Skip to main content

Village



Arikuzha is a relatively small village in Kerala.  It is the village in which I was born and brought up.  The lush green that undulates in the rolling landscape is not unique to this village.  Kerala is blessed with the bounty of nature in many ways.  Hills and valleys, rivers and backwaters, and the whole coastal area on the west make the state a palette of variegated offering.

Here are a few pictures from Arikuzha. 

Road through the village


River through the village


Temple on the river bank

Yesterday while I was walking along the village road I met an elderly person (74 years) who asked me whether I had any problem in my leg.  I was limping slightly due to the fracture I had suffered in my foot three months back.  I explained the matter to him.  In the afternoon he came to my home with a herbal medicine he prepared himself.  He advised me how to apply it on the foot and assured me that in 5 days time or even before that my limping would vanish.  He wouldn’t accept any payment for the medicine.  He told me that he gave medicines only to his friends and it was not a business for him.  It was an act of love, of friendship.  Such attitudes themselves can be very healing.  And such attitudes have not vanished from many villages of Kerala yet. 

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. Richa SinghMay 27, 2013 at 10:16 AM

    Seriously where do you find such beauty and beautiful people. Thank you for sharing it with us :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 27, 2013 at 10:53 AM

      Really, Richa, I wish there were more such places and people.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousMay 27, 2013 at 10:28 AM

    humanity resides in rural India.. still alive ... :) .. nice to know the old gentleman's initiatives just to make sure you start walking properly .
    Nice capture! Although northern India is not tha lush green .. still I could relate a bit with my father's village . :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 27, 2013 at 10:54 AM

      Yes, Jack, we can still find much goodness in the rural India.

      Delete
  3. IndraniMay 27, 2013 at 11:11 AM

    Arikuzha is in which district?
    You are lucky to have such a friend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 27, 2013 at 11:47 AM

      Arikuzha lies in Idukki District but on the border of Idukki and Ernakulam districts.

      Delete
  4. Manav SinghiMay 27, 2013 at 11:57 AM

    I can say that after reading your posts that anyone will love to visit your Arikuzha. If possible then please also post about how to get there and options for accommodation. . . :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 27, 2013 at 2:51 PM

      Dear friend, Arikuzha is a typical village in interior Kerala where an ordinary tourist won't find anything much... It's the natural beauty of the place and the goodness of the people that I'm trying to highlight in order to show that too much of urbanisation is not good. The villages have to be preserved.

      Delete
  5. KISLAYA GOPALMay 27, 2013 at 12:43 PM

    Beautiful and serene village you have with beautiful people in it.
    THe elderly man reminded me of my Nanaji, my grandfather.
    Thanx for sharing these clicks and about your village.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 27, 2013 at 2:52 PM

      I'm sure there are plenty of good people in the world, Kislaya. It just takes a little time to discover that goodness.

      Delete
  6. UnknownMay 27, 2013 at 2:18 PM

    Beautiful pics and beautiful incident...it's good to know that still some humans remember to be humane.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 27, 2013 at 2:53 PM

      Indeed, Pankti. I certainly would like to highlight such goodness, but most people won't like their names to be mentioned.

      Delete
  7. UnknownMay 27, 2013 at 2:41 PM

    Cool pics sir

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousMay 27, 2013 at 2:45 PM

    Real India lies in Village and it is evident in your post

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 27, 2013 at 2:54 PM

      Exactly, the true india lies in the villages - Gandhi had said it. But no one bothered...

      Delete
  9. MridulaMay 27, 2013 at 5:06 PM

    Lovely pictures!

    ReplyDelete
  10. K V V S MURTHYMay 27, 2013 at 5:11 PM

    I had been in Kerala for some days on a personal work. In my opinion entire state is like a beautiful park.In addition to that, what I like about Kerala is even a poorest one tries to maintain neatness in his daily life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 27, 2013 at 8:53 PM

      True, wherever you look you find nature's generosity in Kerala.

      Delete
  11. UnknownMay 27, 2013 at 6:54 PM

    Wow u grew up in this place...amazing!! and yess such selfless act is very rare!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 27, 2013 at 8:54 PM

      It's my dream to come back and live a peaceful life in this village after retirement...

      Delete
  12. A Homemaker's UtopiaMay 27, 2013 at 7:27 PM

    Lovely pics and lovely post..:-)

    ReplyDelete
  13. JeevanMay 27, 2013 at 8:50 PM

    Tomichan, you've really brought out the beauty of a simple village in Kerala. You're lucky to have been brought up in this pristine land.

    ReplyDelete
  14. RajeshMay 27, 2013 at 9:30 PM

    Beautiful and scenic village.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AditiMay 27, 2013 at 11:29 PM

      Enjoying the serene holiday pictorial blogs.Do post more.

      Delete
    2. Tomichan MatheikalMay 29, 2013 at 6:57 PM

      Thanks Rajesh and Aditi. Now the tour is beginning and I will have hardly any time to post blogs!

      Delete
  15. AnonymousMay 27, 2013 at 11:52 PM

    Sigh!! I've never been to an actual village, I've never been to any village! I wish I could step out of these concrete jungles!
    Thanks for sharing! It was a virtual delight!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 29, 2013 at 6:58 PM

      Kriti, I conisder myself fortunate to have inherited a legacy in this village.

