Good Ole Choyi - The man about town!

 Choyi Butler of Cannanore, his hotel, and other stories…

Once upon a time, over a hundred years ago, there lived an interesting man called Kottieth Choyi. Though many of his time remember the colorful man who lorded a large family, Choyi Butler, as he was known, was more connected to his hotel by the sea, in Cannanore. Today a pudding is attributed to him, and only a few know that he is survived by a large family and that many of his progeny were illustrious persons. We will meet some of them in this article, and tread the path he did, for a little while, to understand the times long gone, of a period when the Englishmen lorded the land and when caste ruled Malabar. Indeed, Good Ole Choyi was a colorful man, that I can guarantee!

Choyi’s antecedents are not known, but his surname suggests that the ancestors could have come (Choyi in colloquial Malayalam, at that time, meant foreigner) from a foreign land. Choyi’s were somehow connected to Jogis, mendicants, etc., so it is not quite clear what this sub caste under Thiyya, actually did for a living, in the past. This comment may not be relevant - See Notes#1 below

He is mentioned in history as the son of Nadukudi Kaunan (Kannan?), which possibly points to Nadukudi - a place name in Andhra or at Mannar in Sri Lanka.

In an 1886 court case, Kottieth Choyi filed an appeal contesting an excessive claim of arrears/damages by the area collector. It appears that Choyi obtained an Abkari license for Chirakkal and had instead of operating the arrack/toddy shop under the license, opened more, and sublet them to others. I will provide a quick brief only since it provides some background information on Choyi and because the great William Logan was involved!

The license stated -  W. Logan, Esquire, Collector of the District of Malabar, being duly authorized by the Board of Revenue, hereby license you, Kottieth Choyi, son of Nadukudi Kaunan, residing at Cantonment, Cannanore, to manufacture and vend arrack and toddy for the tract specified below in the Taluk of Cherakkel from the 1st day May 1885 to the 31st day of March 1886, subject to the following conditions and limitations to be observed by you, the said Kottieth Choyi. You shall sell liquor under this license in one shop for arrack and toddy combined. Such shop or shops shall be under your personal management. If you desire to open more shops, or if the above shops are not under your personal management, you must obtain a separate license for each such shop. The Collector may, whenever he thinks fit, direct shops other than those managed by you to be closed, or permit transfers of shops from one place to another, or direct new shops to be opened and a sufficient supply of spirits to be maintained in all sanctioned shops…

Justice Gopalan Nair who heard the original case decreed that Choyi should pay arrears, and Choyi appealed to the higher court where Muthuswamy Ayyar presided. The collector maintained that the original licensee was responsible for running just one shop and had to obtain separate licenses for any others (Choyi closed some of the shops). Choyi claimed that he could in effect open more shops and sublet them, and that the many orders to that effect, were arbitrary, that he suffered many a loss on that account, and could therefore not pay the Rs 11,433/ levied. It is all complicated, so I won’t get to it, but Choyi lost the appeal.

Cannanore in those days was quite different. As a German visitor mentioned - Cannanore is nothing more than a large village of twelve thousand inhabitants, who live in groups in small houses. Through wide beautiful avenues with gigantic bread trees, from which long aerial roots hang down, in an hour you arrive at the old barracks of the fort on a wide esplanade near the beach, from where you can see the forts and a lighthouse with the British flag. At the moment, I passed, some English soldiers, who were half-dressed and stretched out on the ground, were engaged in casting the sun's rays into the eyes of the passers-by with a mirror, a work which seemed to interest them very much. The beach was a sandy plain, bordered by coconut trees and fishermen's huts, where the fishing boats were currently resting.

When one leaves the bungalow to go to the fort, after passing through some gardens and walking through beautiful avenues, one comes to a lot of mud huts, where poverty abounds. Then one gets to see the long, shady avenues, where occasionally in the background of English landscaped gardens are the houses of the officers, with the names of the tenants and the designation of their company on the pillars at the entrance. Flowers and strange plants everywhere, baskets full of climbing plants and colorful hedges, from which wonderful scents rise.

Whether it was before or after this, Choyi served as a butler in the Esplanade hotel run by an Englishman. When the Brit decided to go back (or died) the hotel was given to Choyi and soon after that, Choyi married again, this time, his partner was the Anglo-Indian Thottathil Amma, who was somehow connected to the Hotel. Others mention that Choyi built the hotel and married Cheruvari Kalyani, the Anglo-Indian. The Geni site mentions that Kalyani was the daughter of Lord Strickland (It can’t be Walter Strickland the Anarchist – I wonder who this Strickland was) and his consort Chirutha (Charlotte Smith). Interestingly, Chirutha’s sister Korambi was the mother of Justice Sir Cheruvari Krishnan. Krishnan had informed his colleagues at Madras that his grandfather was a British Duke. I did not get any further on this matter, though.

We understand from an account provided by his grandson (Hartland by Hari Baskaran) that the Cheruvari line offspring as well as the Anglo-Indian mother were not initially allowed inside the ancestral Kottieth house in Kannur, but after Choyi passed away, the ice was broken, and the two sets of families came together. Choyi he says, owned all the land from Payambalam beach to Kanathur Kavu and built houses for his children in large holdings, where they stayed and reared their own families. He presided over his large extended family like an ancient patriarch. Choyi’s English wife stayed in an elegant and spacious house called ‘The Gardens’ situated on the road to Payambalam beach. Choyi Butler had a very romantic image, or so we understand, and he was a tall man and of military bearing. The “white” side of the family flourished and did very well.

Choyi was considered akin to an uncrowned king of Cannanore, a grand old man who ruled over his mammoth family. The main tharavad home, the Kottieth House, was a large nalukettu building, situated in a heavily wooded compound in the choicest location of Cannanore. The homestead was mostly constructed with wood, except for the outer walls. There was a grand hall upstairs which the Cannanore Free Masons used as their temple, till they moved to their premises.

The Madras Railway Co in its 1902 guide states - There is a very good Hotel in Cannanore called the “Esplanade Hotel” and kept by a sharp, intelligent Tiyan by name “Choyi”—the traveller will find this little hotel one of the most comfortable in India and also remarkably clean. Mr. Choyi, of the Esplanade Hotel, Cannanore, can make arrangements for the jutkas to Baliapatam and the boat onwards to Hosdrug. The Tahsildar at Kasaragod will arrange for carts from Hosdrug to his own town, and onwards to Ullal on the river Netravati, where a boat can be got without difficulty across the water, where conveyances will be found to take the visitor into Mangalore.

Now we get to the delicious dessert named after Choyi, otherwise called "Choyi's pudding”, made from ripe small bananas. In North Malabar, this delicacy was usually served at the beginning of a meal and not at the end. Bananas were kneaded, the soft pudding was shaped into a round patty, ghee was smeared over it, sugar liberally sprinkled all over, and finally salty crunchy crushed pappad was layered on top and the resulting dessert was served as Choyi’s Malabar Pudding. It has been popular ever since.

Coming to the hotel - An 1889 article mentions that the proprietor of Esplanade Hotel was K Choyi. The hotel was very popular and the only well-appointed one of that period, frequented by well-heeled visitors, especially Englishmen and other foreigners. The Choyi’s seaside Hotel as it was also called, was built in one of the most idyllic sites in Cannanore, atop a hill overlooking the Arabian Sea. Choyi did well, the hotel prospered, and he was soon the owner of much land in the region. The wealthy Choyi sired some 20-odd children through 4-5 wives of his (you can get a listing from the Genie site).

