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:

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

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
44 comments
Read more

Remedios the Beauty and Innocence

  Remedios the Beauty is a character in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude . Like most members of her family, she too belongs to solitude. But unlike others, she is very innocent too. Physically she is the most beautiful woman ever seen in Macondo, the place where the story of her family unfolds. Is that beauty a reflection of her innocence? Well, Marquez doesn’t suggest that explicitly. But there is an implication to that effect. Innocence does make people look charming. What else is the charm of children? Remedios’s beauty is dangerous, however. She is warned by her great grandmother, who is losing her eyesight, not to appear before men. The girl’s beauty coupled with her innocence will have disastrous effects on men. But Remedios is unaware of “her irreparable fate as a disturbing woman.” She is too innocent to know such things though she is an adult physically. Every time she appears before outsiders she causes a panic of exasperation. To make...
4 comments
Read more

The Death of Truth and a lot more

Susmesh Chandroth in his kitchen “Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought,” Poet Shelley told us long ago. I was reading an interview with a prominent Malayalam writer, Susmesh Chandroth, this morning when Shelley returned to my memory. Chandroth says he left Kerala because the state had too much of affluence which is not conducive for the production of good art and literature. He chose to live in Kolkata where there is the agony of existence and hence also its ecstasies. He’s right about Kerala’s affluence. The state has eradicated poverty except in some small tribal pockets. Today almost every family in Kerala has at least one person working abroad and sending dollars home making the state’s economy far better than that of most of its counterparts. You will find palatial houses in Kerala with hardly anyone living in them. People who live in some distant foreign land get mansions constructed back home though they may never intend to come and live here. There are ...
10 comments
Read more

The Covenant of Water

Book Review Title: The Covenant of Water Author: Abraham Verghese Publisher: Grove Press UK, 2023 Pages: 724 “What defines a family isn’t blood but the secrets they share.” This massive book explores the intricacies of human relationships with a plot that spans almost a century. The story begins in 1900 with 12-year-old Mariamma being wedded to a 40-year-old widower in whose family runs a curse: death by drowning. The story ends in 1977 with another Mariamma, the granddaughter of Mariamma the First who becomes Big Ammachi [grandmother]. A lot of things happen in the 700+ pages of the novel which has everything that one may expect from a popular novel: suspense, mystery, love, passion, power, vulnerability, and also some social and religious issues. The only setback, if it can be called that at all, is that too many people die in this novel. But then, when death by drowning is a curse in the family, we have to be prepared for many a burial. The Kerala of the pre-Independ...
14 comments
Read more

Koorumala Viewpoint

  Koorumala is at once reticent and coquettish. It is an emerging tourist spot in the Ernakulam district of Kerala. At an altitude of 169 metres from MSL, the viewpoint is about 40 km from Kochi. The final stretch of the road, about 2 km, is very narrow. It passes through lush green forest-looking topography. The drive itself is exhilarating. And finally you arrive at a 'Pay & Park' signboard on a rocky terrain. The land belongs to the CSI St Peter's Church. You park your vehicle there and walk up a concrete path which leads to a tiled walkway which in turn will take you the viewpoint. Below are some pictures of the place.  From the parking lot to the viewpoint The tiled walkway A selfie from near the view tower  A view from the tower Another view The tower and the rest mandap at the back Koorumala viewpoint is a recent addition to Kerala's tourist map. It's a 'cool' place for people of nearby areas to spend some leisure in splendid isolation from the hu...
30 comments
Read more