Kerala Stories

  Documenting the learning from assembling the “sapramanja kattil”, a traditional Kerala cot.  One of the things my wife inherited from her family home in Kerala was a traditional four-poster cot. Built like a tank, the cot is an impressive creation weighing a massive 115 kilos and is 7.5 feet long, 3.5 feet wide, and a little over 1.5 feet high. There are intricately carved head and foot boards, four-foot long posts at the corners, and thick carved legs. The posts, head and foot boards, and legs are painted in traditional orange and black vegetable dye colours. The sleeping plank is an assembly of six separate sections joined by mortise and tenon joints and held together by wooden dowels. The cot is thought to be over 100 years old and is a fine example of traditional Kerala carpentry. As far as I can tell, it is called a  sapramanja kattil  in Malayalam.  Manja  means yellow and  kattil  means cot. I'm not sure what  sapramanja  means so if you know, do tell. The colourful sapram