dad's blog

Jan 29
My Dear Monish ,
Its not comprehensive or even written methodically .
Its rather just a "stream of consciousness".
Its unedited .
I wrote whichever way it came to my mind .
If i keep correcting / editing , then I will never be able to send it to you ; something you have been asking me for years now.

You will now be asking, only if you want to clarify or amplify or ask for material that would fill up the gaps left which are more than whatever I could give expression to, here .
Hope it wont happen for a very long time now.

This may not be exactly or perhaps even remotely,what you had expected when you told me to do my blog
But I cant see myself as a stand-alone unit.
As we all are , I feel I am just an "event- strand" in a cosmic continuum.

And, when I have to "remember" about myself , i have to go deep down in space and time ; my physical being,has its origin from the "time" before even time began,( yes,I can palpably feel it all) my thoughts have its origin at the beginning of human civilization,my awareness has its roots in "cosmic awareness ".

My past ,like everybody else's, is continued in mine and in your and, in everybody else's future too.

Therefore, I cannot regard myself as something different from the entire human history that shaped me too .

As my "present " was also my past and,as I am in the UK now,
firstly ,wouldn't I like to give you an idea how much was England's influence on our generation,despite the ongoing Freedom struggle when we were in our formative years .

England, then, was NOT the England of today,at all.
It had a world-conquering race with a matching remarkable thoroughness in everything they did . Their Military prowess and discipline, and Loyalty and accountability to their King and Sovereign and love for their home country; their peculiar philosophy of integrity in business", their " statesmanship" were all outstanding .Their spirit of adventure, keenness to bring in riches from other lands,and get to know them too in the process,their all consuming passion for trade and commerce, their obsessiveness in accounting everything in terms of money,their Diplomacy, skill in Military strategy, tactics and soldiery,their shrewdness in civil Administration and, their sheer animal cunningness were all unparalleled as you may find from the sample extract, taken from a book, which I am taking the pleasure of quoting somewhere below.

But before that , a little bit about my own immediate family background.

My father had British education ie, all his Madras Presidency college lecturers and professors were Britishers .He used to recite english poems to me. I knew the opening lines of Canterbury Tales in its olde englis version from the time i was three years old . When he worked, his top bosses were from Britain. He wore cots-wool suits to office .The name of the London-based "Seville Row Tailors" was a household name to us. He cultivated British sports like horse riding.He attended British Governor's annual garden-parties in Government Houses in hill stations like Ooty and used to speak about the grandeur of such parties to us, not with too much of admiration as such, but more to let us know of the british ways and customs and traditions so that when we grow up we could go out into the wide british empire and make our living.All our social leaders and political icons ,like Gandhi and Nehru etc were all educated in England.

My muthassiamma ,Kunjanujathi nethiar was the most interesting personality who had personally impressed me the most. She wasnt formally educated but was versed in vishavaidyam ( treatment of poisonous snake bites ).She read and knew mahabharatham and Bhagavatham stories backwards I have often seen others referring to her if they had any doubts .She could recite freely the verses.

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She, her sisters and brothers and cousins and aunts, all lived together under one roof ( in the ettukettu of puthanmadham tharavd house filled with infants, children, teens and adults old and young, until I was about 5 years or so ,after which we moved completely into puthur house with muthassiamma and her brothers and sisters and their children and grand children;quite a crowd ,six sisters in all (for whom the six rooms of puthur house was designed).Puthur house had one more kitchen and another great vadukkina next to the kitchen which was large enough then to serve as a drawing room for all the ladies of the house to assemble and talk .This hall and one kitchen was removed when we got the house to ourselves as our share in the next partition between the brothers and sisters took place in 1951.The space was too large for us to repair and maintain .