The hotel was Choyi’s mainstay. From the 18^th century onwards, it boasted many prime amenities – a mile from the Railway station, with lock-up garages; private Sea-bathing arrangements; an open garden; a typewriter on request; babysitting; a small Library; a hairdresser; laundry ..and what not! There were 20-bath attached rooms with 32 beds in all, with hot and cold running water, and serving European, Indian, and vegetarian cuisine. Single rooms cost Rs 5/-, double Rs 7/ and meals were an extra Rs 6/-or 7/-. The private beach was, of course, especially appealing to European visitors.  

Among the many illustrious visitors to the hotel was the famous poetess Laurence Hope - writing from Cannanore to her sister-in-law Carrie, she mentions it as a cheap and nice hotel, with good food, and a kind obliging manager. She wonders – How he makes it pay, I don’t know! Choyi made special arrangements with boats and boatmen for estuary and sea fishing too, if someone wanted that diversion! Another account mentions - Choyi's Hotel has been a familiar name for many decades and Choyi himself well known to West Coast visitors. His son now carries on…Eric Stracey (INA Cyril’s brother) of the Madras Police relives his memories of happy camps in Cannanore and family paddles on its lovely beach below Choyi’s hotel (who does not know Choyi’s – he asks) where we sometimes stayed.

A Harper’s magazine article mentions - Perhaps the greatest hotel bargain I found was in Cannanore on the Malabar Coast , where I had my own cottage at the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea for $2.50 a day, including very good meals. Another review stated – Bags of character in this super clean old-fashioned complex of bungalow cottages set around a lawn. The hotel was previously the exclusive British Cannanore club, according to some old-timers. Upto 1921 it was a hotel frequented only by Europeans.

But things were starting to get a little rough -An article from 1920 mentions - The situation of the hotel facing the beach was ideal, but sanitation appeared the one word missing throughout the place. As we had written to the management and had received their confirmatory reply, we had expected to find everything spick and span, the moment we alighted. A disagreeable surprise awaited us, for we were greeted at the entrance by a cow, who roamed at large throughout the halls and verandah. She mowed as loudly as she could, giving us a warm welcome in the absence of those concerned, and inviting us to share with her the wonderfully clean surroundings for which unwittingly she had been responsible. Whether this beast was considered sacred or lucky we could not conjecture, but from the way she peacefully roamed about the premises at her sweet will and fancy she certainly appeared to be the pet mascot of the entire hotel staff, which by the way consisted of an old deaf proprietor, an assistant to match, a limpy butler who had his own ideas about his dignity and an invisible cook, who was an adept in the art of cooking all varieties of inedible fishes. Though we had heard volumes about Cannanore being a very healthy station and renowned for its sea-bathing, yet we were considerably disappointed with the town, which affords no singular sight for the tourist, except the old Portuguese Fort on the promontory facing the beach.

I was passing Cannanore, driving down after seeing the Bekkal fort, and going about the St Angelo’s fort nearby. Unfortunately, the Arakkal Palace was closed to the public, being a Monday, and try as I did, I could not find the location of the Choyi Hotel at Payyambalam or its remnants. Some opined it was the Choice homestay place, others said it became the Choice hotel, and some sent me to the Savoy hotel, but I never found the old Choyi hotel or its remains, though the Savoy seemed to fit my mental bill, in style. Still, it was way off the beach and not it.

Choyi during his lifetime, was very active indeed, with many social causes. He seems to have been the first to start a girls' school in the area and granted space for it, as well as employing a Gurukkal (teacher) for the 10 or so students who studied there. He was also involved in community matters especially the Sree Narayana Guru visit –VK Kunhi Kannan decided to bring Sree Narayana Guru to Cannanore and consecrate a temple there. The Guru agreed to it and a committee comprising prominent Thiyya’s including Choyi Butler, was formed then. Sree Narayana Guru thus visited Kannur in 1907 and stayed at the home of Kottiyeth Choyi. The Sundareshwara temple construction started in 1909 and it was inaugurated in 1916.

Choyi's family - from first wife

Now let’s look at a few of his offspring, especially some of the luminaries. CK Bharatan looked after Choyi’s hotel, after the patriarchs’ death. Considering that it remained with the CK branch, it could be that Kalyani Amma held the title of the hotel.

CK Lakshmanan - Lakshmanan was born on 5th April 1898 in Cannanore, Kerala. He had his early education in the Christian College, Madras. He passed his L.M & S from Madras Medical College and was a noted all-round sportsman. During his college days, he captained the Madras University Cricket Team, won many Trophies in Tennis and Athletics, and represented India in the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924.

Beyond sports, he was a member of many professional organizations and continued his medical education at St. Bartholomew's Medical College & Hospital, London, taking his MRCS, DTM & H, and DPH in the U.K. Lakshmanan was commissioned in the Indian Medical Service in 1925 and continued in military service up to 1935. He held various responsible civil positions in the Government of India. He was the Director of Public Health, in Bengal, and Director and Professor of Public Health Administration at the All-India Institute of Hygiene and Public Health, Calcutta. He was Director General of Health Services, Government of India, for six years from 1952. He was the Honorary Surgeon to the President of India from 1957-58. After retirement from Government, he joined the Indian Red Cross Society as its Secretary-General in July 1958 and continued in that capacity until April 1969. He was made Honorary Major General in June 1960 and was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1967.

KC Kausalya was no less. Kausalya completed her BA in 1910 from the Madras Presidency College, perhaps the first Malayali science graduate among women or at least the first to graduate in botany. Obtaining a Licentiate in Teaching in 1913, she joined the Government Girls’ High School, Cannanore as an Assistant. After her return from England in 1924, she was appointed Professor of Natural Science at Queen Mary’s College (QMC). Quoting Savithri Preetha Nair, she was the first Indian woman to visit the institution as a volunteer worker, Kausalya was at this time pursuing a second BSc degree at London’s Bedford College for Women (today’s Royal Holloway College) as a government scholar. The petite Kausalya would spend a year in the United States, but it does not appear this was in the capacity of a Barbour Fellow. In June 1933, she would visit the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the purpose of her visit was rather than botanical, a direct influence of the proceedings of the AIWC (1931). Kausalya wished to begin ‘home economics extension work’ in India similar to that in America. She also visited Redlands in California, where at a Forum Club meeting held at Beach City (Laguna Beach), to which she had been invited as guest, she spoke about the customs of her country. By May 1934, Kausalya along with her young niece, Miss Vimala Karunakaran were homeward bound on the Hakozaki Maru, heading for Colombo, from where they would travel by boat and then train to reach Madras.

C.K. Vijayaraghavan who was educated at Madras Christian College and Law College; joined the ICS, and served in Madras as Asst. Collector and magistrate, Collector of Tanjore, etc. and became the first Indian IG of Police of the undivided Madras Presidency, in 1947. He was later to become the Home Secretary in the Government of Madras. Interestingly the IG post was first offered to Pulla Reddy who however declined stating that he did not have the “necessary build” and so recommended the appointment of C.K. Vijayaraghavan, ICS to the post. He died in 1950.

