There’re no frogs in this pond – Thavalayillakkulam

Sometimes, it’s the stories behind certain places that leaves an indelible impression on your mind. I love to hear such stories.

And this is one such story…

Ponds with water lilies are not a rare phenomenon in Kerala. But I really do not know what made us stop our vehicle and ask about that particular pond at Parassala, the border of Kerala and Tamilnadu. We were on our way to Kanyakumari and the journey began from Thiruvananthapuram. 

Padmakumar Chettan, a local living in the area became curious when I started taking its pictures.

He came to me and said “ It’s called ‘ Thavalayilla Kulam’ ( Ponds sans frogs). There are no frogs in this pond. Would you believe it?”

” What a curious name,” I said.

” Yes, indeed,” and he voluntarily started narrating the story behind it.

“ The story is old as well as interesting too,” he said.

King Marthanda Varma was ruling the erstwhile Travancore state.

The Kingdom of Travancore was an Indian kingdom from 1729 until 1949. It was ruled by the Travancore Royal Family from Padmanabhapuram, and later Thiruvananthapuram.

He used to visit a temple which was near to this pond. The frogs in the pond were so fond of him that they would cry whenever the King left the temple and the place.

“ Just imagine, thousands of frogs crying at the same time,” he said with a little smile on his face and continued the story.

After some time, their pleading became too unbearable that somebody cursed the frogs – ‘Let there be no frogs in this pond ‘.

“ That’s it, and thus frogs ceased to exist in this pond and hence the name,” he concluded his little story with a sad face.

Wow! What an imagination?

But he couldn’t answer my questions like who cursed the frogs? 

Was it King Marthandavarma or somebody else?

What was it called before?

Still, it’s a lovely little story, right..

I believe certain questions have to remain unanswered to make them more alluring. What do you think?

PS : Thiruvananthapuram is the Capital city of Kerala.  Parassala is a town of Thiruvananthapuram and is at the southern end of Kerala, bordering Tamil Nadu.

Why do I read Mary Higgins Clark's books?

  

When you are so entangled in mundane things and frivolous animosities, it is always good to read something that can take you to a different world, by severing all ties from reality. In my case, no doubt, Mary Higgins Clark’s books often did take me to a different world. Besides, Clark has always given me a ‘Christmas feeling’. It might be because I always start reading her when Christmas is around the corner. 

And I love winter and how December feels like – It’s pleasant, mysterious, joyful and in some other parts of the world, it might be snowing. It’s a dream to celebrate Christmas with snow all around. I might, one day…

 I always think winter is the perfect season to read and write a cosy mystery. 

How about rolling yourself up in a blanket reading a cosy mystery with a brewing cup of coffee. It sounds like heaven to me. And Mary Higgins Clark’s books have always given me that feeling.

December reminds me of Mary Higgins Clark

Besides, there’s Christmas, my birthday and her birthday. She was born on December 24 in 1927. I was born on December 2. And perhaps that’s why we have a December connection and the month always reminds me of her.

And if I experienced a lull in reading, her books always woke me up from the slumber. Since it’s December, ( almost going to end) I thought I would talk about her books and how they moulded me to be a better reader, writer and also how those books changed my perspective.

MHC Books changed my life

Mary Higgins Clark is well-known as the Queen of Suspense whereas Agatha Christie is known as the Queen of Crime. No…they are not contemporaries. Clark passed away in 2020.

So, I will start by giving a feel of one of her books. ‘On the Street Where you live’ is my favourite Clark book and here it goes…

When criminal defense attorney Emily Graham decided to leave Albany and take up a job in Manhattan, she just had a peaceful life in mind. She was going through an acrimonious divorce and also a devastating experience of being stalked. 

Call it a sheer coincidence, it was at this time, her ancestral home, a restored Victorian house also came up in the market for sale and she was looking for a house to settle down. Emily did not have to think twice and she bought the house at Spring Lake. She thought it would give her a sense of belonging that she was yearning for quite a long time.

Her family had sold the house in 1892 when one of her ancestors, Madeline Shapley, then a young woman suddenly disappeared.

Emily had just moved to her new home, to her utter dismay, a skeleton of a young woman was found in her backyard when it was being excavated for a swimming pool. She was identified as Martha Lawrence who had disappeared from Spring Lake on a fine morning around four years ago. What bewildered everyone was within the skeletal hand of Martha Lawrence was a finger bone of another woman with a ring on it. And it was the heirloom of the Shapley family. 