My Grand-uncles ( ie my muthassiamma's all three brothers),were all british educated WOGs .It was at the unrelenting insistence of muthassiamma's mother and my great grand mother,Ammukutty nethiar ( you must have seen her photo in puthur.A big painting of hers used to hang on the walls of puthur once ), herself an uneducated simple noble lady ,but who had the vision that it was english education that counted in a British environment,so long as the britishers ruled which in those days was for ever. It was this forethought of hers that all her sons got high education. In no other thaivazhy of our kannanur pada tharavd there exists any male member educated in the english system of education. The eldest of her sons, Ukkandanunni ,we used to call him valiammama,---the first Post Graduate in our family;who built puthur house out of tharavad funds for his mother-- retd as the Principal of The university college,Trivandrum, ( one of his grand grand child,Raghu menon, is an IAS officer, is the commerce secretary in the Govt Of India,posted in Delhi now .I had met him once when he had just joined civil service and was personal secretary to some minister .It was he who introduced himself to me as the great grand son of valiammama when he heard my name and got connected when we were in delhi .The second one Kochammama was a Practising Lawyer in ottapalam and calicut courts,mainly dealing with our own tharavad landed property affairs and the third one Vikramanunni amaama, was an Army Dental corps officer in the Nizam's army stationed in Hyderabad.He was staying in Nampully for 30 years .They all used to come with their families and stay and spend their annual vacations in our house ( which was theirs too,then ) at Trikkatiri and talk animatedly about their british bosses or colleagues .

Valiammama was particularly fond of me as my muthassiamma seems to be his favourite sister and used to tell me Tolstoy stories and used to make me tell him funny stories from Pickwick Papers and the story of "The Last of the Mohicans" ( in an abridged form), which I was fond of. Until his demise in1950, he used to tell me about our tharavad history , about maamangam traditions about our place and part in that ,etc whenever we met .And, we used to meet at least once a year.In fact he insisted that I go and stay with him in his house at Chittoor ( near palghat) where he normally stayed with his wife and ten children ( nine boys and the tenth one a girl), for at least ten days every year during my school break and learn from him how to maintain tharavad account books .His secretary ( yes,he used to keep one working exclusively for himself even in his retirement) and the tharavad karyasthan ( accountant, who used to be with him during those ten days) were supposed to instruct me for about two to three hrs a day till a particular project work assigned by him for me was completed .The kariasthan, krishnanunni ammama , was from our own tharavad, who had retired from Basra ( one of the gulf countries) where he was working as an office secretary for an english firm,for about 30 years or so and hence fairly rich whoze honesty and integrity made valiammama recruit him as tharavad kariasthan , so we were told, on a decent commission basis . Then he will test me on my grasp of the accounting system for about half an hour everyday before sending me off to fool around with valiammami and sons .


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At his ariyittu vazhacha, ( ceremonial annointation as Moopil Nair of Kannanur Pada Nair tharavad ) in 1949,( when he became the eldest member of Nair veeedu), I was nominated by him to hold valum Parichayam ( sword and shield) ad hold positio at the forefront of his chief akambadi ( Body guards) and was even given an honoured ride along with him, seated beside him in his decorated doli with 8 footmen with kuthu vilakku ( long iron handled bronze-lamps each with four burning cotton wicks in til oil.The long sleek iron handles of the lamp could serve as spears too in any emergency attacks by the tharavad enemies or by any who was against the annontation of the moopil nair ) and pathaka ( colured flag) marching at the front and another 8 bringing up the rear (Doli is a wooden carriage screened on all sides with pattu silk carried on the shoulders of 16 men , 4 on each of the 4 long wooden handles attached to the doli , 2 in the front and two at the back' There were another 16 men to relieve the first 16 after every half hour as the paths along which they were carrying us were cross country paths through local hills and dales through thodum varambum to, a temple of our own in Cherrumpetta the location of the ceremony of ariyittu vazhcha was to be held in the presence of all the nattukarum veettukarum ---there was just one single untarred road then the road that connects Cheruplacherry and Otp with a single kari bus ( run on coal and not petrol ),plying one trip a day each way -- and, there wasnt any type of road to cherampetta kavu in those days. It was a grand procession with about 150 or so of friendly admirers and people following the doli ( nothing much compared to political party processions of later days). The distance from puthur house to this temple was about 5 miles ( we hadnt started measuring in KMs those days) and took us about two hours of roller coaster ride by doli in the hot morning sun.Some of the older ladies of the family were carried in manchal ( ie, Cushioned cloth hammoks on single poles ,carried by 4 men two in the front and two in the back , with a relief set of another 4). All others walked merrily and of course children ran up and down in great festive glee .The cermony started at the temple at about 12 noon and lasted for about an hour and half with vaidikar chanting various divine auspecious mantras and much homa japam,at the end of which various dhanya's including corn and paddy rice were put on the head of valiammama along with guruthi and milk nd honey etc after which he was declared officially as the tharavad moopil nair by the master vaidikan .The surrounding people make a lot of war-like noises and the ceremoy ends amidst much fireworks and congratulations from all other elders of the family . He then becomes entitled to exclusively receive and spend as per his wishes for the duration of the rest of his life time the yields from,tharavad landed properties that yields about 16,00 paras of paddy a year ( one para is a volume measure and may weigh about 15 pounds (= abt 7. 5 kgs, today) ,over and above whatever his other normal entitlements of tharavad property .About 25 acres of land yields about 1500 paras of paddy. (An acre of land = 4840 sq yards) Therefore , after this proclamation, he becomes a richer person with at least a dozen more tenants becoming his vassals .Then there were other perks of the office of Moopil Nair ;perks such as lots of kazchas ( gifts from tenants) during Onam, Vishu and Thiruvathira and also a percentage share from the Bhandarams ( hundis) of about six main temples around our place whch lie in a radius of 20 miles

