess. A number of her students followed in her wake and went on to become great scholars. That was Manorama Thampuratti, the only female scholar in that male-dominated galaxy, and somebody who set the beat for the next Sanskrit scholar from the Zamorin’s family, Vidwan Ettan Thampuran.

Those abreast with Sanskrit development may recall that there were two Manorama Thampuratti’s from the families of the Calicut Zamorin’s, the first being a sister of a certain Zamorin Manaveda. The second was the Manorama we are now talking about, born in 1759 (935KC). Manorama belonged to Kizhakke kovilakom (She daughter of the sister of the Zamorin who immolated himself), one of the many palaces or kovilakoms of the royal family of Calicut.

Let’s first get an idea of the Calicut that Manorama had to flee from, in her teens. I have covered the details over a number of posts at ‘Historic Alleys’ so a general idea will suffice for now. By 1706, the original matrilineal lineage in the Zamorin’s family had become extinct and fresh adoptions from the Neeleswaram Kovilakom up North had to be resorted to (If you recall a girl from the Zamorin family had eloped with a Kolathiri Kovialkom boy many centuries earlier and resettled at Neeleswaram, and as her line maintained the Zamorin’s lineage, thus an adoption was permitted). We will talk about the problems this adoption created, in a later article, for it did prove to be the reason for some sticky issues. In the period 1758-1766, Hyder Ali from Mysore attacked Calicut and subdued it, decimating the frontline forces of the Zamorin. Due to various reasons which we have discussed earlier, the reigning Zamorin immolated himself and eventually Hyder left Calicut, leaving control of the city with Raza Ali, Asad Khan and Madanna. In 1774, rebellions broke out and Hyder’s troops arrived again. At this juncture, the new Zamorin, some members of the three families and all the women fled to a palace in Ponnani, obtaining temporary respite and to plan an ocean voyage to Cranganore, where the Zamorin once had his own palace but which was now under Dutch control.

As many will recall, there were three branches in the Zamorin’s family and the offspring were titled with the names of the palaces or Kovilakoms they resided in. Before the Hyder epoch, the main palace was at Kottaparambu adjoining Mananchira and located centrally in Calicut, the Chalappurathu kovilakom was next, the Kizhakke (east) kovilakom near the present Zamorin’s College Chintavilappu, and the Puthiya or new kovilakom west of the Tali temple. Most of the women stayed at the Ambadi Kovilakom near the Puthiya Kovilakom. It was only much later that the Kizhakke Kovilakom moved to the Venkatakotta Kovilagom premises in Kottakkal and the Mankavu Padinjare Kovilakom was formed. The Puthiya kovilakom moved to Panniyankara and the older buildings and parts of Kottaparambu palace gave way to public buildings and offices.

The Padinjare kovilakom story is interesting – After the two Neeleswaram sisters came to Calicut to become part of the Kizhakke kovilakom, a third also joined them. The Zamorin of that period settled her too and her line is the so called Padinjare kovilakom (originally Thekke kovilakom).

A Thampuratti - Travancore
Ptg - Ravi Varma

Members of the Kizhakke kovilakom branch, after having left Calicut during Tippu’s invasion of Malabar, had to temporarily settle in Ennakkad Palace in Travancore under the hospitality of Trippapi Karthika Thirunal Rama Varma, the then Maharaja of Travancore. One of those members was a winsome girl who grew up in Calicut amidst a retinue of relatives and servants. Born in 1760AD (935) Makaram under the Swati star, she was endowed with ample intelligence. She was just five-six years old in 1766 when Hyder attacked Calicut and by 1774 the family been resettled temporarily in Ponnani.

During this period she excelled in Sanskrit under the tutorship of the brilliant Deshmangalam Uzhuthi Rudra Warrier. Interesting is also the fact that nobody knew her real name, for Manorama (delighting the heart), the name which she is known by posthumously, was a name acquired at the age of 12 when she recited and explained the whole of Bhattoji Dikshita’s double volume grammar work Praudha Manorama from the 17^th century (The first part of this work has three chapters on grammatical terminology, laws of euphony, and the variations and combinations of nouns. The second part is also arranged under three heads, viz., the Tinnanta, Krldanta, and the Yaidika, treating respectively the conjugations of verbs, formation of verbal nouns, and explanations of Vedic anomalies and accentuations – totaling to some 6672 slokas). Some others feel that it was the Siddhanta Kaumudi of Bhattoji which she recited at the age of 12 and not the later version, the Praudha Manorama, which in any case is no less daunting.

One should also keep in mind that the movement of knowledge was not really curtailed by distances, for example, the Mukundamala composed in Kerala in the 8th or 9th century by the ruling monarch Kulashekara Alwar, was very soon found in a revised version in distant Kashmir, according to Dr KPA Menon writing on the subject of language movement. Knowledge was transferred by word of mouth and very limited amounts of written text. So imagine the onerous task of correct memorization!

It was in 945 (1769AD), i.e. at Calicut during the period when the 10 year old girl was studying grammar, that an interesting event took place, involving the great Chelaparambu Namboothiri, a Sanskrit scholar visiting the Kizhakke Kovilakom at Calicut.

The old scholar was looking at the mirror, at his silvery grey hair, and humming in Sanskrit, perhaps seeing the young girl observing him, from the corner of his eyes

Many more interesting situations have been recorded between these two. Chelapparamabu Nampoothiri was always famous for his extempore Malayalam Manipravala slokas hinging on a bit of eroticism, but in good humor and in a couple of cases, it involved this Manorama Thampuratti.

Once it seems the two of them were crossing the Chaliyar River in a boat when the weather worsened and heavy winds and rain buffeted the boat. An instant sloka by this Nampoothiri begging for calm is said to have stilled the storm!

In another case, he is said to have uttered the sloka below when he went to see Manorama Thanpuratti at the kovilakom, praising her smile, her hair, her breasts and a woman’s potential for deceit, all of which working together with Kamadeva could always affect youthful minds.

Note that in the medieval times, ladies of high birth in Kerala did not cover their breasts and breasts were not considered as ‘private’ parts, which were to be hidden. They were an object of beauty, just like hair, eyes, smile etc and treated so….

All we can conclude from all this that she was a comely and well-endowed lady, but at the same time not one awed or upset by remarks passed by otherwise illustrious people taking liberties with their words.

Before long, Manorama’s Talikettu kalyanam had been done with, presumably by the Kodungallur Raja and very soon she got betrothed to the prince from the Parappanad - Beypore kovilakom named Ramavarma Thampuran. In 954 (1778AD) they were blessed with a daughter, when Manorama was just 17-18 years old.

However the princess met with tragedy early in life when he passed away, but she was soon married off again to a good looking but ebyian (virtual nitwit) Namboodiri named Pakkatthu Bhattathiri. She had no qualms expressing her dissatisfaction of this mismatched union of minds, to her uncle, for she said so, after subjecting her husband to a simple Sanskrit test…

Nevertheless the couple was blessed with two sons and three daughters. One of the sons became a later day Zamorin in 1024. One of her famous and poignant Mukthakam’s (4 line poem) goes thus (again a rough meaning only provided)

Meanwhile, the ravages following the Mysore attacks were becoming intolerable for the family in exile. As Hyder and later Tipu surged southwards with the Zamorin’s treasures in mind, the families had to flee again. A lot of intrigue can be seen in the movements then, with Isaac Surgun, Tipu, the Zamorin, Rama Varma, Keshava Das, the Dutch etc negotiating over who did what. We will cover all of that in a separate article. Travancore as you may recall, was by then already allied with the British.

Let’s now get to know the reigning king of Travancore. Having succeeded Marthanda Varma, Rama

Varma ruled Travancore from 1758 until 1798. As is said, he was called the Dharma Raja due to his staunch belief in Dharma Sastra, and he provided asylum to all who had to flee Malabar during the unforgettable outrages committed by the marauding Hyder and Tipu. His complete name was Maharaj Raja Ramaraja Sri Padmanabha Dasa Vanchipala Rama Varma II [Kartika Tirunal] Dharmaraja and during his period, courageous dewans like Keshavadas withstood the onslaught of Tipu at Nedumkotta. He was also very much into arts (though not mohiniattam or bharatanatyam like the later king Swati Tirunal) and was a scholar in music and dance, composing many Kritis. He was perhaps the first violinist from the royal family and it was due to the various Kathakali plays he composed that a few reforms were brought in Kathakali. Dharma Raja took in the fleeing public from Malabar, which comprised not only the royal families but a large retinue of Brahmins and Nairs and ensured that Dewan Keshavadas took personal care of all these asylees and resettled them properly.

It was in 964 (1788 AD) that this beautiful poetess now aged 27-28, moved with her family to Ennakkad near Chengannur in Travancore, to live there for another 12 years.

This was a period when noble or upper classes conversed in Sanskrit whereas early Malayalam, Tamil etc were the languages spoken by the masses, and manipravalam, a mixture of the two was taking shape. As the Raja was a Sanskrit scholar himself, word of the arrival of Princess Manorama and her fame as a Sanskrit scholar reached the 65 year old Travancore Dhrama Raja’s ears, quickly. The king was quite taken in by the Thampuratti, perhaps overtly involved and he started to write to her.

This infatuation of the king led to a relationship of sorts between the two of them, well evident from the amorous couplets that passed. All this is quite evident from the following exchanges between the King and the princess and the fact that the Raja ‘apparently’ moved his own court from Anantapuram to Mavelikkara in order to be near her. The king later remained at the lake palace to form a central base, to direct and spearhead the fight against Tipu of Mysore who was close to destroying his kingdom.

