Efforts needed to preserve the unique socio-cultural identity of Kuttichira

Kuttichira, a predominantly Muslim settlement in the coastal region of Kozhikode, holds testimony to the city’s trade relationship with the Arab world.

Built around centuries-old mosques, the region comprises hundreds of families who still keep its unique socio-cultural identity at different levels. The last vestiges of its physical expressions—the ancestral homes and a number of household articles—are vanishing and efforts to set up a cultural museum to preserve them failed to bear fruit.

After a few decades, no one would believe that more than 100 members of a family in a matrilineal descent system lived in a single tharavadu at a time, says Hassan Vadiyil, a veteran journalist and a member of a prominent family in Kuttichira.

Six kitchens for a single house may sound like a bit of an exaggeration. But that was what some of these colossal houses had at a time. “Some of them even had three domestic wells around them,” says Mr. Vadiyil, who had first hand experience of the entire socio-cultural practices and customs that were part of life in Kuttichira.

Ramsy Ismael, member of CIESCO, a socio-cultural organisation based at Kuttichira, had a good collection of a number of artefacts related to the cultural life of Kuttichira. They included a decorative cap used by the groom on the wedding day and even furniture used during special occasions like wedding. “But many of them have been lost,” says Mr. Ismael.

Most of the families at Kuttichira have now left their joint families migrated to the Middle East. “Members of the new generation have been completely disconnected from their glorious common past,” says Parappil Muhammed Koya, writer and historian, who has an entire title ‘ Kozhikkotte Muslimgalude Charithram,  written on the lives of people in Kuttichira. “Documenting and preserving at least the valuable remnants of this remarkable culture is a necessity,” he says.

At least one of the traditional homes in the area could be purchased or taken over on lease by the tourism department to be converted into a museum which can house whatever is available to tell the story of Kuttichira to the future generation, says Dr. Koya.

“That can also become one of the most valuable tourism attractions of the city if materialised,” he says.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kozhikode / by Jabir Mushthari / Kozhikode – August 14th, 2015

by Dr. K. Javeed Nayeem, MD

No, I’m not talking about the hanging of Yakub Memon as you may be inclined to think from the title. It is pointless to dig up the graves of those who are very dead. But nevertheless, many will be doing it for some time to come. I’m talking of something much closer home although this is also about digging up something from the past. It has now been announced that the more than two-centuries old Armoury of Tipu Sultan, which has become an impediment to the Mysuru-Bengaluru Railway line doubling project, will finally be shifted to a different site about 500 meters away from where it stands now, although its new location is as yet unannounced.

This matter has been under consideration for quite some time now and different ways and means of circumventing the ancient obstruction to upgrade a much-needed modern means of transport have been aired from time to time by the Railway authorities and the Government. For a brief while it was even suggested that to avoid disturbing the monument we would even make do with a single track between the Naganahalli and Pandavapura stations. But this move, seemingly very kind to our heritage and hoary past, would have completely defeated the whole purpose of doubling the track thus making a mockery of the entire expensive project.

What I would like to highlight here is the very lackadaisical attitude of our government agencies to proper planning before jumping into the very profitable business of execution. It looks like a very apt case of utter disregard to the axiom of looking before leaping and doing just the opposite instead. Many engineers working for the Railways and many other very knowledgeable and qualified people tell me that with a little proper planning the track doubling work could have been accomplished without the need to re-locate the monument.

This point of view seemed right even to me when I visited the place just yesterday with my son, Adnan to have a first-hand look. It is common knowledge that to a common man with a little common sense, alternative options come easily while to experts with intelligence they often remain elusive. The new bridge across the south branch of the river Cauvery built to carry the second line is almost ready and until now the authorities were unsure of how they would align the track while taking it past the station and across the not-to-wide island with very limited space for the rakes of trains which are getting longer day by day. With no other viable alternative in sight, since the seemingly very wrongly positioned bridge is already in place, they now seem to be all set for another round of grossly unjustified expenditure.

Initially it was announced that the armoury would be dismantled brick-by-brick and rebuilt. Then someone rightly discovered that this was the wrong way of handling a very fragile brick and lime mortar structure and said that they would cut it up like a cake into meter wide cubes and cart them away to the new location. This too did not seem very practicable while being very obviously very unkind to the structure itself.

Now they have reportedly tendered the process to a US firm and its Indian partners who will shift it without dismantling it for a whopping sum of Rs. 11.6 crore. The process is bound to be interesting to watch. These armouries built by Tipu are semi-underground rooms with very thick walls and sloping masonry roofs supported by pillars where gun powder and small arms used to be stored. It is on record that he had built eleven almost identical armouries at Srirangapatna and seven of them are still standing in identical states of neglect.

