Calicut's Opium Trade ... the hidden story

                                                        Tomb of Cornwallis at Ghazipur As per the Malayalam calendar, Thiruvathira Njattuvela, the period of copious rains ends today. Astronomically, this is the period when the Sun transits the Thiruvathira asterism. Each of the 27 asterisms (which are star patterns outside the constellations) is transited by the Sun for a period of approximately...

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When the Gods sought refuge in Kozhikkode

The year, 1323 AD. It was the final day of the festival at the famous Srirangam Temple, known as the most important Sri Vaishnava shrine in South India. The utsava (festival) idol of the presiding deity, Lord Vishnu, known as Azhakiyamanavala Perumal, and of his two consorts, Bhudevi and Sridevi were being taken in procession to the accompaniment of loud chanting of the Vedas and the Divya Prabhandam. Suddenly, a person could be seen jostling through the crowd of devotees, trying to reach the head of the procession. He was stopped by an archaka before he reached there. He whispered something...

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The Zamorins' Life in Exile (1766 - 1795). Manorama Thampuratti and Dharma Raja

 Although we conventionally adopt 1766 as the year in which the Zamorin era eclipsed, the seeds of the decline and fall of this power started as early as the 1720s when the Dutch defeated the Calicut forces and enforced a humiliating treaty surrendering Chettuwa and Pappinivattam in 1718. The loss of Chettuwa was rankling, as it was vital for Calicut's communication with the South. But the gradual enervation of the pillars of governance which began with the dismissal of Thamme Panicker from the Calicut court continued in later years with the defection and later withdrawal from the Calicut...

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Zamorin’s old Palace – Tangible evidence of the French testimony

Last fortnight, a team of amateur archaeologists led by CHF Vice President and veteran archaeologist, Sri K K Muhammed stumbled on a valuable piece of evidence which may be one more piece in the jigsaw puzzle that is Calicut’s history. It was a huge granite piece of the gate of a structure presumed to be of the Zamorin’s fort.It was recovered from the premises of a restaurant (1980s: A Nostalgic Restaurant) on the Dawood Bhai Kapasi Road, close to the beach. We are grateful to them for preserving the most nostalgic item – the stone structure of the Fort which goes back more than 500 years before...

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Pandit P Gopalan Nair and Captain Braithwaite : Story of a Strange Friendship

Pandit P Gopalan Nair (1869 - 1968)Pandit P Gopalan Nair is a household name today, as the scholar who introduced Srimad Bhagavatham to Malayalee Hindu households. Apart from the 8-volumes Bhagavatham, he had annotated and translated several holy books of Hinduism like the Ramayana, Brahmasutra and Bhagavad Geetha.Gopalan Nair was born into a family of very limited means in Kollengode, Palakkad district, Kerala. His father, a Brahmin priest of a few temples, was hardly able to support his family. The elder son of the couple was mentally challenged and died at the age of 15. Naturally, the couple...

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Calicut's patronage of letters - how a negative comment can spur scholarship

 We had occasion to write about Calicut's long tradition of encouraging scholarship here and here. Rulers like the Manavedan Zamorin who had himself written the Krishna Geethi, and Vidwan Ettan Thampuran  were  generous patrons of letters, earning for Calicut this well-earned appellation.But today we come across a curious case of a negative comment - bordering on derision - from a gentleman from Calicut goading a scholar from Palakkad to take up the study of Vedanta and Ramayana, only to end up as one of the foremost commentators of Bhagavatha, Ramayana, Brahmasutra and many...

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