Kerala Stories

  (Published in The Hindu, 27 Sept 1992) My mother and I recently traveled to Adakkaputhur in Palakkad district, deep inside the Malabar region in Kerala, to visit my father’s relatives. It’s a place I'd remembered dimly from my childhood. In my memories, my father’s tharavad, or ancestral home, was a sprawling tiled house on acres of lonely farmland where old people in white moved slowly through the verandas. There was no electricity or running water. When darkness fell, the lamplight threw grotesque shadows on the walls. Beyond the courtyard, foxes howled at the moon. Much of that has changed today. In Malabar at least, the hinterlands are no longer really remote. They are mostly just a bus ride away. But the journey there is still beautiful. To reach Adakkaputhur, you take a bus to Palakkad on roads that are winding strips of tar on an undulating countryside, and get off at Perinthalmanna. From there you board a country bus that rattles you at breakneck speed to Cherpulassery fi