Readers may recall that Rama Varma had no male offspring from his four consorts (a girl from the fourth – so I wonder why he mentioned about the lineage break) and the Kilimanoor family line was about to end. Though a union could in theory have helped continue his lineage, it would have been of no use to the Princess. Considering the traditional matrilineal succession, the adopted Avittom Tirunal Baralrama Varma would in any case have occupied the throne and Manorama would have gained nothing even if they had a son. But we can assume that the relationship itself was really not an issue for Manaorma, she may have gained from it.

One could always question as to whether the poems were really written by them or just attributed to them. Of that I am not sure, as it is not easy to get the question and the reply ola’s at one source, unless the reply grantha ola repeated the question and they were found in the Kings archives. These were private communications, and scribes would not have been used. Also per rumor, the king’s nephew Ayilyam Thamburan who was enamored by the same Manorama leaked these stanzas (See Ramachandran’s article). But for a moment let us assume that the communications took place as detailed below. I would believe that further corroboration can be established from the note sent by the princess after she got back to Calicut, which you will agree, confirms the events.

A study of the amorous epistle – the text in the verses will show that the old king flirted with the young lady making it clear that though he was in the wrong, his actions were a result of his infatuation and that logic had no place in these games of Kamadeva. Taken aback, the princess was at first worried by gossip mongers, but seeing that the king was serious, gives in and even suggests ways to get around the presence of her husband. Naturally she would have been taken in by the Sanskrit scholar and the lord of the land, though a bit old, compared to the young but dimwit of a husband. She goes onto say that rules won’t stop her and that she is agreeable to a liaison.

She is seen complaining next of RamaVarma’s declining interest, for he is busy in the war with Tipu.

As the war wound down Tipu left Kerala and was again defeated in the third Anglo-Mysore war of 1792. All the refugees and asylees from Malabar were now starting to troop home. The Padinjare Kovilakom Thampuran remained as he was well past 70, but Kishen raja, his son took the Zamorin’s position and went back to Calicut to negotiate with the British. Manorma also left, but somewhat later and she wrote a pained lovelorn note to Rama Varma from Calicut or Kotakkal.

The family re-settled at the Venkatakotta kovilakom in Kottakkal during the year (975)1800 AD. Interestingly this was perhaps the only time somebody from the Travancore royal family got involved with a lady from the Zamorin’s family. The involvement of a Zamorin girl with the Kolathunad family was detailed previously.

Rama Varma’s main work Balaramabharatam on the art of drama and dance, which some believe was purportedly compiled with the help of Manorama, was completed during their stay at the lake palace. Since the entire family was troubled by the invasion of Haidar Ali and Tippu Sultan, the patronage for literature suffered a decline and Manorama's verses were never published. But her legacy continued through her students, such as Thonnikkal Kunjitti Raghavan Nambiyar (son of the Kudallur Namboothiripad) who was an expert in the Anandalochanam. Another student was the Aroor Atithiri who later went on to create his own list of famous students such as the Kodungallur elaya thampuran whose student was Vaikkom Pachumuthathu, whose student was Keralavarma Koilthampuran and so on. Govinda pisharodi was another. It is said that a grammatical work on Paniniyam under the title Manorama located recently, was written by the Thampuratti.

In Manavikramiya, a stanza which describes the great poetess is worded thus

And Madhava (Arur Madhavan Atitiri) her pupil says (rough meaning only provided)

The poet and literary historian Kerala Varma Valiakoyithampuran pays the following tribute to her.

Tipu Sultan had by now been done away with and the British were happily consolidating their power in Malabar. Avittom Thirunal Bala Rama Varma succeeded the Dharma Raja and during his reign had to contend with various issues concerning Veluthampi, Jayanthan Sankaran Nampoothiri etc (which we talked about earlier).

It is mentioned that Manorama rose to the title of senior most princess at the Ambadi Kovialkom before she passed away at the age of 65 in the month of Edavom, 11^th of 1003 (1828AD). One of her sons became a later day Zamorin and the present day Zamorin K.C. Unni Anujan Raja is also from the same Kotakkal Kovilakom and lineage. These days I understand that a Manorama Thampuratti award is being presented to literary achievers in Calicut during the Revathi Pattathanam at Tali temple.

But then again, when I write all this, I smile as I compare myself to that dimwitted husband of Manorama, who knew no Sanskrit, and one who knew not the difference between Vihasya, Vihaya, Aham or Katham, like me. Nevertheless, in those days Sanskrit was a revered language. Today even Malayalam is falling by the wayside in our rush to embrace a single global language.

References

Kerala Sahitya Charitram V3 – Ulloor P Iyer

Purusartha Sathakam – Dr KPA Menon

Kozhikodinte Charitram – K Balakrishna Kurup

Padyasahitya Charitram – TM Chummar

Zamorins of Calicut – KV Krishna Iyer

Bālarāmabharatam: A Critique on Dance and Drama – Easwaran Nampoothiri

Kerala and Sanskrit literature – Kunjunni Raja

Picture

To see a rough location where Manorama lived, please clickthis link for a picture of the Ennakkad palace. I do not know if the same structure existed in her times

Related articles

Zamorins palace

Introducing Vencaticota Ola

Notes:

1- It is not easy to translate these slokas into English due to a lot of inner meanings and word plays. So what is provided in all these translations is only a rough gist of the conversation. I got an initial explanation on the epistle from a friend of mine, proficient in Sanskrit – Naresh Cuntoor, whom I would like to thank. The translations used come from KPA Menon’s book. Anybody offering more precise translations are welcome to provide it to me in the comments section and I will add/correct.

2- The somewhat complete communications between Rama Varma and Manorama as well as other verses attributed to and relating to Manorama cannot be found in any one source. I have obtained them from the listed references and compiled the whole collection here for the benefit of others hunting for these in future.

3- Sanskrit manuscripts from all over India are typically written in the Devanagari script whereas ancient Sanskrit had no such lipi or native script. In Kerala, Sanskrit is usually written using the Malayalam script.

4- It is interesting to note that practical applications of Sanskrit learning such as Ayurveda and architecture survived in Kerala, while traditions of philosophy and grammar continued in other regions. Even the Syrian Christians of Kerala and a few Muslims were well versed in Sanskrit during the medieval times and the tradition continues even today.

5- Sharat Sundar providesthis information on Rama Varma - Dharmaraja married four times, his first wife was a Thankachi named ‘Vadasseri Kali Amma Nagamani Amma’ of Vadasseri Amma Veedu. Later he also married from Arumana, Thiruvattar and Nagercoil Amma Veedu. The story goes that the king made four separate mansions for his ‘Ammachi’s’ in Thiruvananthapuram and shifted them to the new houses.

Now, what connection can Northerly Uttarakhand have with the Southern state of Kerala? Look at the map, the distance is so great, the cultures so different and though there is an extravagant mention by some history enthusiasts that the Nairs originated from the Newar community of Nepal, is there any connection between Kerala and Uttarkhand? Well, there is one, an interesting connection actually, and it has nothing to do with the cricket players Sreesanth and Dhoni.

The story starts around the 9^th century, a period when many in India were followers of Jainist or Buddhist practices, be it in Kerala or Uttaranchal. Brahmanical Hinduism was on the rise and Sankaracharya from Kaladi in Kerala set out on an arduous trek crisscrossing most of India, propounding his principles. Just imagine what an amount of walking he would have done.

Uttaranchal or Brahmpur as it was known then, is certainly a locale of beauty, at the foothills of the Himalayas, near the southern slope of the great and young mountain range which I wrote about in a previous article, once densely wooded and under an immense roof of snow, ice and glaciers. It is said that the 16 mile drive from Govind Ghat to Badri, is perhaps the most incredible drive you can do anywhere in the world. One district in that region goes by the name Chamoli. It is also the district of “Garhwal’’ the land of forts. Today’s Garhwal was once upon a time, the kedar-khand of the past, the abode of God.

In the Chamoli district, which is some 11,000 feet above sea level, just south of Nandadevi, grew jujube berries locally known as Badri (plum). The particular spot where the Nar-Narayan resided was called Badri-Nath i.e. the Lord of Plum forest and it was during the Sat-Yuga. It is said that Lord Vishnu did a long penance in Badrinath, since time immemorial for the welfare of all living entities. (It is also believed that the black statue was originally that of Budhha seated in padmasana and was re-consecrated as Vishnu by Adi Sankara in what was originally a Buddhist temple). This place was apparently on the way taken by the Pandavas on their way to the heavenly ascent and somewhere near Mana is a cave where Vyasa purportedly composed the Mahabharata. So this sleepy little area with a lot of berries lay on the route for mendicants trekking to find the route to heaven or nirvana and these days is on the way of mountaineers ascending some of the peaks in the Himalayan range. But well, let us get back to Adi Sankara and his experiments with Advaita Vendanta.

Worry not reader, I will not get into that tricky subject, but just gloss over it for now. It was a time when ritualistic mimansa or Vedic norm of worship was popular (what is still practiced by Nambuthiris) in Kerala and Sankara from Kaladi (near Cochin) propounded the concept of non-dualistic monastic order (it goes thus – your true self is the Brahman - I do not understand all this, as yet). Anyway at a young age he decided to become a sanyasi and trekked along to Uttar Pradesh to find a suitable guru to further his learning. His first stop was Kasi in UP and later he stopped at Badri, composing various works along the way. His meeting with Mandana Mishra and Ubhaya Bharti, makes very interesting reading, especially the arguments about married life. Later he crisscrosses Maharashtra, Srisailam in AP, Gokarnam, etc after which he does his digvijaya tour of India preaching Advaita, supported by Sudhanva and his soldiers. He thus wandered far and long and finally attained Samadhi at Kanchi (or as some say, in Trichur) after spending a long time at Kedarnath and Badrinath.

