Historic Alleys

Much is written about the voyages of Cheng Ho. In fact there is even a voluminous book just listing bibliography of published works detailing Cheng Ho’s life and time. But how much of all that is conjecture, myth, lore and legend and how much of it is fact? That seems to be the biggest problem, because the scribes of the Ming period rewrote history and fudged fact with fiction with impunity, so much so that filtering truth from them is an art in itself. The importance of the voyages, the treasure ships themselves which awed and terrified onlookers from any shore, the expenses in making them, the reasons for these voyages and the reasons which ended the voyages are still steeped in mystery. The man behind it all, the seven foot tall Muslim eunuch, is who they say brought Islam to Melacca, defeated pirates, established relations and leaders, fought a war with a Lankan Monarch and took away Buddha’s tooth to Nanking. But Zheng He or Cheng Ho, who suddenly found himself adrift when his patron Chu Ti (Zhu Di - the Yong Le, Yung Lo monarch) passed away mysteriously, also met a mysterious end.

On the origins and history of the Rowther Muslims

Ravuttar, Rowther, Ravuther

Most people from Palghat would recognize this community name, for a number of them are settled in various parts of the district. As a child, I would hear stories of them being remnants of Hyder’s and Tipu’s cavalry forces. If you recall these forces were camped around Coimbatore, Pollachi, Dindigul and thereabouts during their many forays into Malabar. Growing up in Koduvayur, I came across many Rowthers, mainly traders in and around Palghat. The Palghat community spoke a kind of Tamil signifying that they once belonged to Tamil regions and were not connected with the Malayali Moplah communities. OV Vijayan frequently mentioned them in his books, and even had a few characters in his famous Khasakinte Ithihasam (legends of Khasak). That reminds me, it is time for a reread of that great book, I have forgotten most of it.

An attempt on Collector CA Innes’s life

Some articles ago, we studied the impact of the Turkish Khalifa, the Khilafat movement and its effects on the Malabar populace, culminating in the violence of 1921 and a terrible aftermath. We also studied about the discontentment amongst the Malabar Mappilas and the attempts of earlier British administration, especially HV Conolly in countering what was termed as the Mappila outrages resulting in the attempt at disarming the disaffected Mappila. As all these were progressing from phase to phase, many a foreign cleric entered the area to whip up the emotions of the relatively illiterate Eranad Mappilas. These have been well studied and recorded by various historians, forming three categories of texts, one by left leaning scribes attributing everything to land tenures and as the outburst of have nots, the British stories calling them revolts against the crown, to be dealt with a  firm hand and thirdly the events as seen by the Hindu aristocracy of Malabar. Two lesser known events from the earlier days are not quite well reported in any of these collections, one being an attempt to kill a British collector and secondly the British attempt at mainstreaming the Mappila’s desire to fight. I will detail the first now and then in a later article provide information on the second.

Musa Mapla, the EIC and his Bombay residence

Many decades ago, when I was working in Bombay and a bachelor, I would walk aimlessly through the Colaba, Ballard estate and Flora fountain areas often, stopping finally to munch a good meal at the Fort Ananda Bhavan. In many of the road corners you could spot youngsters from Malabar desirous of going to the Gulf, doing part time work by selling smuggled goods on the sly. Well before all that, they sold coconuts or mats i.e. nariayal walas and chatai (grass mat or pullu paya) walas of Malabar, but in my time those professions were not popular and the malayali street hawker sold Casio calculators, perfumes, cigarettes and small electronics like radios cassette players on these streets.

And Umara Charare, the convert

The Nedumkotta fortifications - A discussion

The Travancore lines were according to some historians, first planned by Marthanda Varma duly assisted by his general De Lannoy and built by the Travancore troops in order to protect Travancore and Cochin from the Zamorin’s attacks. Others mention that it was built by the succeeding Dharmaraja for the same purpose, with De Lannoy’s supervision and that they were further strengthened by Travancore to prevent any potential incursions by Hyder and later, by Tipu Sultan. It became a bone of contention between the Mysore Sultans and Travancore as well as the European powers, the Dutch and the English. I had also written about the battle which took place later, but the question in front of us is, who actually built these walls or lines? Was it built from scratch by De Lannoy, as reported by Travancore historians such as Nagam Aiya, Velu Pillai, Ulloor and many others? Or was history fudged a wee bit?

Donald Sinderby in Malabar

There are so many books with deal with the revolt in Malabar, or what the British Raj termed a rebellion (i.e. waging war against the crown) with a purpose to clamp down the area under martial law.  Some of these were written by Malayali congressmen and survivors, some others by the British administrators who were in the thick of things. There are very few firsthand accounts from the British side perhaps because such reporting was not encouraged. There is one, a work of historical fiction which gained a certain amount of popularity but vanished from the shelves after a while. Having obtained a dog eared 1927 copy of that book, I decide to peruse it carefully without tearing those ancient pages, with an intention of finding out what a common soldier thought about the whole thing. What you will read on is not a review but a summary of Sinderby’s opinion of Malabar, the Nairs, the administrators and the revolting Moplah, not about the love story which he wrote. In a way this book is unique since it is one of its kind, though the contents are not summarily of great value.

A study of the Fathul Mubyin, a war poem – Calicut 1550-1590

Abbot L Dow 1880, and the story of Alleppey

Difficult to believe, right? But that was indeed the case. An early US representation in India did exist for a while at Alleppey, and this started first with the appointment of a commercial agent stationed there and his office was later upgraded to a consulate. The consular officer was one Mr Abbot L. Dow.

And his role in the Amritsar Massacre

Those turbulent years, Calicut (1920-34)

Calicut under British governance was a different place than you see it today. My own memories of childhood in Calicut take me to the days I spent with my aunt at Ambalakkat house, Chalappuram. I still remember the walk down the road from Ambalakkat towards Tali, turning right and going past the Chalappuram post office, past the gates of the Achutan Girls school and drifting to the Ganapati School, during my younger days in Calicut. And I recall the temple behind N Ambalakkat, the house of Karunakara Menon my grand uncle, Keshava Menon, Norman Achutan nair, the Anakara Vadakath people, and the homes of so many others who are going to be mentioned in this article, though they belonged to a bygone era. As I wrote in a previous article, it was a time when there were horse driven jutkas, cycle rickshaws and hand pulled rickshaws on the road. On those serene mornings, an odd Ex-servicemen bus roared by, scattering the people on the road hither and thither, and people were sometimes witness to a man (people held their noses as the wheelbarrow like cart with the galvanized iron pots passed by) held in much disgust, the ‘thotti’ who would trundle by, head hung low, pushing his night soil cart. Horns were hardly heard, the rickshaw drivers yelled ‘kooyi’ or rang a bell to get a right of way. The 30’s was still different, there was no electricity and the one person who gave a personal account and provided a vivid description of life in Calicut in the 1930’s is ARS Iyer.