Many children on the Kottieth Adiyeri and the other branches also rose to prominence, there are simply too many to recount. Some examples are Kottieth Anandan, Sub judge Kunhikannan, Deputy Collector Mukundan, etc. So many of the progeny also shone in the armed forces and in the administrative services.

People may wonder why I write about such characters, well, my friends, it is quite simple – they are the ones who rose from nothing to something, and that is the most important thing in the journey of life, lessons others can learn from. Choyi in those caste-ist periods in Kerala history, was placed in the lower rungs of society, see how he and his family made a place for themselves, in the annals of history!!

NB: The title for this article comes from the mouth of an 89-year-old family member of the Adiyeri line with whom I had a very interesting conversation. She told me about the vast family and narrated that in her lifetime, and family discussions, she often heard of many a thing - starting with – In the days and time of Choyi Butler.

I wish my friend Murkoth Premnath had been still alive, he would have recalled and narrated a few more legends, which could easily fill a few more pages…

References

Chromosome woman, nomad scientist E. K. Janaki Ammal, A Life 1897–1984 - Savithri Preetha Nair

Hartland – The spirit of a family – Hari Baskaran

Obituary Major General C.K. Lakshmanan – TB Association of India

Family members and friends of the Choyi family may suggest corrections if any under comments and I will gladly oblige. Thanks to Nikhil, Akhil for their help and Tushara and her grandma for the nice conversation.

Input # 1 - Adiyeri member - She informs me that Choyi is his first name and not a caste name. The Chirakkal Raja had apparently entrusted the prominent Kottieth family with supplying grain to his 35,000 soldiers, and hence their importance. It is also mentioned that Choyi owned one half of the land in the Payyambalam region and the other half was owned by his nephew Kottieth Ramunni vakil. The Choice hotel took over Choyi's hotel.

Photo from http://sreesundareswara.com/Administration.aspx, Adiyeri member

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In Memoriam - Sarojini Sivalingam

A pioneer Radio Jockey - Ceylon Radio, Malayalam transmission

During the 70s and the early 80s, youngsters of our generation were glued to transistors - small portable radios, a marvel that arrived after the bulky old valve radios of yore. They were a heaven-send for not only music enthusiasts, but also cricket lovers, and we could transport ourselves to distant corners of the world with those radios and listen to broadcasts from exotic locales. Though the Panasonic versions sported a plug-in earphone, it was sportier to hold it close to one’s ear, a common sight in those days. As these sets worked on torch batteries, many more people started listening to the radio, so much more affordable compared to the ornate valve sets showcased in the living room. Moreover, tussles with the elders on whether to listen to a farmer's broadcast or a morose Carnatic rendition were conveniently avoided. And that was how, I got to hear the Malayalam (and of course Tamil and Hindi) music broadcasts jockeyed by a pioneer in the field, Sarojini Sivalingam, who hailed from Kakkayur in Palghat, just a few miles distant from our Pallavur ancestral home. She passed away on 9th Dec, aged 88, leaving behind many a musical memory in the minds of the Malayalees from my generation. With heartfelt condolences, I wish that her soul rests in eternal peace.

Many a Malayali of the baby boomer generation will remember that chirpy announcer with a slight Tamil accent, launch into the afternoon Malayalam transmission at 330 PM, and bring to us the greatest songs sung by the proficient singers of the time. But before we get to her life story, let us trace out the events leading up to the creation of the South Asian commercial broadcasts. It was not really meant for the listening pleasure of the many Malayalees living in Ceylon, but it was directly aimed towards listeners in India.

In the 70s and 80s, like many other Malayalees living away from home, I would switch on my little Keltron transistor radio and dial in the 41-meter band SW Radio Ceylon frequency. Of course, the tuner was not digital, and the reception would wax and wane sometimes, but for the most part, held steady as the transmitter in Ceylon was quite powerful. The Hindi and Malayalam music programs were very good indeed and if one did not have a turntable to play LPs or EPs the transmission from Ceylon was the main source, though there was the well-set but relatively staid AIR Vivid Bharati program, on the MW channels.

I spent many hours studying the commencement of radio experimentation and transmission in Ceylon and must tell you that a more detailed article on Radio Ceylon and its connections to Binaca Geetmala will follow in due course, this one is focused on Sarojini Sivalingam, following a quick run through the station’s development.

The first wireless telegraphy station was erected in 1912, and wireless messages in Morse Code were sent under the callsign CLO, which was later changed to VPB. Though there are ubiquitous mentions of a German sub’s transmitter being salvaged by American Ed Harper to create the first transmitter in 1924, it was mostly the work of his deputy Lt. M J Golighitly, with double tube sets which started it all. The first transmitter was on the air in 1925 briefly with music (gramophone records played into the primitive microphone) transmitted on a small ½ kW transmitter, from ‘Colombo Radio’, with the equipment locally custom built by Harper and team. Irregular broadcasts, two or three times a week, contained music, news, weather reports, and time signals. So much for a very brief mention of the early history.

While India boasted of a few MW sets and stations, they were not quite powerful, but with the arrival of the Second World War, many Indians acquired a radio (we detailed these in the Congress and Revolutionary radio articles). Indians had by now gotten used to tuning in to news broadcasts from distant stations, mainly due to mistrust of the British content.  

SW transmissions

In Ceylon, SW transmission experiments started in 1934. In 1939, the VPB MW callsign was shut down. The shortwave transmitter continued to be in use at Welikada for three more years while a larger shortwave station was under construction at Ekala during 1944, and the callsign changed from VPB to ZOH. The design for the new shortwave station in Ekala was like the one located in Malaysia. Much of the electronic equipment was shipped from Marconi in England but was lost in a German torpedo attack. A new consignment comprising a powerful 100KW set was shipped out from England, and installed at Ekala. This SEAC wartime transmitter was later gifted by Mountbatten, to Colombo, after the war. In 1948, Ceylon became independent, and on Jan 1st, 1950, Colombo Radio became Radio Ceylon.

The station at Ekala, a dozen miles north of Colombo eventually housed a total of seven shortwave (Philips) transmitters, including the powerful 100KW international set. Ekala’s broadcasts were since then, heard worldwide, and many millions listened to it in India.

The Commercial Service for Southern Asia was beamed to India, and other nearby countries on shortwave, as the All-Asia Service (ilanagai oliparappu stapanam, asia sevai). In 1967, Radio Ceylon was renamed the Ceylon Broadcasting Corporation; and in 1972, the station was redesignated again, as the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, after Ceylon became the Republic of Sri Lanka. The Commercial service was built up with support from the Australian radio staff, and Clifford Dodd was the driving force behind the rapid development of the service. It was under his tutelage that many local personnel became legendary radio personalities, and among them were Jimmy Bharucha, Shirley Perera, Nihal Bharati, Ameen Sayani, SP Mayilvahanam, and Vernon Corea, among others.

AIR and BV Keskar

The 60s were to feature an Indian-oriented transmission, for two reasons. While the primary reason for the launch of the Commercial service was driven by Indian listeners desiring to hear Bollywood tunes, the impetus was provided by manufacturers who wanted to advertise their wares to the thousands of listeners tuned to the channel. On a lighter note, one can read many an old-timer’s anecdote of how they fell for the catchy jingles and used a product advertised over those airwaves, with less than satisfactory results.