Now Uttarakhand as we saw, is considered an abode of gods and the legends behind it are many. But

continuing with Sankara, the young lad, all of 11 years old and his fellow disciples (many Dandi sanyasis) arrived at Badrinath in 814AD. As the story goes, he reached there early in the morning and the fresh breeze from the Sushmaand Gandhmadna Mountain got him going and he spontaneously started reciting the Ashtapadi. After diving into the Naradakunda in the Alakananda River, he found a saligrama idol of Vishnu on the third attempt and this was consecrated as Badrinath. The rituals and procedure of worship as laid out by Adi Shankaracharya some 1200 years ago since the consecration are being practiced at Badrinath even today.

While I will not get into details, the saligram (mollusk fossils) idol form of Vishnu consecrated as Badrinath was attributed to the angry curse of Jalandhara’s wife Vrinda who cursed Vishnu for seducing her by taking the form of her husband, while at the same time Siva went about killing Jalandhara who incidentally had previously tried to seduce Parvati after taking the form of Siva. All very confusing, but mythology is usually full of that and Vishnu ended up as a stone fossil and Vrinda as the root which became a Tulsi plant, duly associated with Vishnu.

Some of the Dandi (staff bearing senior) Brahmins remained to do the rites at the temple. It is mentioned that members of their clan remained on to continue this until the 17^th or 18^th century till they became extinct (which I doubt since these celibate sanyasis would not have created offspring!). After this time the appointment of Namboothiris from Kerala were appointed as priests of the temple as a norm.

Interestingly, Namboothiris themselves are not clear where they came from, other than that the Parasurama and/or the Kolathiri rajas brought them from Gokarnam. Nevertheless, it is stated by some that the original priests were Dandi Brahmins from the south and were Namboothiri associates of Adi Sankara. It is perhaps due to this reason that they continue to choose a rawal from amongst the Namboothiri community so that the same special Kerala Pooja format is continued.

The Rawal is assisted by a deputy and the rituals are all based on the Tantra-Vidhi of Shrauta, just like in the temples of Kerala. As explained by MP Verendra Kumar, Sree Sankara is also believed to be behind some other stipulations prevalent in the Char dham: Joshis from Kashi, Kashmir, Nepal, or Maharashtra should be the Poojaaris at Rameswram; the Chowbey Brahmans from Orissa should be the Poojaaris at Dwaraka; and the Poojaaris at Jagannath Puri should be the Pandas from Gujarat. No doubt, Sree Sankara ordained all these to ensure the inter-linking and integration of the various pan-Indian trends and traditions.

So as we saw, the Rawal (chief priest) was selected by erstwhile rulers of Garhwal and Travancore and accorded ‘his holiness’ status by the state governments of Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh as well as being held in high esteem by the Royals of Nepal. These days, over 400,000 pilgrims come every years to Badrinath from all over India, traveling on roads constructed after the border war with China in the early 1960s.

As you can imagine, the temple is completely snow encased (As the legend goes, during winter months we have Narada performing daily worship, in the absence of humans) in the winters and so open only for six months in a year, from May to November. The idol is taken downhill, to Pandukeshwar, to continue daily worship till next May, after which it goes back to Badrinath. For six months in a year (during May to October i.e. roughly Vaisakh to Kartika), the Rawal performs his duties as a temple priest. Thereafter, he either stays in Joshimutt (a temple dedicated to Narasimha, another incarnation of Vishnu) or goes back to his ancestral village in Kerala. The Rawal should not cross the river till Vamana Dwadasi, must be a Brahmachari, and is the only person allowed to touch the image of the presiding deity.

Starting at 4AM The Rawal gives the idol the ceremonious bath and bhoj (breakfast) and then offers various poojas until 8AM after which he goes home, and returns at lunchtime to offer the idol lunch and again later in the evening until dinner time. The rawal retires at 930PM. The Nayab Rawal or deputy Rawal is also a nambuthiri.

The rawal’s routine goes thus, typical to a Kerala temple - Early before sunrise, the Raaval awakens

the Lord from his sleep, disrobes him and wipes off the stale sandal paste. Then he performs ritual ablutions of abhishekam first with the warm water, and then with milk, yogurt, honey and some perfumed rinses. He then systematically decorates the idol with lotus, Thulasi (sacred basil) and rose flowers. The adornment is completed with the gems "Kausthubham" and "Sreevatsam". This is followed by "Baala bhojanam", the first pooja offering, which will include various fresh fruits, raisins, sugar candy, etc. offered on five silver salvers. This leads on to "Deepaaraadhana", worship with the lamp. The doors of the sanctum will close after ritual worship in the morning, open again for midday worship and close mid-afternoon.

These days, the Uttaranchal government writes to the Kerala government to recommend a rawal, he being a Namboothiri with deep Sanskrit knowledge and well versed in pooja methods of Kerala and also a bachelor. The person must possess a degree of Acharya in Sanskrit and be of robust health and suitable for a tenure at the higher altitudes. A few recommendations are passed on and the Gahrwal head has the responsibility to choose one from the lot. The Rawal had to be a bachelor lest the ritual impurity arising from the birth of a child (sutakashaucha – Birth and death pula as we know in Kerala) render him unable to perform his duties.

The name is thus forwarded to the king of Tehri or the Tehri Garhwal who is the Bhalond-badri or tutelary head of Garhwal. At a tilak ceremony where a crimson tilak is ceremoniously applied on the chosen candidate, the rawal’s appointment gets completed. He was also provided a ceremonial Khilat or robe and a gold brocade umbrella. While this is theory, in practice it could be so that a deputy or nayab rawal, also a nampoothiri, applies for the post and gets promoted.

Others who support the rawal are the Nayab Rawal, the Dharmadhikari or astrologer, the Vedapati (Veda reciter), other smaller priests, cooks, treasurers, singers, pandas, guards and so on. A panda (not the bear) or assistant leads each pilgrim group and one much choose his panda carefully, for the panda must possess good humor, be knowledgeable and energetic.

In the very old days, the shrine was patronized by the kings of Bengala and later by the King at Benares. Until 1939, the position of Rawal was very powerful and the priest had rights for all the offerings at the temple. The 1939 act changed it to a 7.5% percentage of offerings plus a fixed salary, much like the priests at Guruvayur. The Rawal himself takes up the responsibility at Badrinath while 2 or 3 others reside as back up and support at Joshimutt.

A 1903 article provides this interesting description - The priests at Kedarnath, Badrinath, Guptkashi, Ukhimath, Jungnath, and Joshimath are all Madrasies. The principal burial-places (I would assume the British writer actually meant cremation grounds) of these priests are at Ukhimath and Joshimath. The High Priest of Kedarnath is directly under the British Government. The High Priest of Badrinath is a servant of the Raja of Tehri-Garhwal. These Madrasies seem to enjoy excellent health, and most of them live to a great age. They usually wear white woolen clothing, gold worked belts round their waists, and handsome Madras puggries. They keep up a certain amount of state. They are in correspondence with the priests in the chief temples throughout India, as the pilgrims are drawn from every province and from every rank of society.

Another interesting aside is that the same priest conducted the pujas at Badrinath and Kedarnath, in the old days. This is implausible and one Rawal explained that there was perhaps a tunnel between the two centers which by the way are separated by 25 miles.

Quoting Eric Shipton (1934) the famous Himalayan mountaineer while mapping the Nanda Devi route with Tilman– There existed a tradition 'many hundreds of years ago' when there was no high priest at Kedarnath temple, and the high priest of Badrinath or the namboodiri rawal used to hold services at both temples in the same day. Shipton could not believe this and decided to test the theory. He was a swift climber, and took many laborious days to cover the high altitude distance.

Now as we all know, the Namboothiris (not any I have ever come across) are not the most active types who can swiftly cover a tough mountain terrain in a fraction of the time taken by an experienced mountaineer, but Shipton wanted to check it himself. As it went…

Shipton’s and Tilman’s party traveled upto the head of the Satopanth glacier and climbed to the watershed saddle. Ahead an icy precipice plunged 6000 feet into a lush valley. It was so steep that they had to rope down a narrow gulley, an irreversible move which heightened their respect for the Namboothiri Rawal who apparently traversed these terrains with consummate ease. The gorge they entered was not quite the lush paradise, but a bamboo forest full of thorny bramble. It took a day to cover a mile in the heavy rain. Food and gear became moldy, the Sherpa’s were terrified of yetis and bears and were sometimes non cooperative, but on the whole very difficult. The only conclusion they could draw after the very difficult journey was that if the Rawal indeed did the puja in both places on the same day, he must have flown on the back of a tiger such as the Padma Sambhava. When they asked the presiding rawal about it, who proved to be of great help to them, he replied with a twinkle in his eye that there must have been a tunnel between the two places, aiding quick transport. But I think this belief gained importance since both places had Nambuthiris as priests, and some people thought it was the same person. Even today, as a gateway to the Himalayas, many mountaineers pass the Badrinath temple and seek blessings, meeting up with the Rawal as well and gives him some ‘foreign’ gifts.

