And the Abakka Rani
To the north of Kasaragod, where the historical borders of
Malabar ends, is Manjeshwar and a little north of it, but south of Mangalore,
bordering the Netravati River and facing the Arabian Sea is the small
municipality called Ullal (Ullala or Olala). At one point in Malabar’s history,
it had a connection to the Zamorin’s of Calicut and with the Portuguese. It is
the story of Ullala which we will fish out today, but with some detail and
background, for most books just pass it off as a couple of sentences mentioning
a minor queen named Abakka Devi or Tirumala Rani. There was more than that, as
you can imagine.