Strangely the driver of this wave was an authority who decided that films and film music are necessarily vulgar and would taint the young Indian mind. He banned film music from All India Radio - AIR broadcasts, in 1952, and tried to force listeners to listen to classical music and ‘raise their standards’, which turned out to be a classic Tughlaq-ian decision. Much has been written about Binaca Geet Mala and Amin Sayani, but the involvement of BV Keskar and the AIR ban on film music is an interesting topic to mull over. Some months ago, I had written about the Harmonium, the ban of the instrument on the AIR waves, and the involvement of many a music stalwart on the same. The film music ban by the I&B minister Keskar, has two aspects - firstly, his personal views on classical versus film music, and secondly his views on Urdu versus Hindi. The aftereffects of the ban had profound results, the Hindi film industry took to the Radio Ceylon airwaves for commercial broadcasting of film songs, and it proved to be very successful, especially the Amin Sayani compered Geetmala, sponsored by the toothpaste manufacturer Binaca. I should not forget to mention that Radio Goa was another station (until 1962, a Portuguese colony) which broadcast advertisements, but never added regional languages like Tamil and Malayalam. Religious and news broadcasts in Tamil & gospel in Malayalam had been aired on other Ceylon channels much earlier.

Secondly, AIR would not permit commercial advertisements, it was state-funded and state-run. Listeners and sponsors fled to the commercial service at Radio Ceylon which took care of the matter, with the incorporation of pithy advertisements interspersed into the musical programs. American Daniel Molina established Radio Ceylon’s Advertisement services in Bombay to build up the advertisement revenues. Programming was done in Bombay and at Ceylon where RJ’s and DJ’s (then called announcers) compered each show. With the AIR continuing to be a dull station, feeble in power and covering a smaller area, listeners hastened to find radios that were guaranteed to pick up radio Ceylon. Thanks to these kinds of shows, the radio announcer’s job became highly sought after, and if you recall, Sunil Dutt was on the air as an announcer for Radio Ceylon, and Amitabh Bachan later failed an audition at the AIR. In the late 60’s the advertisement revenue by Radio Ceylon from Indian companies was well over Rs 5 lakhs, Bombay and Madras became the production centers, as they were home to recording studios and well as the film fraternity.

AIR claws back

When AIR (Aakashwani - AIR means the voice from the sky) and the bureaucrats in India realized that Radio Ceylon was minting money and that most of the listeners were Indians, they conceded it was time to change. The film music ban was lifted and the Vivid Bharati channel was introduced in 1957, to air film songs, but then again the rigid team at Delhi fixed their working hours and banned advertisements, and their tepid programming coupled with a few weak MW stations was no match for the professional and catchy service from Colombo, which by now was employing more and more Indians to man the mics at Colombo.

AIR announcers continued to be dull and just played records after making terse and brief announcements of the track, with a long list of listeners, compared to Ceylon announcers who interacted with the public, reading snippets from listener’s letters, providing details of the songs, their creation, makers and what not. It is said that 9 out of 10 sets were tuned during certain hours to Ceylon’s 41-meter band, even after the launch of Vivid Bharati. Another reason for Radio Ceylon’s success was that the studios had amassed a great collection of music records, carefully maintained and archived by the team. Their selection of music for a program was impeccable and went with the times. The collection boasts over one lakh Sinhalese, Tamil, Malayalam, English, and Hindi songs!

The listeners were from all corners of India and Pakistan, and there was a smattering of immigrants in Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, and other SE Asian states who listened to the Ceylon broadcasts. Later in the 70’s and 80’s it was also popular with the many Malayalees who took the boats to work in the Middle East. Surely many of the Malayalees remaining in Sri Lanka also listened to these channels. Some Indian politicians wondered if they could campaign over the Radio Ceylon waves, which was refused.

However, trouble was starting to brew in Lanka. Nationalist demands that the Lankan soil cease to be home for foreign broadcasts became louder, many Malayalees had been evicted from the island (see my article on Malayalees in Ceylon) and Buddhist leaders complained that the commercial service had in a few years damaged the ethnic island culture far more than four hundreds of years of colonialism. The adoption of Sinhala as the sole national language after the election success of Bandaranayake resulted in riots between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. Nevertheless, by 1967, Radio Ceylon became a public corporation, the CBC, and the government tried hard to exercise their control on matters aired.

The 70s in Lanka was a period of strife, especially after 1972 when it became a republic. The JVP and the LTTE reared their heads, the Ceylon government was concerned that the LTTE was getting coded information from Madras over the Tamil programs. Fearing DMK manipulation, the Sinhalese wanted a cessation of Tamil film music broadcasts and Bharatiyar’s poems. It was only in 1977 -78 that the constitution was rewritten, Lanka moved away from leftism and opened itself to market-oriented reforms. What all this did was to prove what Ammen Sayani once mentioned - that a good radio station is the one you can see, and not just hear.

Anyway, the reduction of film music transmission in SLBC and the nationalistic pressures resulted in a reduction of advertisers and revenue for the channel and an increase in listenership for the AIR which had by 1970 started commercial services and hit revenues of over 20 crores by the early 80s.

Tamil & Malayalam channel

To summarize, the success of the Hindi channel and the higher quality of SW transmission compared to the weak MW transmitters in India, plus a proliferation of different types of radios resulted in many listeners tuning into Radio Ceylon by the 70’s. Tamil programming had a massive share of listeners, and announcers namely KS Raj, Saravana Muthu, Abdul Hameed, and SP Mayil Vaganam ( who spoke with a Jaffna sing-song accent), ruled the roost.  T. Urutharapathy of SLBC says - "Mayilvaganam used to leave by flight for Chennai at 8 a.m. collect new songs, have lunch in Chennai, return to Colombo by 4 p.m. and air the new numbers on the 6 p.m. radio show". That shows how Radio Ceylon kept its listeners up-to-date and hooked.

Interestingly while the SLBC broadcast in Sinhala, Tamil, and English for some 250 hours a week, the Commercial broadcast in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam was beamed towards India, and separately to Europe and SE Asia for just seven hours.

In the late sixties, Trivandrum and Calicut were the only two stations, and their MW signal strength was lackluster. It was a strange period for us in India those days, we had to buy a license to own a radio, costing some Rs 15/- per year, can you imagine!! Transistors with real leather cases thrived and by the ’70s were replaced by the latest radio cassette receivers or ‘2 in 1’s’ as they were called, which arrived from the gulf, gracing almost all Malayali and Tamil homes. Even with the arrival of home taping with these cassette recorders and the proliferation of cassette tapes, Radio Ceylon stayed strong for a few more years, but the death knell was about to sound. During its heydays, it is mentioned that over 1.3 million listeners were tuned to the Malayalam broadcasts which were added over the years, and here is where Sarojini Sivalingam and team come in.