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Muthassiamma enjoyed it all who used to receive it all at puthur house, on behalf of her brother Valiya Ukkandanunni moopil nair ,for about a year before the title, properties and the perks passed over to the next one, by the end of 1950 at the demise of valiammama when he was about 85 years young .

In puthur house we had "made in england" lanterns ,safety pins,shirts and trousers for children and adults ,badminton and tennis raquets,toys and chocolates and cigars.My first lovely new tricycle bought by my muthassiamma for me was made,I was told,by a gun making company, in the UK .I was very proud of it and I never used to get down from it when I am on Vacation in Trikkatiri .It as black in color and had its two rear wheels bigger than the front wheel. It was fast , highly manoeuverable I used to be very comfortble riding it and loved my muthassiamma a lot for it . And, you see she was the most religious of all people I have ever met . She had a healthy even attitude towards everything in life,all ups and downs and even towards people of all other faiths and religious denominations. My ideas on religion and concepts regarding cosmic consciousness had been gifts that I picked up from her. She knew by-heart all Hindu mythological stories and used to tell us at bedtime, often quoting direct from the texts. We used to love it. Her sense of humour was the best .She could laugh at herself immensely .When she was around we could be sure that nothing can go wrong and nothing could upset her .Life was real fun with her in her Puthur house where she lived in state , so to say with a host of male and female "servants"at her beck and call.Of course she used to buy for her kitchen only salt from outside .Everything else that we ate,all vegetables, fruits and all oils were produced in her own wattaparamb or supplied by the tenants as their annual due rent-in-kind to her. The fuel for cooking was fire- wood cut from trees in wattaparamb. Firewood was stocked in the loft above one of the kitchens. This practise of cooking using firewood prevailed up to 1989. All grinding was on grinding-stones, being done between two stones ( ammi and ammi kozhi for making coconut sammanthi and making other masala for curries and, aattukallu and aattukallu kozhi for iddali and dosa mavu).

Muthassiamma knew how to prepare ayurvedic medicines from herbs which she used to go and collect from nearby hills and forests ; many of them were available in wattaparmb itself .Often when I am there she used to take me along with her; both male and female servants were enlisted to help in the project .She could recognise almost all the herbs ( there were dozens of them required for making, dasamoolarishtam, and draksharishtam ( drakshas were the only one item which had to be bought from outside) Chavanaprasam was her masterpiece ,its main ingradient being gooseberries available from three big gooseberry trees of wattaparamb .I was very fond of climbing up plucking gooseberries from those trees .There was a big karuveppila tree right in front of puthur house which supplied karuveppils for almsot all the tharavad .She used to prepare chavanprasam plenty of it every year ( at least 40 to 50 KGs as per present standards ) and supply it freely to many other familes too.She had all the big vessels for preparing it and many servants to help her with the menial work involved .

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she used to make pappadams and murrukku and all types of yummy fryms like arikondattam, payaru kondattam ,vendakka kondattum, etc
She had enough coconuts which used to be sent to the tharavad chakki for extracting coconut oil for use for the entire year .

Even supari was made at home from the arecanuts from the arecanut trees in the puthur house compound itself and chunnamb was made at home from ithal .Betel leaves were available from creepers at wattaparamb and so was pepper .Even rubber trees and cashew nut trees were there in wattaparamb .We used to eat lots and lots of cashew-mangos from wattaparamb
Avilu, malaru , you name any eatble,and it was made at home by my muthassiamma .when the season came we even had sugar canes though sugar was one of the few items bought out .