Most of these rawals are perhaps normal youngsters from Kerala and not necessarily staff bearing holy sanyasis devoted to spending a lifetime serving the god. Some of the Rawals are modern ecofriendly persons, and one Rawal, concerned about the adverse impacts on the environment, joined forces with Indian scientists to consecrate saplings in a series of ceremonial plantings intended to re-establish the sacred forest. Yet another was responsible for gifting an ancient and valuable copper plate grant to the archeological society.

On the other hand, a recent rawal proved to be not so celibate and got caught in a honey trap and was eventually disciplined. Other rawals have been involved in litigations with the Tehri king over management issues and remuneration. One report by Gibson mentions an ever helpful intelligent rawal clad in a winter overcoat, leather shoes and sporting pan stained teeth and lips. Once the president Rajendra Prasad went up there and the rawal’s representative or friend used the opportunity to tell the Indian president about the problems (very meagre allowances and emoluments, high travel expenses to Travancore etc) faced by the priest and as they say, secured his future. Some of them also mastered the art of horse riding and a 1939 report by Heim and Gansser states that they were given to understand that the Rawal of that time was not really a bachelor, but was married and that his family was in Kerala. Perhaps the rules require rawals to be celibate only while serving in Badrinath.

These worldly men have always been good talkers and listeners and being from Kerala are usually educated and speak a reasonable amount of English (though not possessing more than a working knowledge of Hindi). So they have been quoted over centuries by foreigners visiting the shrine, especially their chats during the afternoon times when the rawal meets visitors. In one such discussion during 1985, the Rawal informed that there was a bhairavi chakra cave beneath the idol. It appears that a former king used to ride into battle wearing the arm band of Bhairava which was kept under the Badrinath image. Donald Macintyre writing in the late 19^thcentury recalls meeting the rawal from Kerala who was not so spiritual and more of the worldly type. The rawal he met actually accepted a box of gunpowder as a gift which he said would pass on to his son who was a shikari (I think that was a bluff- I am still to come across a namboothiri shikar!).

They are also not the fanatical kind and lent a calm ear to visiting missionaries who tried to teach them otherwise, as is evident from the account of Rev Sabine Mansell who wrote in 1896 – I made a tour towards Badrinath and walked to Mana village, the most northern inhabited point on that road. I distributed pamphlets and tracts to the pilgrims and resented a New Testament to the Rawal Sahib or high-priest, telling him that this is the only book in the world which will prevail and all the other false things will pass away.

The 1853 meeting between a Rawal and the Rev JH Budden is very interesting and ended with the reverend gifting the rawal with the New Testament and a copy of the genesis. But what is interesting is how the Namboothiri rawal explained his conviction - He is rather a young looking man, and has the appearance of a southern. His speech also bewrayeth him. He affects great liberality of sentiment in religion; and, after the usual formalities, began by saying that God is one, though there are various methods of worshipping him on earth, all equally acceptable to him, as many roads all lead to the same place; and that the various objects of worship were but so many different manifestations of him.He continued by declaring that kindness or benevolence was the chief thing. I am not recounting this in full as it goes into a number of pages, for those interested please study - The Evangelical Magazine and Missionary Chronicle, Volume 31, pages 49-53.

A question remains – Sankara, a Nambuthiri himself, abhorred Nambuthiri rigidity following the issues he faced with his mother’s death rites, but insisted on one and his customs at the Badrinath temple, hmm… food for thought?? Perhaps some wise person will answer me…

Ah! Well, spare a thought for those guys who brave the inhospitable weather and spend years in those terrains. Someday I hope to meet one and tell you his side on the life he spent in the abode of the gods…

References

The sacred complex of Badrinath – Dinesh Kumar

The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism V2

Hinduism Ancient and Modern: Baij Nath (Lala)

For details of a trip there, read the Badrinath & Mana Story

Namboothiri’swebsite

Indian Engineering, Volume 34 edited by Patrick Doyle

Eric Shipton: Everest and Beyond - Peter Steele

Criminal Gods and Demon Devotees: Essays on the Guardians of Popular Hinduism edited by Alf Hiltebeitel

The throne of the gods: an account of the first Swiss expedition to the Himalayas - Arnold Albert Heim, Augusto Gansser

Note: Originally, the Char Dham referred to a pilgrimage circuit encompassing four important temples—Puri, Rameswaram, Dwarka, and Badrinath—located roughly at the four cardinal points of the subcontinent. The Chota Char Dham, is an important Hindu pilgrimage circuit in the Indian Himalayas. Located in the Garhwal region of the state of Uttarakhand, the circuit consists of four holy sites—Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath, and Badrinath

The Malayali and his drink

Numerous jokes can be seen circulating about the Malayali fondness for drink and so many scenes can be seen on television and the movies. The mimicry circuit is replete with many depictions of the drunken Malayali, while the somber and orderly queue in front of the beverages shop is testimony to the seriousness with which the average Malayali sets about the task of purchasing his liquor of choice in order to get thoroughly sloshed.

The statistics are staggering, for Kerala is right up there near the top when it comes to alcohol consumption. The World Health Organization finds that the average Indian drinks 4.3 liters of alcohol a year and in Kerala, it was 10.2 liters a year and the highest per capita (14.5 per cent) liquor consumption in the country.Borrowing the words from an evocative Malayali writer Yohan Chacko we can picture the drinker… Tying and retying his lungi/dhoti, each time a notch higher lets you know how many pegs he has downed by the level of the knot. At the pinnacle of intoxication the knot will be placed one palm’s width below his armpit almost like a girl wearing a towel on her way to the river for a bath. And they will sing. And sing and sing. For the amount of coaxing they would otherwise need to get on a dance floor, the drunk Malayali will put Shakira to shame.

Many ask the question - It is ok to have a recreational drink or two or even three, but why do these fellows insist on getting plastered ever so often? Let me assure you, it was not so easy to find an answer even after racking my brains a lot and checking out the backgrounds of every serious Malayali drinker I knew or know. Is it in the genes, the social make-up or is it the expected norm in Kerala?

In the hoary past, drinking was not very common or popular in the state. Toddy was tapped and the Thandan (palm tree climber and tapper) supplied the fresh drink to just a few. We know that the Nair soldier sometimes drank before setting out for war, this has been so attested. Rare members of the gentry perhaps did, but drink was largely abhorred by the upper classes. We also saw in an earlier study that the Romans brought in amphorae of wine, perhaps for their own consumption. While arrack became popular later, It is interesting to note that the prevalent form of alcohol distillation producing a more potent Arrack (itself an Arab term), has an Italio-Arab (the Chakanad Bhatti) Moghul origin dating back to the 13^th and 14^th centuries (they used to have much weaker Gandhara bhattis or stills before that).

Medieval Kerala had Namboothiris on the top of the social ladder, who drank rarely in those times but the Nairs had the sanction to drink by virtue of their being soldiers, fighting for various local chieftains. The lower classes did, but the Moplahs did not drink, whereas the Christians did. Richard Burton explains an interesting reasoning, in his diary dated 1850 – Although quite opposed to the spirit of Hindu law, intoxication and debauchery never degrade a Nair from his caste. The Christians had better relations with the Portuguese and the Dutch and therefore had access to more exotic drinks from the west, such as wine, brandy. The lonely Englishmen in India found solace in booze, sometimes drinking himself to a stupor setting the standard for the observant Malayali. The Malayali always looking for equality in society, quickly picked up on these aspects to show that he was no inferior to the Englishman, not realizing that drink is addictive. Drinking soon got popularized by the film crowd and the arty lot, so not only did the common man get affected, but also the intellectual, with the excuse that drink cleared up the mind and allowed thoughts to flow. But let’s take a deeper look.

In the very early times, Hinduism mentions use of many alcoholic beverages, starting with the Soma in Rig Veda. Some 13 different types can be found in early texts and while it was taboo only for Brahmins, were used by other castes. In almost all areas, the manufacture and distribution was done by the lowest castes. In early Kerala, we see the local chieftains in Kerala levying various types of kanams or taxes on liquor profits. They were Talakanam, enikkanam and kudanazhi. Talakanam was a tax paid by toddy tappers, enikkanam was the tax on the ladder used by tappers and kudanazhi was the custom of providing a nazhi (measure) of liquor to the taxing authority per pot of toddy (you may not believe it, but we also had a women labor tax called mulavila, manayira house thatching tax, Alkash or talavila, atimaikasu or slave tax, menippon gold ornament tax, mulaiattikaram etc. in those times).

1602 – Pyrarad Laval states- Had we not been liable to find our Nairs drunk with arac (which is a

kind of eau de vie made with the wine of the coco-tree), we should, in fact, have had no need of it at all, by reason of our letter of commendation, which ran in the name of the king: but that must not always be trusted to. Buchanan also details the method of toddy tapping and arrack brewing in Kerala which he documented while traveling through the country in 1799.

As the moral policies started to change with a change in governance, drinking became an accepted social pastime. That was obviously so when the British took over the reins in Malabar circa 1790. You can refer to the diaries of Wellesley who was campaigning against the Pazhassi raja and see that he had to have a number of arrack carts lugged by bullocks behind each troop movement of his. This was a requirement to keep his army motivated in the malaria infested and rain drenched jungles of North Malabar. That was how the British first created a quota of booze for the native foot soldier.

Many a family had a person or two serving that Army of the Raj in those times and later into the world wars 1 and 2. When they came home on furlough, they would bring the ration bottles, to have a merry vacation. We have seen this well documented in novels, short stories, dramas and movies. Very soon drinking became accepted and even popular amongst men, with the change of the social fabric. Class and caste distinction disintegrated and with the advent of socialism, people of all classes met more often in public, not just for important occasions but to discuss politics, the government, other local issues and their own problems.