Sarojini Sivalingam

We can piece together her RJ days from a 2011 in-person interview and a lovely article on her by the music writer Ravi Menon from Wynad. Now, Sarojini had retired, after leaving Sri Lanka due to the turbulence and was closeted in her home in Coimbatore. Unlike the film star persona and fame achieved by her contemporary in the Binaca Geetmala program – Ameen Sayani, Sarojini had been forgotten. Television had arrived in India and took over viewership from Ceylon as well as a multitude of local and national radio stations. But Ravi and many others including me, were fortunate to have lived through the 60-80’s the Golden age of Malayalam music. It was a period lorded by Baburaj, Raghavan, Dakshina Murthy, Arjunan, MB Srinivasan, MG Radhakrishnan, and so on, ruled the roost and singers like Yesudas, Jayachandran, Brahmanandan, S Janaki, P Sushila, Madhuri, Vani Jayram etc. just to name a few stalwarts, enthralled listeners. For the many listeners in India and abroad, the Ceylon SW station provided respite, and of course, enjoyment, by broadcasting these songs, compered by Sarojini Sivalingam.

Sarojini hailed from a little village nestling under the brooding Western Ghats, in the rice bowl of Kerala, namely Palghat. Kakkayur is a little distance away from Pallavur and in the late 60’s and early 70’s just two buses plied the forest route from Pallavur to Koduvayur, one an Ex-Servicemen blue bus., which I remember distinctly. There was just one stop between them and that was at Sarojini’s village of Kakkayur.  Today a new residential locality called Little Dubai, borders Kakkayur, boasting of many ‘gulf’ returnee’s houses, with garishly painted exteriors. As her father worked in the military, Sarojini spent her younger days at Calcutta and Poona but interestingly passed her school finals from Koduvayur. College education continued at Coimbatore and Madras. Music was always with her and right from her younger days, music held her in a firm grip, though Carnatic, Hindi, and Tamil were her favorites.

She fell in love with RR Sivalingam from Ceylon, who was her batch mate at the Madras Christian College, and after studies and a difficult courtship period, decided to get married. Though her parents were not too happy with the match, they got married and the couple went back to Ceylon - to Hatton, near Nuwara Eliya in Ceylon ( If you have not been to those tea estates, plan your next trip to the legendary Ashoka Vana where Sita was imprisoned, according to the locals – it is well worth it – See my article about the Lanka sojourn for details). While Sivalingam worked initially as a principal in a private school, Sarojini took a while to adjust to the new terrain, society, and language, and fortunately for her, her in-laws loved her like a daughter. Later he became a successful advocate in Colombo and the family moved there. At this opportune juncture, SLBC were looking around for Malayalam announcers. Sarojini’s demeanor and character impressed the Director Sushil Munasinghe, and she started her career with them in 1971.

It is not clear if N Karunakaran and Lathika Vivekanandan, two other announcers, joined the new Malayalam commercial channel in the 70s with Sarojini, but they were around with her till the 80s. Karunakaran was certainly a resident in Lanka since many years. Together they compered many programs and Malayalees would recall Marivillu (rainbow), Sabda Lahari, Raaga Sangamam, Vanita Rangam, and so on. The start of the 3:30 p.m. show was always by Sarojini. Readers must note that Radio Ceylon did not really have a code of conduct or style, and announcers had to establish limits and keep it decent and casual. Other than music slots, Sarojini would also interview musicians, singers, and music directors, but told Ravi Menon that one of her biggest regrets was that she could never do one with Yesudas who had shifted to Bombay by then, to progress his Hindi career. Sarojini mentions that Karunakaran was a great help in getting herself grounded in the radio station. 4 sets of records arrived every time a film was released.

For close to ten years Sarojini anchored the Malayalam channel, but by the 80’s the living circumstances in Sr Lanka had become untenable. The sectarian violence was taking its toll on one hand and the revenues had dipped on the other hand. It was time for the immigrant staff to return, violence had skyrocketed, and the safety of immigrant workers was no longer guaranteed.

Sarojini returned to Palghat in 1983 and settled down in Coimbatore. She led a retired life after Sivalingam passed away, and her sons Damodaran and Sreedharan chose to remain in Lanka initially and migrated to NZ and USA, later. Spending her last years with her daughter Rohini, Sarojini watched the passage of time over the new medium of television, which went from B&W to color, and radio had finally been consigned to the back seats. While Sri Lanka may have forgotten her, many Malayalees remembered her and her 3:30 p.m. slot, for she would bring Kerala and films to them, as well as the magical voices and the best songs of their favorite singers.

In May 2013, the Ekala site housing the rusty old Marconi transmitters was finally shut down. There is much more to the famous SEAC 100KW transmitter, and I will recount all that some other day.

Why was Radio Ceylon revered by Indian listeners and music creators? For the Indian creators, Ceylon’s programming provided them the opportunity to get feedback from listeners, and even interact with them. The announcer would be the listener's voice, and they had to honestly and emotionally connect with the song and the musicians, thereby becoming the bridge, and that was why the announcer became what they were, cult heroes – people like Amin Sayani, Mayil Vaganam and Sarojini Sivalingam. They never failed to ignite the listener's imagination.

Sarojini Sivalingam, like Amin Sayani, certainly did that to me…

May her soul rest in eternal peace, and I am sure a thousand grateful listeners will join me in this last wish…

References

Community Radio Policies in South Asia: A Deliberative Policy Ecology Approach - Preeti Raghunath

Brought to Life by the Voice: Playback Singing and Cultural Politics in South India - Amanda Weidman

A look at the Radio Ceylon Commercial channel studios – An Instagram post

Ravi Menon’s article – Mathrubhumi Nov 2011

Related blogs – Maddy’s Ramblings

Harmonium

Malayalees in Ceylon

Revolutionary Radio -Congress radio, Propaganda wars

Trip to Sri Lanka

I had a short chat with Rohini, Sarojini’s charming daughter. The pictures posted are thanks to her and not to be copied without her permission. thanks also to Arun at Intach Palghat and the gentle prod…

Ekala site picture – courtesy Vernon Correa

Note – I too got confused with the spelling - Memorium' is a common misspelling of 'Memoriam,' and it has no function in the English language. 'Memoriam' is a Latin word that means memory. 'Memoriam' is added to the preposition, in, to create the prepositional phrase In Memoriam, which means, in memory of. Learnt a little bit of English/Latin along the way…

I still listen to a radio

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Aasha – and the Royal Game of Ur

 When Ruby met Finkel

This had been in my drafts folder ever since I came across its mention in Ruby’s book on the Cochin Jews. Recently Arun at Intach Palghat organized a Pallankuzhi session in Palghat, to bring about an understanding and some resurgence to the ancient Malabar game, and that sort of galvanized me into restarting this story. Let me first warn you, that many of you may feel you know the end, but there is a twist, so please read this in full, I assure you it will be well worth the effort.

Though it was a game well-known and prevalent among the Cochin Jews (you may wonder if it was the Black or the White Jews of Cochin, we will get back to the question a little later), it was not of any interest to anybody really, till a very famous Assyriologist delved deep and connected it to the ancient game which used to be played at Ur in lower Mesopotamia around 2,600-2,400 B.C or the Early Dynastic Period III. Like many other religions and cultures, migration can usually be traced from cultural objects and practices, and this makes it very clear that the Jews of Cochin had Middle Eastern origins.

