Daily Archives: March 19, 2015

A thousand kilos of curry

BLESSED FOOD The origin of the feast is associated with a legend and preparations involve the entire village folk. Photo: Thulasi Kakkat
BLESSED FOOD The origin of the feast is associated with a legend and preparations involve the entire village folk. Photo: Thulasi Kakkat

The annual feast of St. Joseph in Kanamally is a century-old tradition that sees the entire village come together to prepare a meal for over one lakh people

Year after year, for the last 110 years, all roads, from far and wide, wind their way to Kannamaly on March 19. On this day the scenic village, hemmed in by backwaters on the east and the sea on the west, finds itself in the throes of a celebration that is both spiritual and communal. The annual feast of St. Joseph held at the village church, St. Antony’s, feeds on the day almost a lakh and fifty thousand, with a meal, a sadya, prepared by the village community and volunteers who come from different parts of the State to participate in the activity.

The origins of this communal cooking and feasting began in 1905 when the area was supposedly hit by a tsunami. It led to water logging and a subsequent cholera epidemic. Parish priest Fr. Joseph Kadanattuthara says that stories of the time are about rotting dead bodies lying around and of the hungry and the sick in each household.

It was then that a group of doomed men came to the church to prepare for impending death. The priest is said to have placated them informing that the next day was the death anniversary of Joseph, father of Jesus, and they should prepare for death for the next day. He cooked a sparse meal and shared it with the group, asking them to offer some to the dying in their homes. This food is supposed to have cured them all. From that day, March 19, 1905 the feast of St Joseph began.

In the early days the villagers cooked food at home and brought it to the church for sharing. This grew into communal cooking over the years with people joining from different places as volunteers. Many partake in chopping of vegetables, grinding spices, cleaning the premises, arranging firewood, making pickles and winding up after the feast. “There are people who grow vegetables to be used for this feast; a family brings 2,000 kilos of yam every year,” says Fr. Joseph adding that they plant yam only for this occasion. “Similarly people bring coconuts, rice and other provisions.”

The meal that consists of ulli curry, two vegetables, sambar and rice is prepared on firewood in very big vessels. Members of the 1,500 families that form the congregation of the church help in the preparations that begin a month before.

Provisions like sacks of rice, sugar for payasam, mounds of vegetables, oil, ghee and such begin to be stocked in the school in the church yard. Closer to the date women from nearby houses begin arriving to chop and prepare.

A day before, the fires are lit and cooking is done all night long. Maria Xavier, 50, a former teacher who now runs a ladies store says that the preparations for this large scale cooking are planned and undertaken by the ‘kalavara’ committee.

It begins on March 12 with women peeling up to 1,000 kilos of onions and storing them to be used in the curries. Nearly 500 kilos of bitter gourd and 800 kilos of mangoes are peeled, cut and stored.

Two days later the only work in the ad-hoc kitchen is grating and grinding coconut- thenga peera- and roasting it with chopped shallots, vazhathu. The next day the onion curry, and mango pickle are made and stored. On March 16 bitter gourd is cut and prepared. The following day is a No Work Day. On the night before the feast the fires are lit and rice is prepared in almost 20 vessels. The main mixed curry too is prepared. Cooking is halted at eight in the morning.

“As soon as the morning mass is over, at eight, the meals are served,” says Jaison Ezhuthaikkal, event coordinator, who has put up a 1, 20,000 sq ft canopy to accommodate the diners.

“In the olden days people sat on the floor and ate on banana leaves but now with increasing numbers arriving arrangements have changed. The ela sadya has given way in the last two years to a buffet,” says Maria. A relatively new addition is bottled payasam, sold at Rs. 50. This is done by a group from Tripunithura.

Antony Peko, 78, is a known name in the area. He heads a team of 10 assistants to cook, having mastered the art from his father. Sisters Barbara and Baby Pullamaserry, in their 70s, too have been associated with the food preparations for the last many decades.

Thettamma is another respected cook known for her skill at cooking huge quantities. Tom Edward whose family has been associated with the activity since its inception and is a patron of the church, remembers a year when it poured heavily, but the area around the church, where the feast was being cooked, served and savoured remained dry. Another hearsay story is of rice remaining fresh in a pit where it was buried as leftover.

“It is generally believed that the meal is blessed and that is the reason that draws people in hordes from distant places. It’s faith that brings them,” says Maria whose house becomes an open house. Last year she had 45 people staying at her house, not all known to her. Her neighbours too open their homes to strangers. “Balconies and verandas of every house in this area hosts visitors who come in groups. This is tradition,” she affirms.

In its century-old history food has never run short. It is cooked manually right through the day and night. By early evening if the curries begin to get over, fresh parippu curry is prepared. This goes on late into midnight, “by which time everyone is tired.”