In the early 1800’s the EIC implemented the abkari excise act, which was later imposed by the British government in 1858, and thus the sale of alcohol became a huge source of revenue to any government. In India. This was particularly of interest in places where controls never existed, and where tax collection was a huge issue for the ruling British, for it was a method of exhorting revenue for governance from the masses, i.e. by taxing the production and sales outlets.

Thus came about the abkari (excise) or ‘farming out’ system. In the so called Madras system the license to operate distilleries and open liquor shops were granted by auctions to the highest bidder. More and more such licenses were encouraged. Even though land tax was the main source of revenue, liquor revenue grew rapidly. Starting with 2% in 1874, you can trace a rise to 7% in the 1890’s, 10% in 1905 and 27% by the 1920’s, a whopping increase of 430%.

Kerala state's dependence on alcohol revenue echoes the British colonial era, says Dilip Menon, who has studied the issue. In the late 19th century, imperial rulers sharply raised toddy taxes, encouraging people to switch to more addictive, higher-octane and also highly taxed arrack, a distilled 34-proof brew made from fruit or grain, which stuffed state coffers and spurred alcoholism.

It was at this stage that some from the Madras presidency started to raise their voice against increasing cases of addiction. The Brahma Samaj started to incorporate it into its caste rules and the CMS took up the cudgels as well, telling its believers to abstain. But as regulations came about, we also see that the Madras system was fanned out to other parts of India and gaining acceptability. Heeding protests, taxes were raised to reduce consumption, police were authorized to act against illegal distillers etc., Gandhi arriving India in 1914 also took up the matter and the INA endorsed his words.

After independence, several states introduced prohibition as allowed by the constitution and even though neighboring Tamil Nadu did, the states of Andhra Pradesh, Mysore and Kerala did not due to their large fiscal demands and even refused central government compensation for the potential loss of revenue. Economic development and urbanization escalated the situation and instilled what we now see as class based drinking as against caste based drinking. The elite drank western style spirits while the lower working classes stuck to arrack and toddy, or sometimes lethal bootleg spirits. Soon foreign liquor and IMFL or Indian made foreign liquor became even more popular as the habitual drinker needed something stronger.

Just like the British got the masses of China addicted to opium, many governments in power in Kerala starting with the British, gradually increased the acceptance levels by integrating booze into state policy. Even though the statistics reported by the press are a bit skewed, you can still see the top tipplers list contains the names of the three states above, Andhra, Mysore and Kerala! Booze became a medium used to exhort the illiterate when larger body counts were needed by politicians and leaders, be it for meetings, agitations or processions. A promise of a free drink or a few would get the required headcount. Sometimes these drinks were spiked ‘for a higher kick ‘with all kinds of chemicals (varnish, methyl alcohol, battery skins / ammonium chloride) and many instances of mass deaths have been reported. And as you will observe, Kerala, an over-politicized and over-extended state has more than a procession or agitation every day.

But why did an otherwise literate Keralite get drawn into the negative world of alcoholics? The rapid increase in alcoholism and addiction in Kerala was thus brought about by easier availability, affordability and greater social acceptance of alcohol. Some might ask why religious and familial checks stopped working and how women also joined the fray. Well as regards gender, Kerala is one of the rare places where the gender border is but a thin line, though the drunkard’s wife is often the one who gets mistreated.

And as we all know supply of an addictive drink with some catchy advertising creates demand, and as demand increases, supply quickly catches up and this exponential growth created the situation we see in Kerala. Usually brakes are applied early by good governance, but the immense profits of the business created a very strong liquor (manufacturing & distribution) lobby which in turn started to establish indirect control on the decision makers and various arms of the government.

You could look at some depressing statistics culled from various reports, for some perspective - An ADIC-India study revealed that Kerala’s revenue from alcohol increased from US$ 6.5 million in FY 1987-88 to US$ 1.2 billion in FY 2013-14. In Kerala, where 22 per cent of the total government revenue came from the bottle, the total excise and commercial tax revenue from alcohol (IMFL and toddy) was close to Rs 8,000 crore. The Kerala State Beverages Corporation (KSBC) runs 337 liquor shops, all open seven days a week. Each shop caters on average to an astonishing 80,000 clients.

But blaming only the government is not necessarily right and the moral fabric of the user (who helped create the democratic government in the first place) has to be studied, so let’s go about trying to do that. The drinkers of Kerala are of many types. There is the occasional drinker, there is the habitual drinker, and there is the arty type. The occasional or recreational (as they are termed in the USA) drinker is relatively harmless, except that BEVCO sales are propped up by a large number of these people. The habitual or serious drinker drinks by choice, he has decided early in life that he has to drown his sorrows with the glass. Whether it is due to personal issues, a declining career or impeding bankruptcy, he somehow begs, borrows or steals to buy his drink as often as he can and is enveloped in a hazy alcoholic mist all day long. They are by nature dull and self-centered and difficult to change. He is the mainstay of all statisticians and is often studied by the academicians.

The interesting sort is the arty type, sometimes sporting a scraggly beard and generally looking unkempt. He is always rebelling about something and it could be as trivial as the dog show conducted by the bourgeois in town. He tries very hard to exhort others to follow his ideal, or his chosen brand of ‘ism’ (one of the many) or ‘ics’ (such as politics) failing frequently, thereby forcing him to choose a path of negativity as the day winds down. He can also be seen in the toddy or arrack shop or in the Bevco line. Some of them become famous later in the entertainment industry but are still influenced heavily by drink.

The intention of any of these serious Kerala drinkers is not to sip his drink, but to get drunk as quickly as possible. If they meet in a bar, the bottle once opened is never corked, but always finished in situ. In the old times, the bottle used to be military issue Hercules XXX (the drink of the proletariat), or the much venerated Old Monk rum - OMR but these days it is could be any of the many new brands popular in the global market.

In Kerala we see something else which is very interesting. Advertising is not required, but the booze joints have a rating based on the quality of low cost food they serve. In a state where there is little time and resource to cook good non vegetarian food, the lower middle class worker resorts to a drink and a bite at the ‘shop’. The toddy/arrack shop where the laborer retires to, after his days’ work (and very tiring bouts of grumbling), would sport an expert cook well versed in the art of creating tasty ‘touching’s’ and great curries. Touching’s are usually very spicy ‘small eats’ chomped while polishing off the bottle. They are made of meat and sometimes with parts not used in larger hotels, making them very economical for the cook and the buyer, with the taste finely disguised with an abundance of spices. See a recent episode of Anthony Bourdain’s visit to Kerala if you want to get an idea of what I am talking about. If it is a party, it seems that they can even have (not so legal) mobile supply stations parked in the parking lot of your party site, replete with top class touching’s, from what I have heard.

Then there is the strong NRK (nonresident Keralite) influence - Check any airport arrival lounge in Kerala, almost all non-Muslim Malayali NRK’s (Close to 50% of NRK’s are Muslim)would be carrying the customary two bottles with him, mainly to please his parents, friends and in laws. Duty free shops in the Middle East as well as those in the arrival lounges have great pricing packages for the liquor being sold (typically - buy one, get one free), pricing them at a fraction of street prices, thus facilitating the purchase of these one and a half to two liter bottles of 50% proof alcohol per person. Take a look at some rough statistics. There are some 2 million NRI’s from Kerala (NRK) and close to 90% of them are in the Middle East. The Kochi and Calicut airports show some 5-7 million arrivals every year (Mumbai has 33 million arrivals). Imagine the amount of high octane booze which comes in, even after discounting the Moplah returnee!!

We also find that Kerala is a high salary state and so there is usually money left for recreation in a worker’s life (Only that the Keralite believes in a lot of recreation). It is also perhaps time to realize that the state is no longer economically deprived and has started farming out menial jobs to lower cost migrants from the North Eastern parts of India.

As justice VR Krishna Iyer aptly said - this is a trade where the turnover tempts the customer to take rolling trips into the realm of the jocose, the lachrymose and then the comatose. The jocose first sip, the bellicose second sip, the lachrymose third sip… And with the final gulp you become comatose and lie down somewhere, often not knowing where. If this happens at home, the wife gets beaten if she protests. With much of the income spent on the stuff, the family often ends up bankrupt.

He also asked - Who will dare dismiss a government for violating Article 47 of the Constitution written in 1949? The article for those who are interested is - ‘Duty of the State to raise the level of nutrition and the standard of living and to improve public health The State shall regard the raising of the level of nutrition and the standard of living of its people and the improvement of public health as among its primary duties and, in particular, the State shall endeavor to bring about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health’. It made me remember the story of the cat and the mice, with the question ‘who will bell the cat’?

So much of statistics is good for the policy maker or policy optimizer. But there could be another reason and that is the attitude of the Keralite. Ask yourself if it is an optimistic or pessimistic state. Check out your friends, your parents or relatives. An average person is always grumbling, hardly smiling, not happy with this or that, never contended with his life and always searching for utopia. This is also perhaps the reason why Kerala has a largest number of mentally ill persons (6% of population), a large rate of divorces (13K per annum) and a huge number of suicides (24 per lakh in 2014). Is that progress? Too complex a question I suppose and one that will require the average Malayali to nurse a stiff drink to come up with his valued opinion.

If I could comment in conclusion, I would say that instead of focusing on the Beverages Corporation or Chandy or Mani or whoever the CM is, focus on being happy, and you will soon discover that there are better routes to lasting happiness than the few pints of alcohol. Don’t get me wrong though, I am proud to be a Malayali though not at all proud of the above state of affairs. I am also not preaching nor will I, since I myself like a weekend drink, but then again, I do not get sloshed.