I have been able to locate and count five of them ever since the time of my childhood. There are five others outside Srirangapatna located at the Manzarabad fort near Sakleshpur, Pavagada, Madhugiri, Sultan Battery in Kerala and Bengaluru. The last mentioned is deep inside Kalasipalyam behind the Bangalore Medical College and although located in the heart of the capital, it is completely dilapidated and has very conveniently become notorious for all kinds of illicit activities. No one either in the Government or the BBMP under whose jurisdiction it falls seems to have thought of preserving it, let alone restoring it to its former state as a keepsake from the past.

None of the seven existing armouries in Srirangapatna too including the one that is very accessibly located at the western corner of the fort near the British martyrs’ memorial obelisk, built in 1907 has been maintained in a state that can attract tourist attention. When that is the case I am left wondering whose sentiments the authorities are trying to avoid hurting by spending such a huge sum of money on relocating and restoring a small hitherto completely neglected piece of history in a very inaccessible location while having allowed the rest of the magnificent fort at Srirangapatna to gradually crumble brick-by-brick due to the abject lack of protection and basic maintenance?

Now, eleven crore rupees is a very large sum of money and if it is spent wisely and honestly it can do immense good to the entire fort that surrounds Srirangapatna thus preserving the beauty and grandeur of the historic town. Spending it just to relocate the armoury that now obstructs an albeit wrongly planned Railway track just as a face-saving measure is a sheer waste of public money most of which will undoubtedly go only to line the pockets of unscrupulous politicians, bureaucrats and contractors who thrive on such needless projects. People should therefore oppose this move. No one is going to mourn the loss of a structure the existence and significance of which they never knew.

There are many other monuments with much greater significance than the armoury under consideration of this present rather wasteful effort which can benefit from some much needed attention. For instance, the fading and flaking paintings at the Daria Daulat Bagh, the many historically important ‘Water Gates’ with narrow passages and steps leading to the river and the once very tranquil Sangam, the point where the two branches of the river meet once again after embracing the island.

Not very long ago before the advent of the now omnipresent and omnipotent parking fee mafia, which enjoys the patronage and participation of some vested interests, this place was a favourite picnic spot for families. It has now become the favourite haunt of thieves, extortionists, drunkards and drug addicts while the authorities conveniently look the other way.

e-mail: kjnmysore@rediffmail.com

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / Friday – July 31st, 2015

In the northern districts of Kerala, the menu still carries legacies of the merchant traders who visited the region centuries ago.

As lakhs of Muslims break their Ramzan fast with iftaar meals across India, there’s one region where the menu is strikingly distinct from that in the rest of the country. The Muslim community in Malabar, in the northern districts of Kerala, boasts of a unique cuisine that even today shows telltale signs of Arab influence carried across time.

Ask for a Sulaymani in any tea shop in Malabar, stretching from Kozhikode to Kasargod, and you’ll get sweet black tea with lemon. The name is believed to have been lent to this simple drink by the Sulaymani Bohras (Sulaymanis), a Musta’lī Ismaili community from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Step into the dining room of any traditional Mappilla (Muslim) home in Malabar at meal times and chances are that you’ll be enticed by the rich and inviting aroma of mandi, a distant cousin of the biryani. Said to be the traditional dish of Hadhramaut and Sana’a areas in Yemen, the mandi among the relatively unknown delicacies found on Malabar dining tables.

A mixture of rice, spices and chicken or lamb, the mandi is made in an oven in the ground tiled with clay bricks. The rice, spices and water are cooked in this oven, while wood coals are placed on top to make sure that steam doesn’t escape. The coal is also used to add the extra smokey flavour to the meat which too is cooked in this oven. Care is taken to use the meat of a young goat, which is tenderer than regular mutton.

“This dish is little known outside Kerala but it is an extraordinarily popular item in Malabar,” said Muhammed Seedi, managing director of the Whitehouse group of restaurants, which has the dish on its menu. “It has to be cooked for at least two and a half hours for the flavours to seep in.”

Mandi is said to be a corruption of the Arabic word “nada”, which means “dew”. The name is an allusion to the tenderness of the meat.

Adapted with local ingredients

“The influence is not just limited to Yemen,” said Ammini Ramachandran, Texas-based author and food writer. “Alissa, a wheat, meat and cinnamon porridge, is similar to harisa, a recipe preserved over centuries by the people of the Middle East. Recipes for this dish are found in 10th century Baghdadi cookbooks Annals of the Caliph’s Kitchen, Sufi Cuisine as well as in the Iraqi cookbookDelights from the Garden of Eden. In medieval Baghdad, it was called ‘hareesi’. Even today, the dish is served in Turkey, [where] it goes by the name ‘herise’, while in Lebanon it’s called ‘ hreessey’.”

