A long time ago….
Some 500 years or so into the past, Calicut was not quite mired
in obscurity. It was as one intrepid traveler wrote, ‘on the way to everywhere’.
Traders and travelers vied to make their way to the spice capital of the world
and write about the strange ways of the people, the spices in the markets and
the riches on display. Some even wrote about the honesty of the rulers and the
cosmopolitanism they saw. The Portuguese, the French, the Dutch, the Danes and
of course the British made their presence felt at this entrepot as time moved
on, if only to profit. Years passed and soon it was stripped off all its glory
as the British, who like many others, also entered India through its gates at
Calicut, moved North and established the metropolises at Bombay, Calcutta and
eventually Delhi. The new order had no place for lowly Calicut, but a few
enlightened souls still came by, now and then. They all had mainly one place to
stay and lodge at, the Malabar European Club, facing the Arabian Sea.