Could it be the finger bone of Madeline Shapley, Emily’s great great great aunt who disappeared a century ago? 

And when the bodies of other women were found in the same way as they found the previous one, Emily as well as the police understood that they were dealing with a Copycat Serial Killer.

How the finger bone of a young woman who died a century ago could be found with the skeleton of a young woman who disappeared four years ago makes this book an exciting read?

No Cheap Thrills but a lot of suspense

To be honest, this book spooked me a little. I have read it twice and the first time I read it, I was alone in my flat and it sent shivers down my spine. This is what I like about her the most. She could spook you without the help of any gory descriptions and mutilated bodies. Still, there’s mystery and suspense that can put you on tenterhooks right from the first page.

Once she said she finds clues for her story from the newspapers – in other words, incidents that happen in the normal lives of people so that the reader can relate to the story easily.

You will never be a detached reader

What attracts me to Mary Higgins Clark’s book is always her writing. It’s so simple yet profound to make you feel that you are not a detached reader. When they run, you run, when they jump, you jump. There were many times where I felt one with the character.

When she writes, I don’t usually read the words, what I get are pictures. Clark deals with different female protagonists in her stories, unlike the same detectives who appear in some crime fiction series like Harry Bosch in Michael Connelly books or Dr Kay Scarpetta in Patricia Cornwell books. Even then, her heroines are imprinted on my heart forever, be it Emily from On the Street where you live or Pat from Still Watch. I know how they look, their characteristic traits etc. Such is the effect her heroines create on your minds.

I got introduced to competent female protagonists for the first time. I was 16, then.

I have read more than 20 of her books and what I am going to say next is my most precious take away from her books. I got introduced to competent female protagonists for the first time in my life through her books. When I say certain things, you have to understand that I am talking about my experiences years ago, probably more than 15 years ago. And I am talking about my place. Things haven’t changed much, it’s still a bit regressive. But I have evolved a lot and there’s a lot of conflict of emotions.

Before getting introduced to her books, I was reading fiction written in my mother tongue, where I saw female characters waiting for somebody to salvage them from any kind of conflicting circumstances or emotions they are in. Dependent, succumbing, never questioning anything, never raising a voice for themselves. And to my shock, the characters who showed these traits were hailed as the ideal women. I could never accept that, though I took years to put those thoughts into reality.

 And I am not a meek person so I could not be as stoic as they are. I do not know whether you could imagine living in a world which you are not approved of and they don’t approve of you, either. But books especially Crime fiction that showcases women characters who try to solve problems by themselves gave me new hope. 

And that’s what Mary Higgins Clark books did to me as I started with her. I was just 16 when I started reading her. I will always be grateful to her for that.

Now, I believe I am an independent person though I have to work hard on how to be emotionally independent.

So this is my story. If you have one such experience to share. Please do

Have you ever felt the presence of God so close?

A few years ago….

October 20, 2.45 pm

Isolation Ward, Ernakulam General Hospital, Kerala

I went to the Isolation ward of the general hospital to write a story on the plight of patients who were abandoned by their families (I am a journalist by profession). When some were too poor to take care of them, some did not want to take the burden.

Most of them were older people suffering from cancer, HIV, mental illness. Inside the ward, I saw a man lying on a mat in the middle of the room. His cheerful face pulled me towards him and I knelt beside him to know more.

He was Anwar Hasan from Karnataka. He could neither sit nor stand. There was a red kit placed near him which was full of devotional books. Every day, he reads them religiously. And he was lying there for the past two years. My eyes welled with tears.

But his pleasant face surprised me. There was no ranting and raving and no regrets. He was a lottery ticket seller. When he was paralyzed due to an accident, his family abandoned him.

I was so surprised that he never complained about them and said “ My father was also bed ridden and my mother had to spend her whole life looking after him. My father is dead and she is too old to look after me the way she used to look after my father. How could she be of any help to me? My brother is married and I do not want to be a stumbling block in his life.”

He continued and surprisingly with no moistness in his eyes “You know why I have to endure this for I never prayed before. Now I do. And God comes to me every day. Yesterday too ‘ Easappan’, (Malayalam word/slang for Jesus) came and talked to me. Allah loves me. Lord Krishna loves me. What do I want more from this life? I am his child now. Earlier, I was not.

He was not stoic or trying to cope with the tragedy that struck his life. He was speaking from the heart and I could feel it. When he said Jesus came and sat beside him and spoke to him, I could feel 'HIM' kneeling beside him and talking to him. I felt may be, I was sitting where Jesus came and sat the other day. I know, I sound incredible and for some of you, I might sound frivolous too. But that was what I felt. I am not religious but spiritual and I felt it, truly and honestly.