She added: “The cuisine was adapted with local ingredients. Take for example ‘ari pathiri’, a thin chapati made out of rice flour. Rice being the staple grain in the region, breads and rotis were alien to the local food habits. The women innovated what they had in hand and made bread with rice powder for their Arabian paramours, who were used to a bread-based diet.”

Even the Malabar biryani, one of the key stars of any iftaar table, has a distinct Arabian touch. The rice and the meat are cooked separately and then layered and cooked. “Biriyani ustads”, who specialise in making this dish, are hired to cook it for weddings, special occasions and iftaars. Other dishes, meanwhile, are rustled up by the “pandaaris”, who hold the position of executive chefs.

“The Mappilas were extremely hospitable people, and would share their food with everyone in the neighbourhood,” said Sumesh Govind, managing director of Kozhikode-based Paragon Group of Hotels. “Subsequently, Malabar biryani became a staple in Hindu Thiyya homes as well, especially in the Thalasserry area. So much so that it’s also called Thalasserry biriyani.”

Malabar or Thalasserry biriyani is served with date pickle, raita and coconut chammanthi (chutney), again a fusion of West Asia and Kerala.

Influenced over the ages

Local produce such as mussels have also found their way onto iftaar tables. Ari kadukka, or rice-coated mussels, are among the favourites.

Another iftaar speciality said to have roots in West Asia is the dessert – muttamala or necklace of eggs. Thin filaments of egg yolk are cooked in sweet sugar syrup served over Pinnanathappam, steam-cooked cardamom-scented egg white pudding.

The influence of the Arabs lingers on in this and many other Malabar Mappila dishes.

Muslims or Mappilas tended to congregate more in the Malabar region because of the patronage from the local leaders. Subsequently, Malabar Mappila culture and cuisine came to have an identity of its own.

“The area we know as Kerala today was trading with merchants from West Asia from pre- Mohammedian times,” noted Dr K Gopalankutty, retired head of the history department at the University of Calicut. “After the Roman Empire collapsed, traders from Assyria, Babylon and Egypt as well as the Phoenicians and Arabs dominated this market, some even eventually mingling and marrying into the local population.”

By the 7th century, Muslim traders visited the southern coast of Malabar and shared their culture as they sold their wares.

Well before Abu Fazl wrote about how dozens of master cooks whipped up delicacies for the imperial Mughal kitchens of Akbar in his Ain-i-Akbari, the south western coast of India was already breaking fasts with culinary delights based on recipes brought across the seas from West Asia.

Over 2,000 years after they sailed to southern India, the legacy of these peaceful traders of West Asia continues to live on in the cuisine of Malabar.

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on Thursday raised a question mark on the authenticity of the ongoing preservation work being carried out by Hussainabad Allied Trust (HAT) at Chhota Imambada and demanded an immediate halt.

The ASI has also objected to the ongoing construction work at the Picture Gallery and has approached its headquarters to intervene. It said construction at the Picture Gallery was sheer violation of the Ancient Monument and Archaeological Sites and Remains (Amendment and Validation) Act 2010 that prohibited any construction within and near the protected monument.

The ASI’s move came after a short survey that it carried out a couple of weeks back to check the authenticity of the ongoing construction work at Chhota Imambada, and architectural marvel built by Nawab Mohammad Ali Shah in 1838.

“The officers were aghast at the way preservation work was being carried out at Chhota Imambada, as it was totally against the norms,” an ASI officer said.

Instead of using mortar, lime and surkhi, the ideal material for preservation work, the officer said the labourers were found using cement. “In those days mortar, lime and surkhi were generally used as binding material for the monuments. But using cement in place amounts to a crime and it will ruin the monument,” the officer who inspected the Imambada said.

He said technically, the same material (as used earlier in the monument) should be used for preservation work. Use of cement would ruin the entire edifice.

The style of preservation was another thing that the officers found highly objectionable and said it was totally against the preservation norms. “Old monuments like Imambada only need to be conserved. But in this case, the labourers were found breaking the plaster and applying a fresh one, using cement,” the officer said.

One had no right to spoil the originality of the structure, the officer said. Be it on the left side of Chhota Imambada or the right side of the main entrance gate, at all the places, the labourers were breaking the original plaster that bore the Quranic verses, calligraphy and aesthetic artwork, he said.  They were re-plastering with the same kind of designs. “This way there will be nothing original left. Besides, they are also minimising the scope for any future restoration work that is not at all possible after using cement,” he added.

The ASI also raised an objection over the illegal construction of toilets at the ASI-protected Picture Gallery. “It was found that the toilets were being constructed at the Picture Gallery. It is a protected monument and any construction is illegal,” said NK Pathak, superintending archaeologist, ASI.

Pathak said in this context, a letter had been written to the district magistrate and also to the ASI headquarters.

source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Cities / by Oliver Fredrick, Hindustan Times, Lucknow / June 13th, 2015