Let’s first start with the discovery of the Ur Game, a thrilling game that requires you to race your pieces to the end of the board, by tossing dice. It was doubly interesting because it also foretold a bit of your fortune! Sir Leonard Wooley found some 20 square playing boards in a cemetery at Ur (a city in ancient Sumeria) in 1928, and this is known as the ‘Royal Game of Ur’, one of the oldest. The game as such was well known all over the Middle East and played by all classes of people, noble or not and though it was the national game in Mesopotamia for many years, it slowly vanished over time, after morphing into differing versions.

By chance, an antique dealer (originally dug up at Babylon, in the 1880s) brought a disintegrating tablet filled with cuneiform (wedge-shaped characters used in the ancient writing systems of Mesopotamia, Persia, and Ugarit) script to the British Museum, and in the 1980s, a hundred years later, Dr Irving L. Finkel decoded and translated the text, to find that it was the rules for the Royal Ur game, written on clay circa 177-176 B.C by a scribe named Itti-Marduk-Balatu. Other translations and transliterations had been attempted, though not published, while another tablet had been found at Uruk, which was sadly destroyed in the WW I bombing, though its photo survived.

Putting it simply, each player threw a type of ancient (pyramid-shaped) dice and based on the number shown moved his piece that many numbers of squares. If he landed on a square already occupied, the opponent’s piece is sent back to the start, and so on. In addition to the game, which of course is based on luck and some strategy, certain squares had zodiac assignments, so provided predictions on various matters.

Additional details of the game came to light, such as the fact that the dice were made from sheep and ox knucklebones and that you had to hit a number before a player launched pieces on the board and began racing around it. According to the tablet, each player had five pieces (though in Ur, they each had seven) and the winner was the person who moved all of them off the board first. According to the tablet of Itti-Marduk-balaṭu, whenever a player skips one of the boxes marked with a rosette, they must place a token in the pot. Over many centuries, this game gave way to more sophisticated games that were developed and the Royal Game of Ur died out nearly 2,000 years ago.

This was what Finkel believed, till he came across a photograph in a museum journal from Israel in the 80’s, which showed a scratched-up wooden board game that had belonged to the Koders who had migrated to Israel, from Cochin. He had never seen this game thus far being played in India, and the board had 20 squares, similar to the Royal Game of Ur. Knowing that Cochin boasted of an ancient Jewish community, which had migrated from Babylon to Cochin, over 1,000 years ago, he quickly made the connections and wondered how it had been preserved and played all these years.

As the story goes, Finkel contacted his pregnant sister Deborah Lionarons, who lived in Jerusalem, and asked her to go to the northern Kibbutz which has the settlements of the Cochin Jews. Finkel says - “I typed out a questionnaire and asked her to go door to door with a picture of the game and ask anybody and everybody if they could identify the picture and if they knew the rules of the game?”  As luck would have it a 70+ year-old woman, Ruby Daniel recognized the game, identified it as Aasha, which she used to play back home with her aunts, and sent back some rudimentary playing rules, through Deborah to Finkel.

Finkel was quickly on a plane to Israel and with the pregnant Deborah in tow, rushed to the Kibbutz, where Ruby lived. Now, readers, this is the same Ruby Daniels, whose marvelous account was brought to us by Barbara Johnson, a book I have used often in my studies and quoted from. When Finkel met the sprightly 70+ years old Ruby, Finkel then produced his version of the archaic rules to Ruby, who scoffed at it and said she would teach Finkel how they played it at Cochin, after which they played the game, sketched on a piece of paper. Now recall that Finkel was by then quite an expert at the game, had written a paper on the rules, and gifted a board to Gary Kasparov, though he was not familiar with the small changes for the Cochin Asha board. The game was played with cowrie shells for dice. By then, each player had 12 pieces, also shells, and the placement of the 20 squares had shifted slightly. But it was clearly the descendant of the game played in their ancestral homeland of Babylon 4,600 years ago. She told him it was a popular pastime for women and girls when she was growing up and that she had played it with her aunts. As it transpired, he beat her the first time and Finkel says - I did a terrible thing tactlessly and won, Ruby was hurt, her face fell…so they played again, and Ruby won.

Now we take it from Ruby who had taken her Aliyah and moved to Israel in 1946.

The ninth day of the month of Ab is a day of twenty-five hours of fasting and lamenting in memory of the destruction of both the First and the Second Temples of worship in Jerusalem and the dispersion of the Jews. For some unknown reason, the Cochin Jews called that day “Seerya.” In Cochin, the first nine days of the month of Ab are days of mourning. We did not eat meat on those days. The shohet puts away his knife till the end of the ninth day. People did not dress well, and no weddings or any other celebration took place. Those nine days were considered to be a bad time for the Jews. It was said that you should not go to dangerous places or leave the children alone, or an old man called “Seeriya Mutha” would come after you.

The Jews had special games for that season, at the beginning of Ab. The men used to gamble with a special kind of coconut…..The ladies and girls usually played a game called Aasha during that season. We made circles on a piece of plank, something like the game called damka. Aasha is played with twelve small shells for each of the two players. You throw five larger cowrie shells with one of them broken on the back, and you move the shells according to the number you get from the throw.

We did not take this game very seriously then. It was just a board game like many other board games. But recently Mr. Koder of Cochin gave an old Aasha board to someone from the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. They put it in their catalog, which came to the attention of Dr. Irving Finkel, an Assyriologist from the British Museum in London. The British Museum has collected a number of game boards from archaeological sites all over the world. One of these game boards which was found in Ur Kasdin (the country where Father Abraham was born) had some similarity to this Cochin game of Aasha. Though the boards were found, no rules were found.

It must have been in 1987- Dr. Finkel thought that this royal game from Ur must have gone with the Jews who escaped to South India from Babylon. By looking for someone who knows how to play this game of Aasha, they found me in Israel. I left Cochin forty-one years ago, and nobody has played this game since! There are only two or three of us left now from the old generation. So, I gave all the rules of the above game to Dr. Finkel for the book he is writing of all the games they found.

In those days we used to say that the twelve shells for Aasha represent the twelve tribes of Israel, who fought each other, and the five shells represent the fifth month of the Hebrew calendar, which is the month of Ab. But recently I was reading the story of King Shaul and King David. When Shaul died in the war with the Philistines, the kingdom should go to his son, but there were others who wanted it to be given to David. So Shaul’s commander in chief— Abner—and Yoab—the commander-in-chief of David—stood up for their masters. Both these men were helped by twelve great men each, and there was a great fight between these two sides when many people died. Perhaps this game of twelve killing each other is in memory of that. I am not sure.

One could assume that the name Aasha has probably been derived from Aseb, the Egyptian name of the game. Outside Egypt, versions of Aseb have also been found in Sudan, Crete, and other nations. Aseb is also a race game, in the same category as Senet and the ‘Royal Game of Ur’, but with a much shorter playing duration, and somewhat quicker and simpler, a game of chance with little strategy involved.

It is understood that this game was played by the Pardesi or white Jews of Cochin, but Ruby confirms that she and her friends played the game. But Ruby and others mentioned in her book are considered desi or black Jews (Ruby’s dissatisfaction with the white Jews and their demeaning attitude towards her community is clear in her accounts), so it seems to have been popular with all the Cochin Jews. Was it brought in by the most ancient Jews who came to Cochin following the upheaval at Jerusalem or was it a later import from the region through the Pardesi Jews? It remains unclear, but the fact of the matter is that the game as played in Cochin bears more resemblance to the ancient version at Ur, and had not mutated much over 4,600 years, compared to the evolutions of the game in the Middle East. Interestingly, the 1968 Cochin Synagogue (400th anniversary) souvenir states that the Asha board was on display when many luminaries including Indira Gandhi visited.