“But we wake up fresh next morning satisfied that so many people ate a blessed meal,” says Maria.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Priyadershini S / Kochi – March 18th, 2015

For women, by women

Some of the young residents of S.M.S.S. Hindu Mahila Mandiram Photo: Nita Sathyendran / The Hindu
Some of the young residents of S.M.S.S. Hindu Mahila Mandiram Photo: Nita Sathyendran / The Hindu

Women of all ages get a new lease of life at the S.M.S.S. Hindu Mahila Mandiram, which kicks off preparations for its centenary celebrations on Saturday

School’s over for the day, but Aparna and Shilpa, both of them students of class nine of Chinnamma Memorial Girls High School and long-time residents of S.M.S.S. Hindu Mahila Mandiram at Poojapura, which runs the school, have a lot of revising to do for an upcoming maths exam. Oblivious to the ruckus, as happy youngsters in this 95-year-old home for indigent girls and women make the most of play time, the duo are bent over their notebooks, working out complex geometry equations, helped by a couple of home tutors.

“We want to be computer engineers and we are determined to work hard for it,” says Aparna, brimming with confidence. Sprightly Aishwarya, meanwhile, a student of class 11 and one of the home’s star pupils, wants to become an architect. She is busy prepping for her role as the compere for an upcoming event at the Mandiram. Like these three precocious youngsters, every one of the 96 girls, ages ranging five to 19, who call the Mahila Mandiram their home, want to make something of themselves. Guiding their dreams to fruition is M. Sreekumari, the organisation’s long-time honorary secretary, and her merry band of dedicated volunteers and staff members.

Mahila Mandiram was established in 1918 and registered as a charitable organisation in 1920 by K. Chinnamma and centres its activities on the ‘care, education, empowerment and rehabilitation’ of orphans and women and children from impoverished backgrounds. “We’ve tried to carry forward the legacy and social commitment of our founder. Our aim is not only to bring the girls up well and get them married off, but to also make each one of them stand on their own two feet, be empowered, self-sufficient and, above all, have self-respect,” says 71-year-old Sreekumari, who has been running the organisation for some 34 years now.

M. Sreekumari, honorary secretary (left), and Radha Lakshmi, president, SMSS Hindu Mahila Mandiram Photo: Nita Sathyendran / The Hindu
M. Sreekumari, honorary secretary (left), and Radha Lakshmi, president, SMSS Hindu Mahila Mandiram Photo: Nita Sathyendran / The Hindu

“Social work is in my very genes; I come from a family which has always been into social work. I am in awe of Chinnamma who thought so far ahead for women and children of the land, at a time when they were relegated to being second class citizens. Chinnamma hailed from an ordinary family in Attingal but was determined to get an education. Encouraged by her kunjamma [maternal aunt] who worked at the palace, she was one of the first female students of the Fort High School. She completed graduation after marriage and rose to become an inspector of schools in erstwhile Travancore and became a pioneer in social work. Chinnamma died at 47, 12 years after she established the organisation, the seeds for which must have been sown in her early teens itself,” adds Sreekumari, as she shows us around the well-kept home that includes spacious living quarters and a library, among other facilities.

“We are all one big family here,” she says, responding with a smile or a small wave as the youngsters call out greetings – in near reverence – to their ‘Amma.’

Apart from the home and the high school, Mahila Mandiram runs a Government-aided lower primary school, a working women’s hostel, an old age home for impoverished women at Azhoor, Chirayinkeezh, Panchavadi, ‘a holistic community development project, benefitting both children and the elderly’ at Vellanad, and a vocational training centre, the Mahima complex (currently under renovation).

They started out by giving young women training in handloom weaving and changed to “more feasible trades” as times changed.

Today Mahima complex houses a stitching and embroidery unit, a book binding unit, an offset press, and a computer centre that not only trains young women from the locality but provides employment opportunities too. In fact, for its efforts, the organisation won the national award for child welfare in 2013.

“Apart from fundraising, one challenge is actually finding committed personnel to help run the organisation. Because we can’t afford to pay exorbitant salaries, most of those who come for work here view it as a stop-gap arrangement. This also means that we are not savvy enough to attract the kind of corporate sponsorship that is available nowadays. Then again, the biggest challenge is raising the children – two at home is difficult, imagine a 100!

“Each child is a challenge, more so when the child in question has come to us after suffering emotional/physical trauma. We try to give them as much individual care as possible but it’s not always easy and we’ll never measure up to their mothers, who they would have left behind. The key is to persevere come what may and get them on the path to success,” says Sreekumari.

For a cause

On Saturday, March 21, 5 p.m., the organisation kicks off the first event in its master plan for its centenary celebrations – a fundraising event for Puthen Mandiram, the old age home at Azhoor, established in 2002. “We want to celebrate our centenary by bringing more women and children under our umbrella,” says Radha Lakshmi, president of the organisation. Having started functioning with just four residents, Puthen Mandiram [the land and heritage home was donated by one of the organisation’s member T. Madhavi Amma] now accommodates 15 women. “The present accommodation falls short of the comforts the residents require. By 2020 we want to expand the facility to a two-storey building to accommodate at least 25 elderly women, and make it more age-friendly, besides starting several outreach programmes such as a day care centre, assisted living facilities and an ambulance service,” adds Sreekumari. Contact: 0471 2351243

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Nita Sathyendran  / Thiruvananthapuram – March 19th, 2015