References

Economic History of Medieval India, 1200-1500 – Pages 55, 56

Goa, and the Blue Mountains, Or Six Months of Sick Leave - Sir Richard Francis Burton

Alcohol and Temperance in Modern History: Volume 1 - Jack S. Blocker, David M. Fahey, Ian R. Tyrrell

Supplementary Despatches and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of wellington ..., Volumes 1-12

An interesting question has been debated by Gautam Bhatiahere for those interested

Pics - from the net - thanks to the uploaders,

And the first Indian in Salem…..

Most people have concentrated on the connections India had with Britain in the centuries and decades leading eventually to Indian Independence. However, for a brief period of time, there existed a robust amount of trade between the American state of Massachusetts and India. Bombay, Calcutta and Madras were the destinations of choice to some of the early merchant sailors of the cities of Salem and Boston. While they traded in traditional items such as textiles, spices and so on, these ships even went on to carry exotic items like ice from the Walden pond across the wide oceans, a topic I had written about earlier. The time period between 1780 and 1850 was a time when the sea routes to India were shared by the Americans. And that was also the time when the first Indians visited America.

The British East India Company started trading with Indian merchants at the start of the 17^th century and were in joint control of the sea coasts of India, though sharing some power with the Portuguese and the Dutch. Soon the members became incredibly wealthy, and were able to form a complete monopoly by the 18^th century. Even though the French were rivals to some degree, Indian goods were in high demand in the post Industrial revolution Europe and the standards of living improved drastically in Britain. Britain and the EIC went on to become more imperialist and monopolist in their approach resulting in the enforcement of tea act in America which led to rebellions, the Boston tea party and eventually the 1776 American declaration of Independence. But things continued as before in subservient India where the British government taking over from the EIC made merry and continued with the enriching of the imperial coffers and themselves.

America which had just become independent, were also eyeing this lucrative business resulting from Indian contacts. The state of Massachusetts was foremost in matters of maritime adventures and was home to wealthy merchants. In fact Salem which was in 1726 just 100 years old in age as a European settlement deriving its name from the Hebrew word Shalom or peace, went on to top the exploits at sea. Until 1763, the maritime industry of Salem, did well on account of its good fishing exploits and during the revolution the sailors became privateers hell-bent on capturing British ships. Salem soon became numero uno in this business with about 50 armed ships and after the revolution these took to the open oceans looking for trade. One of the big ship owning merchants was Richard Derby.

EH Derby

Towards the end of the revolution, he handed over the management of the family business to his second son, Elias Hasket Derby, who was destined to become the foremost American merchant of his time. By 1776, three of the peace-loving Derby’s ships were destroyed by the British and so he decided to arm his fleet (25 owned and 25 partnership owned ships, 158 ships in total at Salem). He also possessed larger 300 ton ships and two of them were the well-armed Grand Turk and Astraea. Ships like the Grand Turk and Astrea, though only of some 300 tons burden, were too large for coastwise and West Indies trade.

Salem had a population of roughly 5,000 during this period and as we saw its mariners early established quite a daring reputation. It is said that they followed the advice of the old salt: “Always go straight forward, and if you meet the devil, cut him in two and go between the pieces.”

This aggressive American merchant Elias Hasket Derby promoted discovery of new avenues, sailing routes and markets. At Derby Wharf, he built up one of the leading mercantile establishments in the United States, and through the development of his extensive trade to Europe, the East Indies, and China did a great deal to promote the growth and prosperity of the country. We see that by 1790, Salem had become the sixth largest city in the country, and a world-famous seaport and that Derby’s ship Grand Turk had sailed to the Chinese exporting port of Canton.

On the second voyage of the Grand Turk to the Isle of France (Mauritius), which began in December 1787, Mr. Derby sent along his eldest son, Elias Hasket Derby, Jr., a young man 21 years of age, to serve as his agent. This move proved to be a wise one, for, during the 3 years he spent in the East, the young man formed profitable relationships with the leading merchants at Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta, and had a hand in breaking the monopoly of the British East India Company.

EH Derby Jr

As American vessels did business at Mauritius, the Dutch and Portuguese collaborated with these new traders and the British had no choice but to admit American vessels to the ports of India on the basis of the most-favored foreigners. This decree went into effect about the time Elias Hasket, Jr., arrived at the Isle of France. Derby vessels were allowed access to Madras, Bombay, or Calcutta for cotton and other India goods. On the arrival of a ship from the East at Derby Wharf a small part of her cargo would be sold in Salem and much would find their way to Boston, New York, or Philadelphia, and even back to Europe if the price there was better. Starting in In 1788 Hasket continued to trade in India throughout the late 1780s, eventually returning home in 1790. The Derby ships were to frequent Indian shores with marked regularity after the initial establishment of the relationship. “Boston was the Spain, Salem the Portugal, in the race for Oriental opulence,” writes historian Samuel Eliot Morison and Salem’s hugely profitable trade with the Orient transformed this hardscrabble New England seaport into a global powerhouse and, by the early 1800s, the wealthiest city per capita in the United States. Derby’s business thrived and he is considered to be America’s first millionaire.

But interestingly, while Derby Jr from Salem was trading with Madras, a chap from Madras was destined to American shores and appears in the annals of history as one of the, if not the first Indian to formally visit and live in America for a while. The year is 1790.

It all started with Derby’s acquisition of the 140 ton copper bottomed brig Sultana and a visit to Bombay on the ship together with sister ship Peggy during the fall of 1788. That was the very first time an American ship touched Indian shores (An earlier ship Unites States visited French Pondicherry in 1784). They visited various ports on the west coast of Malabar in addition to Bombay. The cotton that was shipped back to Salem in 1789 on the sister ship Peggy found few buyers, and the rough cotton proved unpopular. They wanted coffee in America! So the cotton was sent to Liverpool.

An EastIndaman

Derby went on the Sultanato Madras, caught dysentery and to add to the discomfiture found that there were no buyers for his American wine in Madras. He spent awhile in an ‘out of town’ plantation recuperating. Meanwhile on the west coast, the Maratha piracy was picking up and the seas were a little dangerous for the Americans. But remember that these America ships were privateer ships too once and knew how to handle such threats!

This was when the ships Henry, Lighthouse and Atlantic joined the team scouting or trade in India. They visited various ports in Malabar and the Coromandel, Ceylon included and were the first to fly American colors at Calcutta in 1789. Eventually Sultana was sold off in 1789 in Madras and Henry was to proceed back to Salem. Henry was loaded with Cotton of which a large amount was disposed of in Mauritius. The space was loaded with Bourbon Coffee. The Lighthorse went on to become the first American ship to touch Canton.

Henry was captained by Benjamin Crowninshield (Derby’s cousin). Captn John Gibaut, a well-educated man, who was related to him through his mother, accompanied him. Benjamin happened to be Derby’s school buddy and both he and Crowninshield were to make big names in the India trade. Derby and friends were finally returning to Salem, flush with profits from India, three years after Derby Jr had set out to the east. John Gibaut, we see was a Harvard graduate and mariner from Salem, the son of Edward Gibaut and Sarah Crowninshield.

But there was one exotic item in that had come on the ship Henry which the Americans were to observe and record for the first time. Henryincidentally sailed from Calcutta to the West Indies. Gibaut and the Indian man thence proceeded to Salem on another Derby vessel.

The Indian man as he was known since then, was a person presumably from the Indian Coromandel coast, a Tamilian perhaps. Regrettably his name was never recorded by anybody and even though he spent a few months at Salem, it is quite an anomaly that we cannot find his real name anywhere or his antecedents. Was he Gibaut’s servant, a lascar, a dubash (translator), a bania or chetty trader or was he Gibaut’s friend? It is very difficult to make a conclusion. Some accounts mention him as Gibaut’s servant and that he joined the voyages in March 1790.

Ft St George Madras 1754

It was perhaps not the first time a person of Indian origin visited the American shores. Many British merchantmen ships had lascars from Bombay, Cochin or Malabar on their ships. So surely others preceded the Indian man of 1790. It is clear that there were others brought into America by British as slaves. In fact they date back to 1719 and are quite a few in number though details are sketchy. But this happens to be the first on record. Now let us see what more we can find out about ‘the Indian man’ of Salem.

What he did for the next few months is not clear but it is believed that the Indian man spent the winter in Salem and left with Gibaut on the ship Astrea, back to India in May 1791.

Rev Bentley

William Bentley records in his diary - Had the pleasure of seeing for the first time a native of the Indies from Madras. He is of very dark complexion, long black hair, soft countenance, tall, & well proportioned. He is said to be darker than Indians in general of his own cast, being much darker than any native Indians of America. I had no opportunity to judge of his abilities, but his countenance was not expressive. He came to Salem with Capt. J. Gibaut, and has been in Europe.

In 1799, Salem’s globe-traveling sea captains and traders established the city’s East India Marine Society, whose bylaws charged members to bring home “natural and artificial curiosities.” We see a number of them at the Peabody, Salem and other museums of Massachusetts. As is explained - The city seal of Salem, Massachusetts, features neither a black-clad Puritan elder nor an American eagle but, instead, a robe-and-slippered Sumatran dignitary standing next to a row of palm trees. Below him, the city motto: Divitis Indiae usque ad ultimum sinum (“To the farthest port of the rich East”). It was to the “rich East,” indeed, that Salem owed its brief but dazzling period of commercial glory.