Though Finkel is now sure that the game moved South East to Cochin, he felt that the shape of the dice was at odds with the stick-type dice found in all other Middle Eastern versions. Having studied the migration of the Chess game from India, he decided to investigate further and check if the game had anything to do with the Indus Valley civilization, and still marvels at how the game lasted for 4,000 plus years, compared to new games which hardly last two Christmases!

Anyway, as it turned out, Finkel went back to India after reading an obscure Indian paper on the existence of similar board games in Vijayanagar and Orissa. The first sighting of the telltale squares on the ground was at a burning ghat in Nagarjuna Konda (dated 3^rd – 4^th century) in Andhra per Krishnamurthy who wrote it.  He asks - What on earth would a burning ground have to do with this? Did they play the game while waiting for the dead body to burn? It had nothing to do with the Jews of Cochin. Next, he went to Orissa and saw the same game on the 11th-century Kedareshwar temple grounds at Bhuvaneshwar, first thing in the morning – the game of Ur, again in India! Finkel says – It was like I saw the game wherever I went!  And he later saw the same game at Hampi and Sri Lanka. But barring Cochin, where it managed to survive in a virtual time capsule down into modern times, it became obsolete everywhere and there are no other documents or game rules from the other Indian locales. Finkel concludes therefore that the game probably originated in Dholavira in Gujarat circa 3,000 BC. Dholavira is located on the Tropic of Cancer, and is one of the five largest Harappan sites, also the most prominent of archaeological sites in India belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization. It then moved westwards to the Babylonian kingdoms, and Ceylon, following the trade routes, and came back to Cochin. Are there other places where the game was played? Perhaps, only time will tell…

Finkel adds - At any rate, whatever the details may turn out to be, there can be no doubt that the Game of Twenty Squares, stretching in one form or another from the early third millennium BC to the end of the second millennium AD is the longest running board game in the history of the world.

Somebody who reads this carefully is bound to ask – what about the Zodiac sings in the Ur game? Finkel speculates on the astronomical significance and explains how certain squares portended good fortune: one square would bring "fine beer"; another would make a player "powerful like a lion."

According to Finkel’s paper, this is a summary

Pegasus -One who sits in a tavern

Aries -A beer vat(?) will turn away

Pleiades/Taurus -I will pour out the dregs for you

Gemini -You will find a friend

Cancer -You will stand in exalted places

Leo -You will be powerful like a lion

Virgo -You will go up the path

Libra -Like one who weighs up silver

Scorpius -You will draw fine beer

Sagittarius -You will cross the ditch

Capricornus -Like one who owns a herd

Aquarius -You will cut meat

While the Ur tablet scribe suggests that the 12 squares of the board associated with the zodiac represent the twelve portions of the heavens, Ruby connects them to the later Biblical story. Rather sophisticated, Finkel says that at least four out of five bird names were also used to denote astronomical constellations, showing that they had definite astral associations.

Reminding you of Dumbledore from Harry Potter, Irving Finkel is a very enthusiastic speaker, and his speeches are such great fun. You can follow his speeches on many topics and I will write about his trip to Alleppey to recreate the Ark of Noah, soon. Also, I will give you details of other clues about the way Vedic cultures and civilizations moved westward, and some related archeological finds.

Thanks again to Arun at Palghat who ran the Pallankuzhi challenge recently, which spurred me to action- There are multiple names for it in South India, Pallankuzhi in Tamil, Chenne Mane in Tulu, Aliguli Mane in Kannada, Vamana Guntalu in Telugu, Kuzhipara in Malayalam and Ekke in Konkani. While both Pallankuzhi and the Game of Ur are ancient board games, the key difference is that Pallankuzhi is a "mancala" style game where players move stones between pits on a board, capturing the opponent's pieces, when possible, while the Game of Ur is a race-based game where players move pieces around a set path using dice to determine movement.

While many people believe it originated in India, again a topic which needs investigation like this, it is thought that it came out of the Arabic ‘mancala’, a game which perhaps originated in Africa. It was played in groups or between two and in theory can go on for days! The game used to be popular among children and older people and encouraged children to master counting and improve their hand-eye coordination. While we know this deceptively simple game of 'pits and pebbles' was played in ancient Ghana and Sudan as long ago as 1600 BC, a stone board discovered in Jordan may date back to 5,870 BCE. That would place Mancala in the Neolithic era, or the Stone Age! The version known as Owari is still popular in West Africa and the Caribbean with local and international tournaments, while the version popular in southern India is called Pallankuzhi.

I am sure all this would have delighted some readers, bored others to death, or wasted a perfectly valuable 30 minutes for an unfortunate few. But spend a while in thought, on how things happen, and what you can learn from something you find in your backyard if you relentlessly went after it!

References

Ruby of Cochin - An Indian Jewish Woman Remembers– Ruby Daniels, Barbara Johnson

The Royal Game of Ur – Persian Wonders Dr Irving Finkel

The Royal Game of Ur - Play the Oldest Board Game on Record – Deb Amlen (NY Times – 17-11-22)

Traditional board games: From Kochi to Iraq – S Priyadarshini (The Hindu, Oct 1,2015)

It isn’t a game for idiots - GUERNSEY PRESS – 24-06-24

Playing with the past: a framework for studying south Asian board games - Ramesh Gowri Raghavan (Instucen Trust 2019)

 

Pics – courtesy Wikimedia, thanks to the authors. 

Aasha board - Asha game board, Cochin, India, Early 20th century, Wood and cowrie shells, H: 12; L: 50; W: 22 cm, Gift of Satoo and Gladys Koder, Cochin, B84.0315, Photo © The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, by Oleg Kalashnikov

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Idli – A Delectable Dish

And its origins

Without a doubt, it is a favorite of mine, and I eat a couple of fluffy Idli’s manufactured to perfection by my wife, for breakfast, at least two or three days every week. Sometimes, it is eaten with chutney, or with onion chutney (Ulli Sammandhi) made the Palghat way, but most of the time with gunpowder or Chutney podi. We have quite an assortment of these podi’s - 777, Annapurna, Brahmins, etc., on standby in the cupboard, but again, the homemade version Shoba makes rules the roost. Surely, when those steamed Idlis are dipped in the podi mixed with some oil, and chomped down, the day usually goes well.

A few studies and research have been carried out on the origins of this simple soul food, and it can be seen in the poetic works of erstwhile writers and poets, who have not failed to praise versions of the dish, though it may not have been quite the Idli we eat today, but a primitive version cooked in some fashion, perhaps not steamed, and using only certain kinds of lentils. Using terms such as snow-white incarnations of the celestial moon on your plate, it was equated to solidified lunar rays, made from the foam of the celestial Ganga, settling down as an early morning frost, or even as globular deposits of boiled nectar!! And these mentions go as far back as 1,000 years!