      Delete
  16. AnonymousMay 28, 2013 at 1:50 AM

    Wow!! It is indeed wonderful to hear that such kind of people still exist!! Thanks for sharing it with us.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 29, 2013 at 6:59 PM

      Such people are not too rare, my friend. It's just a question of synchronisation of minds.

      Delete
  17. Rakesh VanamaliMay 28, 2013 at 9:30 AM

    The magic of Kerala, can never be paralleled! Brilliant post and a good space you have here. Chanced up on Indiblogger. Glad to have stopped by.

    ReplyDelete
  18. AnonymousMay 28, 2013 at 2:30 PM

    Your story was like a cure for depression. BTW, checked out your blog on my phone. The mobile version looks clean and classy.

    ReplyDelete
  19. UnknownMay 28, 2013 at 7:32 PM

    At a time when the venom of distrust and meanness chokes us in our city life, your post gives us an insight into the beauty of village life and the intrinsic goodness of the people living there. This is a welcome relief from the kind of life we live out here and such cordial behaviour characteristic of rural life in the purity of sylvan surroundings does not still make us feel ashamed when we want to assert- our India is great. A great post with some beautiful pictures.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 29, 2013 at 7:01 PM

      I'm myself taking a break from the city of Delhi, you know. I do believe that there's a lot of goodness in the world...

      Delete
  20. mandakolathurMay 30, 2013 at 6:53 AM

    Would you agree that an aptitude for rational enquiry? That was in response to the comment "to make sure you start walking properly."

    By the way, I visited Chengannur for two days some years ago. While I was visiting people whom I consider my adopted family, I also wanted to take in Kerala, the sliver of Kerala I had an opportunity look up close. This in response to your, "ordinary tourists won't find anything much." The thing is you find much only when you stop trying to. Unfortunately, "typical" tourists do not know this.

    Yes, I am glad you posted this,photographs and all. I am also glad that people appreciated the photographs. Yet, I feel they will be disappointed when they get to the place. These photographs lie, just as every photograph does. Photographs transmit emotions and one must be mature enough to receive them.

    Enjoy your vacation, despite this jarring discordant note.

    RE

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 30, 2013 at 7:22 AM

      The photos are selected, no doubt, Raghuram, with many reasons for the choice. To that extent they lie. At any rate, my objective - as I have stated above - is not to promote tourism but to show the beauty of the rural Kerala. I would appreciate it much if people begin to understand that beauty and stop killing it with too much urbanisation, induastrialisation, etc.

      Delete
    2. mandakolathurMay 30, 2013 at 4:01 PM

      It is not in the sense you perceived that I said photographs lie. You may not recall that quite a while ago, I wrote in a blog (in the other space) that any photograph by the very fact of having been clicked by one person can convey only a garbled context to the others. You misunderstood me thoroughly. That shot of the road or the temple front could have conveyed that vehicles have intruded, or they have not intruded enough to have created a rural nightmare. Only you know.

      I take you at your word, but there were at least a couple of touristy sentiments expressed by the visitors, "How I wish I were there!" I never even implied that you were promoting Kerala tourism, which in any case is not a bad endeavour at all.

      Sorry for inadvertently creating misunderstanding.

      RE

      Delete
  21. mandakolathurMay 30, 2013 at 6:57 AM

    The first sentence of my comment is incomplete. The missing portion: "enhances the aptitude"

    RE

    ReplyDelete
  22. mandakolathurMay 30, 2013 at 6:59 AM

    Your post just refuses to let me loose! Another mistake: read "attitude" in place of aptitude.

    RE

    ReplyDelete
  23. D.NambiarMay 31, 2013 at 4:18 AM

    Lovely (and homely) photos. How sweet that somebody should that trouble to get you some herbal medicines. I hope your leg's better soon. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalMay 31, 2013 at 8:18 AM

      Thanks, DN.
      The herbal medicine did help to reduce the swelling. But since I'm on the move most of the time, even the medicine will take time it seems :)

      Delete
  24. UnknownJune 1, 2013 at 12:48 AM

    i have heard..people from the rural areas are more simple than in the towns and are thus more willing to help people in times of distress...where as in towns even if a neighbor is dying a person would not have a second look...!!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
39 comments
Read more

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...
30 comments
Read more

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...
47 comments
Read more

Empuraan – Review

Revenge is an ancient theme in human narratives. Give a moral rationale for the revenge and make the antagonist look monstrously evil, then you have the material for a good work of art. Add to that some spices from contemporary politics and the recipe is quite right for a hit movie. This is what you get in the Malayalam movie, Empuraan , which is running full houses now despite the trenchant opposition to it from the emergent Hindutva forces in the state. First of all, I fail to understand why so much brouhaha was hollered by the Hindutvans [let me coin that word for sheer convenience] who managed to get some 3 minutes censored from the 3-hour movie. The movie doesn’t make any explicit mention of any of the existing Hindutva political parties or other organisations. On the other hand, Allahu Akbar is shouted menacingly by Islamic terrorists, albeit towards the end. True, the movie begins with an implicit reference to what happened in Gujarat in 2002 after the Godhra train burnin...
9 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
16 comments
Read more