The Astrea with Gibaut as master faced a lot of misfortune and in 1793 the Sultan of Pegu detained it for his own use and held Gibaut a hostage. But as it appears Gibaut spent time collecting curiosities in Burma for Rev Bentley’s museum. The Astrea was misused by the Sultan and had to be condemned in Calcutta. He sailed back on the Henry but was waylaid by the British this time at the Cape of Good Hope. Three years later Gibaut was back in Salem after these hair raising adventures.

Gibaut was an expert mathematician and the first American Navigator, who introduced the practice of Lunar observations, into the USA. He was briefly involved earlier in the survey of Salem but eventually went back to sea and his work was completed by the eminent Dr Bowdich. He fell ill and returned to Salem in 1801 when his friend Crowninshield recommended Thomas Jefferson to make him a collector of Boston port, which did not work out but he went on to become collector of Gloucester. He retained the position until his death in 1805

The Derby family continued on course with the India trade. But things were not rosy for too long. As the American shipping prosperity increased, resentment at Britain increased and the British started what they called impression. By 1811, the British Royal Navy had impressed (which was the Royal Navy’s practice of removing seamen from American merchant vessels) at least 6,000 mariners who claimed to be citizens of the United States. In addition to impressments, Americans were dismayed by British agitation of the native population on the western frontier. Congress declared war on June 18, 1812.

As the Salem vessels and their sailors were being kidnapped by the British at high seas, and the trade embargo was brought about by President Jefferson, the Salem merchants had a choice of either braving it out or sitting still (as they said – swallow the anchor) at home. But as the days of glory vanished, what they chose to do is a story for another day.

References

Essex Institute Historical collections (Vol 98)- Elias Hasket Derby – Richard H McKey

The Diary of William Bentley - William Bentley

The United States and India 1776-1996 – MV Kamath

Salem's Part in the Naval War with France - James Duncan Phillips

"That Every Mariner May Possess the History of the World": A Cabinet for the East India

Marine Society of Salem - James M. Lindgren

Merchant Venturers of old Salem – Robert Peabody

The maritime history of Massachusetts – Samuel Eliot Morison

Pics – Wikipedia, salemweb.com (Rev Bentley)

Allen Lane, Pelican, Penguin and Krishna Menon

Was Allen Lane responsible for the animosity Krishna Menon had against Britain and for that matter against other Western countries? What exactly was their relationship and for that matter the exact involvement of Menon with the paperback empire of Allen Lane? This had intrigued me for some time, so I got to work unearthing the details. It was an interesting journey, to say the least.

The story actually starts in Britain, during the second decade of the 20^th century, with two high school going brothers Richard and Allen Williams, the latter being the older one by 3 years. The elder who had some aversion to sports, got involved in various kinds of mischief as the younger took to cricket. They were nephews of John Lane Senior who owned a reputed book firm named Bodley Head (named after Sir Thomas Bodley), which had been publishing among others, Oscar Wilde since 1887.

John Lane had a falling out with his partner Elkin Mathew and after the split, retained the name Bodley Head and moved to Piccadilly. In 1918, Allen was asked if he wanted to join his ageing 63 year old uncle in the book business. Allen was not sure if chasing and bedding girls were his passion or books. As the legend goes, he chose the latter and became Lane’s apprentice, office boy and dogsbody (a person who is given boring, menial tasks to do). There was one condition attached, that Allen had to change his surname to Lane from Williams which he did and soon after, and the 16 year old boy was at work at the Vigo St in London.

Richard moved to Australia to learn fruit drying and later joined the British armed forces there. By now, it was 1921 and Allen was not too enthusiastic with the way his life was going though he found opportunities to hobnob with high society, cultivating relationships with a large number of high level dignitaries and popular writers. Soon enough, he leapt up the ranks to become a member of the Bodley Head board and not much later, the company secretary.

But matters were however, soon to go south in the publishing scene. His uncle John Lane died of pneumonia in 1925 and in 1926, and Richard Lane came back from Australia. Publishing and financial problems occurred one after the other and Allen was in no end of trouble. But Allen’s desire to become big in the book world remained paramount, Richard became an editor in the family firm as Allen became the CEO as the third brother John joined to look after overseas exports.

But how did Krishna Menon from Calicut land up in the midst of these hyperactive brothers? Menon, after attending schools in Calicut, continued at the Zamorin’s college and then the Presidency College - Madras majoring in History and economics. Madras Law College was next, during which he got involved with the Theosophical movement of Annie Besant. In 1924, she sponsored his trip to Britain, for six months of further studies and to secure a teaching diploma. That 6 month plan extended for all of 26 years after Menon completed a teaching assignment at Hertfordshire. Menon then applied to the LSE and as fate would dictate, met Harold Laski. Laski would go on to introduce him to many labor party leaders in Britain as well as eminent writers and intellectuals. Menon also started to work in right earnest for the India league. He continued with his LSE studies obtaining a bachelors (studying at night) and two master’s degrees (his PhD application was not accepted as he was considered a disruptive student) and attended the Middle temple bar. Influenced by the freedom movement, he published numerous articles and leaflets and spoke at length at many meetings distinguishing himself as a fiery orator. He also got involved in British domestic politics as a labor party member.

Sheila Grant Duff the eminent journalist found him an impressive and rather frightening figure. She remarked in her memoirs that the Menon of those days appeared as if he had stepped out of the tomb of Tutankhamen, saturnine, emaciated and limping heavily on a tall walking stick. Other accounts show that he also had this disconcerting habit of announcing his own imminent death.

From here on, we start to notice an inconsistency in the various accounts relating to Menon’s association with the Lane brothers. We will see that Lane first admitted to a working partnership with the bookish Menon, but later changed his stance deciding to corner all glory for himself and scoff at Menon’s involvement in his business. Anyway let us find out how the matters actually progressed.

Lane biographer Jeremy Lewis records – When Lane got to meet Menon, he was a penniless agitator

and pamphleteer living off tea, potatoes and two-penny buns in a garret off Gray’s inn at near St Pancras. Menon was dallying around with India league matters but also had to earn a living and that is how he secured an editor’s position at Bodely Head. Ronald Boswell, Bodley Head’s director hired the serious minded, socialist leaning and serious looking V.K. Krishna Menon to work on a nonfiction series. Menon was what they called a ‘lightning fast reader’, who could finish a detective book in under an hour (In comparison his then colleague Allen Lane hardly read any book, but then Lane was the one who had the family connections).

From 1932 to 1936, V. K. Krishna Menon worked as an editor at the Bodley Head, launching a series called the Twentieth Century Library, which in the words of The Times, still provides ‘an intellectual thrill’, included authors like Eric Gill, J. A. Hobson, Noel Carrington, Norman Bentwich, Raymond W. Postgate, Naomi Mitchison, H. L. Beales, J. H. Drieberg, Theodore Komisarjevsky, David Glass, M. A. Abrahams, Ralph Fox and Winifred Holtby. He also edited another list named Topical Books working for Walter Hutchinson at Selwyn Blount which listed authors like Michael Foot, George Lansbury and Ellen Wilkinson.

It was during the Bodley Head phase and with Duff’s support that Menon’s path crossed with somebody who was to become a great player in world affairs and Independent India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru (they had casual meetings twice before). Nehru had just completed his autobiography while in a British jail and was looking to get it published in Britain.

In November 1935 Nehru met Menon the then Secretary of the India League in London and found him to be able and earnest, but with the virtues and failings of an intellectual. Menon was highly thought of in left-wing labor circles of London and Menon, assisted by Duff, took care of much of Nehru’s arrangements during that visit.

Nehru had originally planned to get his book published by Unwin based on CF Andrew’s recommendation, but was very unhappy with the protracted discussions, the amount of editing done and the meagre terms offered. Menon dissuaded him from working with Unwin and persuaded Lane at Bodley Head to publish it. Stanley Wolpert explains that Lane quickly agreed to publish Nehru after meeting him in 1935 over a lunch and after reading the draft over a week’s period. Nehru was quite wary about presentation of his book for publication and had a lengthy correspondence with Menon before it came out to a resounding success.

Late in 1935, Bodley Head went into liquidation, and the following year it was bought by a consortium of the publishers George Allen & Unwin Ltd, Jonathan Cape, and J. M. Dent. Nehru who had not been paid his royalty in full, was recommended by Menon and others to sue Lane and the new owners, but he did not and finally a part of the remaining royalties as per British bankruptcy law (a solatium) was eventually paid by Unwin. Unwin says that he was originally a little wary about publishing Nehru’s book as he was not sure if the British Government would approve it, but later noted the irony saying that his deal would have proved better, financially.

In the literary world, the market was getting tough and book prices were falling, Seven shillings and sixpence for a hardbound was too much for most people. With a new business plan of mass publishing of 20,000 copies per book to break even, the Lane’s decided on publishing a set of reprints as paperbacks priced at 6 pennies per book and to build a stock of 200,000 books. After toying with names like Dolphin Books and Porpoise Books, the team settled on Penguin Books and a young Bodley Head artist called Edward Young was sent off to London Zoo to sketch the birds and came up with the engaging logo. Ten out-of-copyright novels, short stories, and poetry collections were released simultaneously and sold at the low cost of six pence each, which is the equivalent of around $1 to $2 in modern currency.

By 1936, Penguin was incorporated on its own. There were three types of Penguin’s: novels, in orange and white jackets; detective stories, in green and white; and popular biographies, in blue and white. Booksellers were initially alarmed, and the brothers struggled to get an order for 70,000 copies against the budget of 200,000.