Muthassiamma used to sell paddy from home when people came to purchase that ,The rate was 4 annas ( ie, today's 25 paise ) per para (1 para= 8 gallons by volume =about 7. 5 Kgs by weight ) in 1940-45 ( war time), which was the market rate in those days .I have measured it out with my own hands, at times .

Gold Jewellery was made at home calling in the thattan ( gold- smith) who used to come and sit in the portico of the house and make the item as per the exact design given by muthassiamma.The goldsmith will leave only after completing the work even though it may take a couple of datys sometimes. Brass and bronze vessels were also made as per the design given by uthassiamma to the bronze-smiths who used to come and take the designs from her . They were unique one-off designs and should be museum pieces , now. I have few of them collected from puthur house ,in our house in sec'bad .

Muthassiamma used to offer a one-day krishnattm kali every year at guruvayur temple and many bronze vilakkukal (Ottuvilakkukal),to various temples. Once she even took her heavy gold chain from her neck and placed it in front of Guruvayurappan as her offering .She was such a religious person that hse used to offer vilakku at moonnumoorthy temple whenever we had our annual exams , on all the days of exams., so much so we used to joke with each other that we passed the exams not because of ur studies but because of muthassiamma's offrings to God .

All types of pickles like kadumanga and nellicka ( gooseberry) and mango pickles were made at home only by Muthassiamma .Kadumanga pickle was stored for five or six years in large glazed mud bharanees and sealed with cloth too with labels on it indicating the year in which it should be opened .Normally it would be dates after five years of its vatting .

Even the clothes she wore and the bath towels she used were woven by herself in her own loom from yarn made from cotton from the cotton trees in wattaparamb, till the time ,her health permitted, till1945.

Besides all house-hold work , my muthassiamma was also adapt at carpentary work, Metalsmithy, Locksmithy ,Plumbing, platings ( iyyam poosal ) and repair of metal vessels ,its holes and dents etc (any emergency work in the house ,she used to deal with it herself ; she had her own set of tools for almost everything ). Her domestic helps used to help her in such matters too.

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My interest in Astronomy was kindled by her . I picked it up almost sub-consciously from her . She knew all the constellations and major planets in the sky , knew their rising and setting times and used to tell the time of the night by finding out whether such and such a constellation has risen in the sky or not. We had a night watchman ,mutanthan Krishnan ( lame krishnan ) who used to hobble around on a crutch) .He used to come and sleep in the portico outside . Even he knew many constellations in the sky and it was he who reported to muthassiamma when she asks him from inside the house a particular constellation has risen or not. ( which meant that almost everybody said the time from the stars and planets .No one had any watch .She was very happy to point out to me some constellations in the clear trikkatiri skies at night sitting together on the granite steps in front of our poomukham .

Even during day the time of the day used to be found out from the shadows of objects like trees or of the relief of the house cast on the walls or on the ground. Timings so said used to be uncanny , sometimes better than the times shown on a watch considering that there were no british watches available to us which didnt lose or gain ten to fifteen minutes over the day,except swiss wtches which were too costly . Watches had to be corrected everyday in the morning if we had to trust the time shown in the timepiece watch .( there were no wrist watches at all in the whole village of trikkatiri.).Our Time piece (ie, the table watch with a round face dial), was corrected when the post office opens.The post office had a government clock which used to keep time better . Someone is sent to see the time from the post office either with the timepiece watch or he gets back immediately to tell the time adjusting for the minutes he had taken to get back . The post office of trikkatiri was opposite to the present day barber shop on the main road side then .It is not there now Its shifted to the place near the BEMP higher primary school now.

There werent any electrical equipments in our house at that time. Our house at puthur was electrified only in 1956. My muthassiamma used to get up at 4 in the morning , go to the family kulam for a bath and by the time we get up by 6 am the breakfast was ready even before the servants entered the house. If I happened to be up with her , which i often did , for going with her to the bath and thence to the temple etc, in between 4 am and 6 am she used to speak to me or to anyone one else she meets with on the way or in the temple, in sanskrit only as per the rules she had learned from her own mother , whom I did not have the fortune to see at all. Every one of us mysteriously understood sanskrit and could follow her words .

We used to have milk-cows at home ,at least two karava pasukkal at any one time .You have seen the cow shed still existing in puthur house .After they are milked in the morning the cows and their small ones used to be taken to wattaparamb for grazing ,by one of the male or female servants every morning and brought back home by 5 pm in time for milking in the evening .Vaikkol and green grass were separately stocked and sometimes I used to put them in front of them for them to eat at night.I was fond of the calves and, on many days used to play with them in wattaparamb by running after them ( giving chase ) and catching them up .I remember even sharing my iddalies having my breakfast with the calves They didnt like coconut sammanthi ( perhaps because it was oily ), so I learnt to eat raw iddali without any chatni with the calves .I still relish eating iddaly raw like that whcih always reminded me of my young friends.Muthassiamma even if she would have seen me have never stopped me . she would have thought i was just feeding the calves with iddali which even she herself used to do smetimes .That i was sharing mine with them she wouldnt have imagined ,pehaps .Sharing = one bite by the calf ,next bite by me from the same iddali .

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We used to have milk-cows at home ,at least two karava pasukkal at any one time .You have seen the cow shed still existing in puthur house .After they are milked in the morning the cows and their small ones used to be taken to wattaparamb for grazing ,by one of the male or female servants every morning and brought back home by 5 pm in time for milking in the evening .Vaikkol and green grass were separately stocked and sometimes I used to put them in front of them for them to eat at night.I was fond of the calves and, on many days used to play with them in wattaparamb by running after them ( giving chase ) and catching them up .I remember even sharing my iddalies having my breakfast with the calves They didnt like coconut sammanthi ( perhaps because it was oily ), so I learnt to eat raw iddali without any chatni with the calves .I still relish eating iddaly raw like that whcih always reminded me of my young friends.Muthassiamma even if she would have seen me have never stopped me . she would have thought i was just feeding the calves with iddali which even she herself used to do smetimes .That i was sharing mine with them she wouldnt have imagined ,pehaps .Sharing = one bite by the calf ,next bite by me from the same iddali .

At kizhekkepat ( my father's house) we used to sometimes in fun take bath with the cows and buffellows in bharatha puzha .They had 15 to 20 buffellows besides ten or fifteen cows as even till 1960 lived as combined family under one roof .There were four main groups of families (Thayvazhikal).Each group had half a dozen adults out of which 2 to 3 were super seniors, the rest middle aged , about ten or twelve women about half of them older women , about half a dozen teen agers both boys and girls and half a dozen underteens ( I was one of them for a long time) and always some infants too .Many of the male adults in other thayvazhi than that of my father werent "educated") means studied in english medium schools or gone to colleges or universities) nor employed outside ,They were all engaged in cultivation of land and vegetables .The family had their own forest too ,60 acres of wild land full of mango trees of a dozen different kind , jackfruit trees,cashew nut trees , coconut and arecanut trees and umpteen number of all othet types of trees some of them had big hanging wines on which we used to hang and swing as Tarzan does and, herbs of all kinds ( all growing wildly ) with some kulangal and chalukal ( streams and ponds and snakes and all types of reptiles and birds ,insects and creatures like spiders of different kinds ( one of my past time there was to view the spider webs some of them as big as a mosqito-net, flies and beehives and anthills in it, under the care of two care-taker families called cherumas, who were their bonded labourers ,but very loyal to the kizhekkepat tharavad as they were looking after this forest from "ancient" times itself.It was one of the attractions to which we as youngsters used to vist at least once in a year .Ther used to be one coconut grove too of the tharavad with about 200 coconuts planted over 25 acres of land being looked after by another cheruma family which itself consisted of around 8 or 10 members women, teens and children included.Whenever we visit the "thengum thottam" ( whichwe used to do daily, normally after breakfast and before lunch, as it was within a mile from kizhekkepat house,to have elaneeru vellam and eat karikku . Afternoons used to be spent stealing vellarikka pooval from puzhakayakari of the family itself, (stealing , because we the children,were not supposed to pluck and eat budding half-formed fruits as they are grown commercially for selling in the market when fully grown at good prices) .Most of the time the thottam of 5 or ten acres , was already sold to contractors and their sentries ( mainly to keep away the stray cattle and birds from feeding upon it ) had to be dodged and, that was the "adventure" and thrill we derived from this activity, aoart from the vey good salad we ate out of the vellarikka pooval .Most of the time maniyettan ( you know him well ) used to be the leader for this afternoon adventure .

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As the whole country side and lands of perassanur desam was the possession of the kizhekkepat family and 90 % of the people were tenants of the family we as children of the family had honourable access to any of the houses in perassanur, at all times and was welcomed and offered all types of seasonal fruits and food preparations to taste and enjoy. Bet , all these made our life worth living !!

The family affairs were conducted ably by the eldest female member under whose advice the eldest male member managed the accounts and collection of rent and court matters .Till, er demise in 1960 the eldest lady was my father's eldest sister ,Kuttimalu kovilamma ( valliamma , to us) . She was a gem of lady who ws the most friendliest and indulgent to all children .We always were given additional shares when the ottumanga ( ambrosial mangoes that grew on the three trees just in the spacious front yard of the house was shared .These mangoes were considered prize products and were annually plucked when they are ripe enough , with much ceremony and fanfare. The date of plucking was announced a fortnight in advance and everyone itimated ( even those who are away on some court matters or on any other errand or visitng their husbands or husband's relatives are intimated by a written letter from the tharavd karyasthan, so that nobody can complain later that they werent intimated ) so that they or their rep culd be prsesnt on the day of plucking .Plucking was done with much care as the size of each mango was almost the size of a small jackfruit ( chakka ) and the skin was light and if it falls on the ground it would get squashed . If the ripe mango is cut and a piece in the mouth it was sweeter than honey and literally melted in the mouth , it was so soft and delicious and it was one thing everyone craved . So the mango had to be trapped one by one into a net tied at the end of a long bamboo pole and lowered gingerly to the ground or some one had to catch it when it is dropped adroitly from above into the basket cushioned with straw held below by some agile adult member.The person who does this duty gets an extra share as his reward . Now once the plucking of all the mangoes is completed , the mangoes are counted and heaped up in front of every one watching and waiting .Valiamma is called and she knows the parade strength of each thayvazhi .Accordingly she distributes one or two per member adult women get three or four each and adult males get depending on how many children he has ( the children of male members normally dont live with them in the thravad .They visit once a year ( like us ) or assemble for family occasions like marraige ceremnony or some imporatnt birthdays like that of valiamma's birthday etc.). All children of the female members get two each ( including infants ).The servants get one each and their children are also given one each . The surplus, if any, out of the six or seven hundred mangoes plucked is distributed or stocked at the sole descretion of valiamma .No one can question her judgement

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There were a dozen other mango trees in the 20 acre compound of kizhekkepat house which gives more than a thousand mangoes every year but thats free for all .We kids can throw stones or sticks at them and fell them and eat them whenever we felt like it .In fact that itself used to be a great sport for us as all children girls and boys used to gather under some particular mango tree .the boys throw and get the mangoes down and it was the turn of the girls to run and gather the mangoes from the gorund as and when they fall .Normally thats great adventure for the girls as they have to watch out for a hail of stones and sticks thats incessantly flung at the bunches of mangoes hanging from the trees .It was the girls who kept count of the haul of each of the boys .The mangoes get distributed on equity basis amongst the boys by the girls after they had taken their share at their discretion.

In fact not only the precious ottumangas were distributed by valiamma Even the paddy thats threshed right in front of the house in the same foreyard in front of every one in the house , it was valiamma's previlege to get it measured and stocked in nelpathayams inside the house, after the karyasthan notes the measure in the account books .Only she can authorise outgoings from the pathayams and she holds the keys to the pathayams. Threshing is done by about 50 to sixty cherumikal and cherumas right in the foreyard .The nel- kattakal (Paddy reaped from the fields) is brought and heaped in the foreyard and the next day itself threshing commenced .It was during these seasons that we have our summer vacation and we could paricipate with the cheumis and cherumas in the threshing drills , if we wanted and we always wanted to try it , often delaying threshing of at least some of them whose kattakal we shared to thresh But our rank ineptitude at this skilled job was all taken sportingly by all .We all cherished the experience and the festive ambience and the excitement .