(Just dusting off some of the memories) 

A Letter to Self - 1

Dear ME, 

I should have written this letter a few years ago. But it did not occur to me until recently that I should jot down a few of my thoughts so that, whenever you feel lost, you could come back, read it and reassure yourself.

By now, you might have realised that life is not a bed of roses and there’ll be failures. You can either succumb to it or fight it. If you’re ready to fight, I’ve a mantra for you - If you fall seven times, get up eight times. Every time when failure slaps on your face, this is what you have to do. 

Majority of us are fatalists and we believe there’s nothing one could do to alter our fate. This is the greatest lie that has ever been told. We are all God’s children. Hence, how can he write bad destinies for some and good destines for others. Lord has a dream for us and expects us to show courage in pursuing our destiny.

And how to do it – By recognising our ‘Calling or Purpose’ in life and sticking to it.

Mind you! It’s a Herculean task. 

When God made the world, the Holy Spirit was hovering above the waters and it is the SOUL of GOD. When you show courage to pursue Lord’s dream, he will put his soul inside you which will give you utmost strength to pursue your destiny.

If you take one step towards your purpose, God will take seven steps for you. If God is for us, who can be against us?

God bless

Remember what William Ernest Henley said in his poem ' Invictus'- " I am the MASTER OF MY FATE; I am the CAPTAIN OF MY SOUL." 

pic courtesy: Rife Magazine

The Myth of Kappiri Muthappan - an African Spirit

 Every day, as the dusk falls, Shyamala would light a lamp in a small stone structure in front of her house. Once in a month, she would offer meat, toddy, cigarettes and boiled eggs to the deity installed in the structure, hoping that it would ward off all evils.

The folk deity who goes by the name ‘Kappiri Muthappan’ is a saviour not only for Shyamala’s family.Around 15 families living at Veli, Fort Kochi and Mattancherry  in Kochi, Kerala worship the deity, a cigar-smoking treasure-guarding spirit, which has its roots in Africa.

The lore goes like this: when the Portuguese arrived in Kerala, about 500 years ago, they brought with them many ‘Kappiris’ or native Africans as slaves. But the whole scene changed when the Dutch usurped power from them. It was a violent takeover.

With little time to take away their amassed wealth,they buried them in deep trenches along the bodies of ‘kappiris’ whom they slaughtered, in the fervent belief that their ghosts would guard these treasures. But the Portuguese never returned.

As the years passed by, the tale assumed the nature of a myth and the people started believing in ‘Kappiri Muthappan’ who rests on a wall called ‘Kappiri Mathil’ (‘Negro’ wall), smoking a cigar.

Jaya Ramesh Pai says she has observed the ritual from the day she bought the house where she is living now.

“When I bought the house, the stone structure was there and the previous owner said that it would do me good if I observe the ritual. I light the lamp everyday and give the offering once every six months,” she said.

Jaya said being a Brahmin, she offers the deity bread, cigarettes and delicacies made of rice flour, instead of meat. The offerings are later consumed as ‘prasadam’.

There are around 20 such walls in and around Mattancherry. You can light a candle too.

If you are someone who is fascinated by the stories of ‘ spirits’ and ‘ ghosts’, please do try to see such places when you are in Kochi.

Pictures Courtesy : Artist Dinesh R Shenoy

Published here as : Kappiri Muthappan - From Slaves to Folk Deity  ( The New Indian Express )

“ Did you come across any such place? If so, please do share?”

How did ‘The Shooting Star’ change my Life

 It was 2016 and little by little, my world had started to crumble. I did not know what was wrong, but something was amiss. It seemed the fire in me had ceased to exist. It was during those days of uncertainty that I stumbled upon a blog called ‘The Shooting Star’. And the one image after reading it is still vivid in my mind.

Pic Courtesy: exemplore.com

On a December night, there was a girl in her early twenties, lying on the roof of a watch tower, gazing at the millions of stars twinkling above, in the lone desert of Rann of Kutch in Gujarat. It just blew me away.

The expanse of the desert was such that though well-versed with its every nook and cranny, the friend who took her to the watchtower often swerved his vehicle so that it would leave tire – prints on the land and it wouldn’t be a task steering through the desert, while returning.

The image often touched my face as a waft of fresh air and kept recurring in my mind. I didn’t know ‘why’.

I wasn’t much of a traveller, then. Though it hadn’t brought overnight changes, the image certainly kindled a spark in me which was about to blaze in the years to come.

