KERALA

These are the following parts that this page is divided. Feel free to go jump to the points:

1. Tharail
2. Dad
3. Mom
4. Facts of Kerala (According to me)

Tharail
We are from the Tharayil family which as I have been told were the kings clansmen for their battles. There were many Tharayils throughout Kerala. So each group of the Tharayil family took up the name of the place that they were inhabiting so as to differentiate each other. We are from a group called the Kollannur Tharayil. The Tharayil family were supposed to be very loyal and was very much liked by the kings and hence they used to be very important people in olden times. But right now, well I do not have any comments. I have knowledge of my family for the past 4 generations but unfortunately all I know are the names. I have nod idea of where most of them are but I presume that most of them are in Kerala itself. I would have loved to know and find out actually what was the history for the Tharayil clan but there are not many people who are alive who can tell me.

Dad
I will tell you the roots of my family... My dad is from a village called Kottekad near a town called Thrissur in Kerala. It is beautiful and typically south Indian village with large areas of paddy farms and betel nut and coconut plantations. It has brown soil so it looks pretty much like a natural design of brown with different hues of green coupled with clear blue sky with an occasional sprinkling of white clouds like a long lost and forgotten soul. To complete the scenario are the small streams, the village wells and ponds, the grazing cattle, the bullock driven ploughs, the half-naked children and houses reflecting different people in their various different social status...huge 2 floor houses, simple cemented houses, thatched houses , a single doctor, one church , shops with shopkeepers who recognize their customers on a first name basis...where everyone knows everyone and the main thing was that each individual in the village was somehow related to each other...at least villagers of the same religion. They have been living in those places for about 3 to 4 generations there. And not to mention there was no ELECTRICITY. Ofcourse the above description was of the place about 20 years ago from my memory. Right now it has been a couple of years since I seen the place and even tho' it still has the same natural features, the social fabric of the society there has been lost. Now there are so many strangers as there will be in a new village. There are so many unknown faces and nobody knows one another. And ofcourse there is electricity, television, computers and all.

Mom
My mom is from a village called Vylathoor near Kunakulum. It is also as beautiful as my dad's village but with one major exception. Since this place is close to the beach, we have soft white sand. Hence the most memorable days of my childhood was spent playing in the sand which I sorely miss nowadays. It is close to a fishing beach so not the kind of beach that people will generally think. This place was comparatively well off as compared. And my mom's family was also rich, so there was not such a problem. We had a huge house with imposing pillars at the entrance and 7 to 8 rooms. We had a lot of farms and coconut plantations and coconut oil production. So yeah, we were rich but with every good there is something bad. What was the bad thing....my mom had very very stingy parents. So in spite of being rich, they lived like my dad's family which was always poor. I am not very sure about the history of mom's family.

Facts of Kerala:(according to me)

1.	Low Industrialization Well there is another aspect of Kerala that generally not many are aware of and that is that it is a place which least conducive to industrialization. It is a recognized fact that Kerala has one of the highest literacy rate but this has compounded to the setting up of a semi-educated work force. So what do we have, a majority of educated population and not many specialized workers. Next thing is that there is a strong labour union in this place which is good thing but unfortunately there is also a strong political nexus and very high corruption. Workers are very much aware of their rights which is a very good thing. But something happens that not many industries are able to survive there. There may be because of a lot of socio-political reasons. Whatever that may be but it has helped in maintaining the natural beauty of these small villages. So I would never say that it was a bad thing but I know that the people of Kerala will not agree with me. There is lot of poverty and joblessness.
2.	Government sells liquor Kerala is one of the places where selling of local drinks(alcohol) is controlled by the government. Again the reason for this was the weak economy and the tradition that was followed by the local farmers. They work like hell till the sun goes down and then the only form of entertainment was drinking the local drink (arrack) called 'charayam' and a fermented coconut tree drink called 'kallu'. These drinks were sometimes brewed with spurious alcohol which resulted in a lot of mass casualties and physical ailments. Well there was also a time when the people used to take the hooch shops down using mob tactics. But where there is a will there is a way and such crude methods do not really work. I am not sure whether prohibition was introduced...Here too there is a strong anti-liquor and pro-liquor lobby and my favorite thing, politics coupled with huge sums of money. So finally the government came up with a plan to only allow legal selling of country liquor thru government authorized shops to the general public. All the liquor created by the local breweries were to sell their product only to the government. So it is kind of a good thing, the quality is maintained to a certain limit and the state earns revenue. The only funny thing that I felt was to see such huge snaking line in front of liquor shops. I have seen lines in front of ticket counters, bus-stops, ration shops but never ever in front of liquor shops....which was weird for me.
3.	Bad words to the deity There is a temple in Kerala where the way to appease the deity is to chant the foulest bad-words as possible. I have not seen the festival where they do that and women are not allowed for the obvious reasons. I will tell you more about them as soon as I go to Kerala.

Click to go to Home

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws