In Trichur
G. and I were in Kerala for a few days last week, completing a postponed trip to one of our family deities. This was before the rains struck in all their fury, travel advisories were issued, and transport services were briefly suspended. Coming from a city that veers towards climate extremes, we try to plan our trips so that we can experience some rain and greenery and peace at least once a year, preparing to merge again with the dust-choked city. Our calculations don’t always work out well: but with each trip, we learn, we try to make better decisions.
We are grateful to the kind people in Thripunnithura, Vaikkom, Ernakulam, and Trichur, who answered our questions patiently and read bus signs for us. I’d also like to add a word here for Southern Railway, which worked very efficiently to reduce disruption and respond to passengers’ queries as well as possible in the circumstances.
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Between our families, G. and I share deities in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Kerala. As we do not have genealogical records tracing our roots to the latter two states, we venture forth curious and ignorant, to temples we’ve seen, and to others we’ve only heard of. This year, we went back to Vaikkom (doing a day trip from Thripunnithura) and on to two places we hadn’t seen: Guruvayoor and Trichur.
Every visit to a temple in Kerala has been a journey into serenity. Devotees rustle into the presence of the deity, brows furrowed in concentration, murmuring prayers, not uttering an unnecessary word. A deep sense of meditation prevails; the only outside sound being that of the bell, the chenda and the nadaswaram that usher the deity’s procession, or the rain pattering off the red tiled roofs. Add to that the rich, contrasting green of the lawns and the sheltering trees — it is never so easy to be in the present.
The trips to Vaikkom and Guruvayoor were straightforward (even in the pouring rain) — to the temple and back. With Trichur being our base for a day and a half, we spent a little time exploring the town and making early retirement plans.
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Trichur (or Thrissur) is built around the Thekkinkadu Maidan, which is a vast, green space liberally dotted with trees, spread around the hillock on which sits the Vadakkunnathan Temple. Vaikkom Mahadeva had prepared us for the grandeur of a traditional Kerala temple, but Vadakkunathan took our breath away. Even though the rain poured down in buckets on our first visit, we fell in love with the symmetry and the splendour of the sparse, clean lines. We came back the next day to admire the marvellous paintings on the walls and the massive banyan trees within the temple compound. It was a Sunday and as the rain stopped, families streamed into the temple, circumambulating the compound and enjoying the prasadam of neyyappam. Outside the moss-covered walls, which look like they enclosed a fort, groups of people began to gather to feel the warmth of the sun — later in the afternoon, card game players, couples in love, and men in need of a siesta replaced devotees on the maidan.
Trichur is a lot like the towns I grew up in. Inconspicuous cinema theatres with large hoardings, the constant bustle of trade, old quarters standing proud amidst change, and generous swathes of green lend it the small-town charm which a lot of us from industrial towns rave about. People smile or are comfortable with doing nothing — not even gazing at a mobile phone. The drainage systems work well and traffic doesn’t come to a standstill the moment a cloud appears on the horizon. The day-and-a-half spent there was like a trip back to my childhood.
We spent a good portion of the second afternoon at the Sakthan Thampuran Palace (thanks to a recommendation from an old blogger friend, who I recently found out was from Trichur). The palace houses a museum with galleries displaying bronzes; kitchen utensils and large China vessels brought by traders who exchanged them for spices; paintings of former ruler Sakthan Thampuran (born Rama Varma IX); artefacts from the Stone Ages and the Indus Valley Civilisation, as well as excavated materials (burial urns!) from sites such as Eyyal and Cranganore; coins and weapons; and stone inscriptions in Malayalam.
On an ordinary day, the museum might have seen a fairly steady stream of tourists, but the rains seem to have driven most people away, leaving most of the place to us. We were welcomed by a very friendly staff member, who proceeded to give us an overview of the museum and explain the artefacts in the first gallery — bronzes from the Cochin royal family’s collection, as well as other pieces shared by Delhi — in a mixture of Malayalam and Tamil. She told us about the structure of the palace, pointing out the Dutch features in the front, which was added in the 18th century, during Sakthan Thampuran’s reign, a few hundred years after the traditional original portion at the back (which was then the front of the palace) was built. Wandering through each gallery, we found a staff member who was all ready to answer questions and explain the exhibits patiently, even with language being a bit of a barrier. If only all museums would adopt this practice!
Sakthan Thampuran, one of the rulers of the Kingdom of Cochin, is said to have derived his name from his strict (sakht) behaviour. He is credited with having developed Trichur in its present form and introducing the Thrissur Pooram, which takes place in Thekkinkadu Maidan every year. No wonder, then, that his name is omnipresent in the town.
To the side of the palace is a heritage garden, which seems to have come straight out of the pages of a legend. Its dreamlike setting evokes forgotten songs and memories, weaves stories, and casts spells. You can almost imagine the trees whispering to one another, so far removed is the garden from reality. One of the most difficult things we had to do during the trip was to tear ourselves away from the bench that overlooked the mossy surface of the pond nearby. Trains became, well and truly, a thing of the future.
We wrapped up the afternoon with a quick stop at the Puthanpally church, Our Lady of Dolours Basilica. It was packed for the evening service, so we didn’t really get a good view of the interiors, but we saw just enough to whet our appetite. The soaring towers, the stained glass windows, and the high altar reminded impressed us with their sheer size.
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I try to take a book or two away as a souvenir from every place I visit. In Trichur, after our stop at the Paramekkavu Bhagavati temple, we found ourselves right in front of a hoarding advertising a monsoon book fair. What was to stop us, then? My prize takeaways from there were two books by local writers: one translated from Malayalam, the other written in English. As I discovered later from the blurbs and the introduction, there seems to be a common historical thread across both the books — the Kappiri Muthappans, to which I’ll come later, after having read about them.
For now, while I don’t want to romanticise the rain, given the lives it is destroying in various parts of India, I also want to leave you with a memory of the life-giving propensity of it, which some others are experiencing. The excerpt below is from Sethu’s book The Wind from the Hills (translated from the Malayalam Niyogam by Prema Jayakumar), which I began last week. The book begins in the month of Karkidakam — which, incidentally, is the ongoing month.
It was the night of the new moon in the month of Karkidakam.
The sky had been overcast since dawn. The air felt damp and the heat and humidity were stifling. It was only in the afternoon that a cool breeze started blowing. It must have been raining somewhere in the west. The breeze moved, bringing waves of coolness. A little while later, swathes of dark clouds gathered in the heights. The sides of the hill darkened. All around it felt wetter and the dark sky was lowering. Drops of rain scattered along with a strong wind. The drops joined together and became thin strings, thickened and became arrows.
After a long while, the rain, dark rain, fell heavily.
Swords of lightning stabbed through the dark treetops as they swayed in the monsoon wind. After the slashes of twisting, turning, dying light, came the sudden bursts of thunder.
The land was preparing for another birth.