I didn’t know then, that the sky, the stars, the moon, the trees, the plants could talk to me.

Years after, when she came up with a book called ‘The Shooting Star – A Girl, Her Backpack and the world', I pre-ordered it. So far, I have read it twice. I went looking for the same image in the book. This time, many other images tagged along. I felt I was there trekking in the mountains, scooping water from the stream, frolicking under the cascading waterfall and they kept me awake in my dreams. I always felt tranquil whenever they barged into my mind. 

The Shooting Star is the story of a young girl called Shivya Nath, who gave up her home, sold her belongings at a young age of 23 and made the world, her home.

 I often wondered why I kept going back to this blog. What was in it? Though I started loving the idea of travelling, I never wanted to abandon everything and take off to some uncharted territory.

Whatever my confusions were, I eventually mustered the courage at least to quit my monotonous job and took off to another city in the neighbouring state seeking new pastures. And that was the beginning. The city of dreams as it was called crushed me to the core. I felt like a fish out of water with nobody to turn to. I knew I was sinking and the city doused the inner flames and left me with the ashes of my dreams.

 I came back two years later, found another job that paid me well but gave no contentment. It is often when life hits rock bottom that most of us tend to think about our purpose in life. I was no different. There were times when I felt there’s nothing left to live for.  

Shivya says in her book “We tend to make big changes in life only when tragedy strikes. We tend to look for alternative paths onlywhen we have hit rock bottom. We tend to ask existential questions about happiness only when we are at our most miserable.”She also asks “But what about the tragedy of a mundane, average, unfulfilling life?”

But life is different for different people. Some realise the mundanities of everyday life very fast while some take years, just like me.

I don’t want to be a travel blogger, but a traveller and a storyteller. And for many years it remained a mystery to me that why these images were keeping me awake.

Seasons changed, the pandemic struck and I was locked down in my home. My small library became my world. I read, wrote, pondered over anything and everything under the sun. And it struck that those images wanted to tell me a different story – the story of freedom, liberation, breaking the inhibitions and many more.

She knew where her heart was. The vast expanse of the sky, the desert, the mountains, the waterfalls were asking me to look within and summon the strength to live my life as truthfully I can be.

Yesterday, in the night I opened my window and looked at the sky. It was drizzling as the southwest monsoon had already arrived in Kerala. There were no stars but I saw a firefly and it spoke volumes.

Read my another post here : How a ' Serene Place' could be haunting for some

'Cards on the Table' by Agatha Christie

Mr Shaitana was a person of dubious character. He was attending a snuff box exhibition when he ran into Hercule Poirot, the detective. Shaitana was quick enough to invite him for dinner and lured him to meet some strange invitees.

There was something peculiar about the invitation. A collector of many strange things, Shaitana also nurtured a macabre habit of extracting dark hidden secrets from people. Some of the invitees to the dinner invitation also had one. They were murderers who had gotten away easily.

 Finally, the fateful day had come. After the dinner, the guests decided to play bridge and divided themselves into two groups.

When the first group consisted of Dr Roberts, Major Despard, Mrs Lorrimer and Miss Anne Meredith, the second group consisted of Hercule Poirot, Superintendent Battle of Scotland Yard, detective fiction writer Mrs Adriane Oliver and Colonel Race, a retired secret service operative.

Both of the groups sat in two different rooms while Shaitana, the host did not take part in the game but sat in the first room by the fire, observing the players.

When they approached their host to bid goodbye, after the bridge, to their utter shock, they found him murdered in his chair. He was stabbed in the neck with a stiletto.

In no time, Superintendent Battle took charge of the situation. It was then, the players in the second room realised that Shaitana had carefully picked his guests. While the guests in the second room were associated with investigation and authority, his choice of guests in the first room was a hint from Shaitana that they were possibly murderers who had gotten away after committing it. Shaitana had suggested the same thing to Hercule Poirot when they met at the snuff box exhibition.

Never in the wildest of his dreams, he might have thought that by inviting such people he was inviting his own death.

According to Christie, this was Hercule Poirot’s favourite case though Hastings, his companion, found it dull. For a change, she had come up with three other sleuths along with Poirot to nab the culprit from among the four possible murderers. It’s not mostly the clues which had helped the four detectives in their sleuthing but pure psychology.

Though I understood the basic plot, the reading became a bit strenuous when Poirot decided to analyse the suspects from their bridge scores. I don’t know how to play bridge. Besides, there were many twists and turns.