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There is a lot to tell and describe, the daily early morning bath in the river bharatha puzha , the iddali dosa breakfast after that ( 20 or so youngsters sitting together ( not all at the same time) and eating 10 or 15 iddlaies each ( the more numbers eaten the more admired) served by the elderly women or the teen age girls of the family , with lots of conversation about everything under the sun , followed by outings till lunch time for which again all are assembled, followed by afternoon adventures followed by evening tea and snacks and games like football or golidanda or something something followed by abulation in the river again followed by evening dinner ( the only time when the elderly adults sit all together in the dias on one side of the nadumittam and eat dinner served by the selected elderly ladies : thats a really like the IMA dinner nights , a very formal affair when tharavd matters are discussed formally: the children had no access to this occasion : we used to watch with awe at times hiding at a distance in the dark corners of the house out of sheer curiosity ). Once thats over we gather there on the dias ( we ll would have already finished our dinner by then in a different part of the house ,in a dining hall nearer the kitchen ) around a lamp whose wicks burning with neeratti oil taken from neeatti kayas grown from the trees in the family compound itself ( no kerosine or any other oil is use in the lamps inside the house).
A the single lamp did not throw light the children huddled together near the lamp, the women and teen agers sat in the darker nooks and corners and evryone had some 'new' thing to say about their day or other eperiences or ask and clarify doubts : the talks were abot everything and anything frm local politics ( not much i those days when the political parties wre not formed in ndia except gandhi's outlawed congress ) or international politics ( war , hitler , mussolini , churchil , roosevelt etc ) or , when balakrishnettan was present in the gathering when he was on leave , about radar ( i heard it first in that light from the neeratti oil-lamp ) or streamlinin of ships etc .Then we used to talk about ghosts and ghot stories that appeared more real in that large shadows thrown by the neeratti oil lamp on the spacious walls of the thekkanithara and the darkness surrounding all over . You could believe even in the Lochnoss and in all the local ghosts as well in such an ambience .the stories continued till one by one we fell asleepmost of the time where we sat only , till morning broke . My mother and other young mothers would be busy with their infants ( hari and kochunni ,in her case ) and slept off in other rooms where infants could be taken care of with their feeding etc .In all these activities we had to fit in various other middle-aged adultish activities such as pakitakali ( in which not only the whole of perassanur but also the gram across the river ( akkara) is involved in an annual match usually held during the summer vacation so that the school and college going crwod can also get involved evn the ladies of the house gets involved with the matches ; it is they who personally come out and serve lunch and sacks the players , teir own sons or brothers and uncles ( one cant order food from hotels or restuarants as the nearest ones were two british miles away at Kuttipuram ; then there was chathurangam matches ( chturangam played with vazhete ana cut and shaped as chess men) between uncles and brothers and selves too and some chaturnagam players and experts from other houses which were played with much advertisement of the event and we used to attend one particularly interesting match between a namboothiri from a particular illam who had the reputation that he couldnt be beaten . I have not seen him beaten by any of our crowd in any two consequetive best-of-three game matches .The beauty of this event was that our uncles are permitted to take the advie form all or any of the spectators ; and there wre many advisors too, therefore each move took soe times ten or fifteen minutes a done after much discussion or even some wordy fights between the spectators themselves .the player not getting involved .I have seen witnessed spectator walk-outs also . But after a while the walk-outs will return once the tempers were cooled . The vazhekunnath namboodiri ( who plays alone ) remains cool and collected amidst all this hallagulla. Everything finally ends in good will sportingly and the dte for the next match fixed .

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My father was much respected .All called him "appumaama".
He was the educationist of the family of kizhekkepat .Over and above his own share of tharavad properties which he had unofficially given to his sisters ( means, they took the yearly pattam from his tenants although he had most of his fields in his possession only and also cultivated the property and took all the yield of paddy for themselves ),he had aquired some personal landed property ( about 20 acres ) also for himself out of his own money, which also was manaed by his sisters.He used to visit kizhekkepat house once in a year with us during our school hols. Since my father had a Govt job which paid him "adequately" he never bothered to ask his sisters what they did with his paddy .He had taken upon himself to educate all his nephews and nieces < akka =" ettan)." Review of History

Here is an attention-catching, astounding extract from one of the chapters.
( All 'italics', 'underlinings' and 'highlightings' are mine ) .
You may magnify and view ,if needed, for easy reading.

Its quite interesting ,or else i wouldnt have taken the trouble of doing this