After a slow and agonizing start, buyers soon got to like what they saw and the order books swelled. In no time, sales soared and a Penguin got sold every 10 seconds. The brothers stockpiled books in the crypt of the nearby Holy Trinity church to deal with the deliveries! Within a year they had sold 6 million books and new authors were added to the list. George Orwell wryly commented, "The Penguin Books are splendid value for sixpence, so splendid that if other publishers had any sense they would combine against them and suppress them." George Bernard Shaw said, "If a book is any good, the cheaper the better." The successful brothers purchased a yacht. Allen’s book empire foundations had been laid.

It was in 1936 that Lane got the idea of starting the non-fiction Pelican series. Menon suggested that not only do the Lane’s do reprints, but also publish original works of famous authors. Krishna Menon lined up an impressive number of contacts, not only in the political but also in the educational world with his contacts. He was the one who introduced some of his influential acquaintances and friends to the Lanes.

Among these were the broadcaster and secretary of the British Institute of Adult Education, W. E. Williams, and H. L. Beales, LSE faculty member. They agreed that the books envisioned by Krishna Menon would be useful, promising their support. This is how the Pelican series came into existence. Krishna Menon became its general editor. The first title released was GB Shaw’s Intelligent Woman’s guide to socialism, capitalism, Sovietism and fascism, with Menon’s support. According to Madhavan Kutty, Shaw’s book never left Menon’s side till his death.

As Lengyl records - The early titles of the Pelicans reflected Krishna Menon's eclectic tastes. They included a reprint of one of his favorite books by Elie Halevy, A History of the English People; Julian Huxley's Essays in Popular Science; Vision and Design, by the English painter and critic Roger Eliot Fry; Social Life in the Insect World, by Jean-Henri Fabre, the French entomologist; The Mysterious Universe, by Sir James Jeans; Literary Taste, by Arnold Bennett; and Civilization, by Clive Bell, the art and literary critic. Subsequent volumes included works by Harold Laski, Krishna Menon's idol; the unbelievably prolific H. G. Wells; Harold Nicolson, famed as a diplomat and author; Sir Norman Angell, Nobel Prize laureate; and Wickham Steed.

By this time the Axis powers were throwing their weight around in the world Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, and the war lords' Japan. Krishna Menon waged his own cold war against them as the editor of the Pelicans. He published reprints of Blackmail or War?, by the "French Cassandra," Genevieve Tabouis, and Edgar Ansel Mowrer's Germany Puts the Clock Back.

Towards the fall of 1938, we see turbulence in the relationship between Lane and Menon and both seem to be complaining about each other. Lane arguing that Menon had not updated him on the progress with second list of books and Menon stating that Lane had not updated him on contractual negotiations with the authors. Lengyl opines – The unbusinesslike Krishna Menon had no contract with the businesslike Lanes, and so their cooperation faded into a dense cloud of misunderstandings.

There was perhaps another matter troubling Lane, as the British government had by that time started tracking Menon and labeled him as a communist sympathizer. We get a hint of it from Ethel Mannin’s later outburst to Lane that two of Lane’s editors John Lehmann and Krishna Menon ‘were communist’ and therefore Lane was also one by association. Perhaps the businessman in Lane was alarmed, even though he was also considered to be often leaning to the left.

What happened next was a confrontation in a Soho restaurant. Lewis narrates the event that took place, thus – The truth of the matter was that Lane, mercurial and easily bored found the austere and unconvivial Menon a far from kindred spirit and was happy to freeze him out. Menon lectured him for an hour in a Soho restaurant and Lane who could neither hear nor understand what Menon was trying to say, finally lost patience and called him a bottleneck, at which Menon stormed out in a rage. Menon, ill, undernourished and overworked, felt bruised and isolated. As Morpurgo emphasizes, there was no overt act of dismissal, instead he was eliminated by being ignored, his note unanswered, his editorial suggestions disdained.

As Menon was still continuing to spar with the Lane’s through his lawyer complaining about delays in replies and Lane’s inaction, Lane himself went away on a pleasure tour to India while his attorney Dick formally terminated Menon’s relationship with Pelican, paying him just GBP 125. Ironically Menon’s lawyer walked away with that money and characteristically, Menon forgave him stating that the man after all, had a wife and child, so perhaps had a greater need for the money. Lane on the other hand hobnobbed with Nehru in Delhi, spent a lot of money meeting bigwigs and maharajas and professed (or appeared to) shock at the bad conditions in India. Williams, the person Menon had brought in, took the ‘Allen’s favorite ‘position from then on and soon enough he and Lane became thick friends.

Thus ended the relationship between Lane and Menon. They did not part friends and Lane remained one among Menon’s bitter enemies. While Lane always remembered Menon with great animosity, Menon graduated to higher ground stating years later that he was always the first to read every Pelican released, even after leaving the firm. In the case of Lane, it was not so, Tony Godwin states that the mere mention of Menon’s name made Lane’s voice seethe with venom and that it gave him goose pimples just to see ‘that amount of animosity’ in another! Perhaps there was more to the enmity, we may find out some day….

When Lane visited India in 1938, he discovered that the Pelicans outsold Penguins in India, understanding that escapist literature was not fodder for the poor Indian student and he preferred to spend it on solid books which would help him secure a better life. Did Menon know this small fact? Perhaps not, but it would have gladdened him, for that was his always mission.

Lane’s biographer Stuart Kells on the other hand believes that Menon famously came to dislike anybody who reminded him of Allen, after this event: and that included English publishers, Englishmen, English speakers, Europeans and whites. Anyway as Lane’s fortunes surged, so did Menon’s. After the event, Menon wanted to start a publishing house and printing press at Calicut as well as a Malayalam newspaper according to Janaki Ram, but the idea never took off. He of course, went on to become the Indian High commissioner in London, a confidante of Nehru, a cabinet minister and all that…

Lane did well for a time, his decision to publish Lady Chatterley's Lover brought him acclaim and riches, as well as paving the way for a permissive society. On 1st July 2013 Penguin and Random House officially united to create Penguin Random House, the world's first truly global trade book publisher. The penguin series flourished and the Pelican series continued on till 1990 after which it was disbanded. It was revitalized, to take flight again in 2014.

References

Penguin and the Lane Brothers: The Untold Story of a Publishing Revolution - Stuart Kells

Allen lane – King Penguin – J E Morpurgo

An eventful chapter in Anglo US Publishing history – Victor Wheybright

Ayahs, Lascars and Princes: The Story of Indians in Britain 1700-1947 - Rozina Visram

The Business of Books: How International Conglomerates Took Over Publishing - André Schiffrin

Penguin Special: The Life and Times of Allen Lane - Jeremy Lewis

Krishna Menon - Emil Lengyel

A History of Cultural Studies - John Hartley

Nehru – A tryst with destiny – Stanley Wolpert

Notes

The spin of Lane dreaming up the Penguin idea - The story goes that in 1934 Lane was returning by train from a weekend visit to Agatha Christie in Devon. He found himself on the platform of Exeter station and was not able to find any book worth reading. While travelling back to London he had the idea of producing good quality literature which could be cheap enough for a larger public to be able to buy, and could, perhaps be sold from a vending machine. He thought sixpence (the cost of a packet of ten cigarettes at the time) would be the right price at which to pitch the books. He broached this subject to his brothers and they agreed. This is a corporate story which people who have studied and written about tend to disbelieve since lane was not much of a reader. As they say the lie uttered often becomes a truth, for Lane many years later, when scoffing at Menon mentions vaguely of seeing a girl at Exeter or San Pancras station asking for Pelican books instead of using the term Penguin and that was how Pelicans were born!
R K Laxman states in 2004 - ‎Particular mention here must be made of Morarji Desai and V.K. Krishna Menon for sparing no effort to help me gain some modest success and popularity in my career – That was a surprise I got during all this research.
Menon and Freudian slip – The 1938 Pelican book advertisement on Freud’s book Psychopathology of Everyday life asks – Why do you forget things you ought to remember? Make slips of the tongue, of the pen? Do things you didn’t mean?..It was perhaps this advertisement that brought in the usage Freudian slip to everyday conversation. One could attribute it to Pelican, Allen Lane or…for that matter Krishna Menon…You decide
Wheybright who later suffered in similar fashion under Lane, recounts an event when Menon came rushing into the crypt stating that he had secured GB Shaw’s approval in publishing Shaw’s book as a Penguin. Lane who had a brainwave of starting the Pelican series after hearing the aforesaid woman’s mis-remark, decided to publish Shaw’s book as a Pelican instead (after arguments with Menon who said it may not be quite sound legally).
It is also believed that Lane fought with Menon after Menon tricked him into publishing EM Forster’s ‘Passage to India’. But that does not sound right for ‘A Passage to India’ was published on 4 June 1924 by the British imprint Edward Arnold, and then on 14 August in New York by Harcourt, Brace and Co. Even if indeed a Penguin classics reprint was made in the late 30’s or early 40’s, the content of the book was well known to the public already!

Afterword

Who achieved greatness, Menon or Lane?

Krishna Menon, the idealist, fared badly in the fickle public’s eyes– as the Times obituary said – A remarkable but unlikeable man who worked untiringly all his life for his country, yet never received a nation’s gratitude.

Allen Lane – Like most great leaders, Allen was a myth maker. Many of his myths were about himself, some were almost true, some close to being downright lies, and not a few half-truths made entirely because he had come to believe them. (JE Morpurgo- The King and I - Blackwoods magazine 1979).

Pics

Allen lane – courtesy Guardian UK, most others Wikipedia and Google images…thanks to the photographers and with due acknowledgment

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