Over the years it has found great popularity, and the most fervent Idli ambassador has been none other than our eminent politician and writer Shashi Tharoor. His stories and experiences with the dish are fascinating and his ferocious counterattack during the infamous Idli-gate on the Brit Ed Anderson, who had the temerity to call it the most boring food in the world, enlivened social media for some days! Then again, other luminaries have expressed a fondness for it, Indira Gandhi was one, and now there is US Vice President Kamala Harris who seems to enjoy the dish.

To those who have not had the good fortune of eating Idlis, I suggest that they head to the nearest South Indian restaurant, most big cities boast one or two and order a plate (yes, they are certified Kosher, halal in NYC). They are white steamed soft and porous items, circular of course, and made of a batter of fermented rice and lentils (urad dal) mixed in an exact proportion, with some fenugreek. The type of rice and the proportions are a closely held secret in many homes, and are said to be passed on from mother to daughter or daughters-in-law! The soaked pulses are ground in a mixer (stone grinders were in vogue during my childhood days) and allowed to ferment overnight before it is steamed in a special-purpose Idli steamer, which has several racks with depressions where the batter is poured. The chutneys that go along with them are a chapter by themselves, there are so many varieties and then there is the veritable sambar which it is usually paired with. Once a South Indian breakfast staple, it has become a healthy choice in most Indian restaurants, eaten at other times as well, or always part of the breakfast buffets. In some Indian cities, one can also come across Idli corners or roadside thattukada vendors serving it at nightfall.

There is no dearth of articles purporting to be the final word on the history of the dish, many have been printed, published, copied, and forwarded, but by and far are adapted using the conclusions arrived at by the esteemed KT Achaya, India’s well-known food historian. Some have thus concluded that it was imported from Indonesia while others have happily accepted the incredible conclusions attributed to Lissie Collingham and others, of its purported Arab origins. Anyway, I decided to don the thinking cap, peruse available sources, and draft here a concise study on its origins. So, here goes!

At the outset, one aspect is very clear, that a version or versions of the dish were popular in the Kannada-speaking, Marathi, and Gujarati areas of the Indian West Coast. Tamil, Telugu, and Malayali regions seem to have been happy with the Kanji (rice gruel) for breakfast, until the 19^th or 20^th century, though scant references to tiffin’s can be found here and there, including the Dosa, mainly as tiffins. The first mentions of the Idli as a food item are therefore found in Marathi and Kannada writings, as uncovered by PK Gode and HG Narahari. As a popular dish, it moved with the Kannadigas and Marathas to the Tamilakam, post the Vijayanagar epoch, as well as Andhra and much later, to Malabar and Travancore. However, as you will see later, there is a potential for a Tamil origin as well.

Let’s start by taking a look at the earliest study on the subject, conducted and documented by Prof PK Gode from Pune. Parashuram Krishna Gode, a Sanskrit and Prakrit scholar, and Indologist, was the first Curator of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, and cultural history was his forte. His 1955 article attempts to tabulate the advent of the dishes Idli and Dose between 1100 and 1900, and provides many a reference to their early versions, reading through ancient works.

Gode’s conclusions mention that the Sanskrit Manasollasa of the Chalukya King Someswara composed in 1130 was the earliest work mentioning something similar to the Idli. He identifies the Idarika as its possible precursor prepared from the fine flour of masa (beans) made into small circular balls; which were cooked and then spiced by the use of the powder of marica (black pepper), ghee, hingu (Asafetida), and the powder of jiraka (cumin-seeds). A second reference in Prakrit, the Supasanahacaria composed by Lakshmanagani in 1143 AD, tells the story of a young wastrel Datta who is forever enjoying life and wanders around carrying with him his favorite foods, and among many others is listed the Iddariya or the Iddarika. All this shows us that iddariya enjoyed some popularity as a delicious dish in Gujarat and Saurashtra in the first half of the 12th Century. He adds that though Idli is a Canarese and a South Indian dish, it appears to have been popular in Gujarat in the 12th Century and Maharastra up to the 16th Century, as will be seen from Saint Ekanatha’s mention of it among other popular dishes like puriya, kshiraghariya, etc. As an additional South Indian link, he locates it the Ramanuja Champu 1600 AD, which identifies Idli to be round, and made fragrant with ginger, cumin seeds, and asafetida (ramatha) and concludes with a reference to the mention of Idli in the Bjojanakuthuhala from the 17th century written by Raghunatha Navahastha, showing that it was popular in Maharashtra in the 17th century.

Nevertheless, the 20^th century Marathi Sabdakosha mentions the word idari-li as Canarese and explains it as a dish made of the fermented flour of beans (udada) and rice with salt, etc - and that the idari is said to resemble the full moon in point of shape and color (namely circular shape and whiteness. In conclusion, he brings up the Canarese dish Kadabu but is not inclined to accept it as a relative of the Idli since the preparation is quite different. He then suggested that Canarese scholars should make further studies to determine the exact connections.

Quick to answer Gode’s request was HG Narahari also from Poona, who perused Canarese works and opined thus in his paper ‘Idli in Kannada literature’.

His investigation reveals that - Iddarige or Iddalige appears to be the name by which the dish, now popular as Idli, was known to the Kannadigas of old. He locates an early mention of the Iddarige in the Supasastra of Jayabandhunandana, dating to the early 10th century or thereabouts, a dish prepared from ground black gram (urdina bele), mixed with curd and water and spiced with Asafoetida (In-gu), Cumin seeds (jirage), Coriander leaves (Kottumbari) and black pepper (menasu). Following this, he sees it in the Parsvanathapurana of Parsvapandita (1205 AD) mentioned with other dishes, as Iddalige, full of flavor and served floating in melted butter! The Santisvarapurana of Kamalabhava (1235 AD), likens Iddaliges served for dinner, to balls of the foam of the celestial river Ganga. Mangarasa III (1508 AD) in his Samyaktvakaumudi mentions it as Iddalige, while the Saundaravilasa of Annaji (1600 AD) shows that it was served in a hotel and likens its brilliance to the cool-rayed moon! The Jain poet Terkanambi Bommarasa in his Uddina Kadabu (1485 AD) likens it to globular deposits of boiled nectar or to solidified lunar rays! But Narahari concludes his study with a cryptic remark - In Karnatak at least the modern Idli is nothing more than a diminutive form of the ancient giant dish Huygadabu. Large vessels specially designed for its preparation are to be found even now in all those Karnataka homes which still keep the old tradition.

But the question remained- while Iddarige was a lentil dish cooked in some way, there is no mention of fermentation or steaming as well as the addition of rice as associated with Idlis. To confuse the matter further there was this oft-followed dictum which went back to the Manu Smriti – verses 5.9,5.10 which in essence stated- All soured substances except Curd are forbidden – with soured defined vaguely as - soured substances that have become sour by fermentation; and those that turn sour by the contact of flowers and roots.  Now that presents a perplexing question – was it for that reason only eaten by lower classes, thereby rarely getting a mention in Brahmanical texts? I don’t know, let’s leave it there for now. I searched around for the Huyga dabbu and such large vessels, but could not find any, readers are welcome to add or comment on this, as well as the similarity to the kadabu.

Now let us get to the works of KT Achaya, oft mentioned, quoted, and attributed. Using words carefully, he introduces the steamed Idli as a rice cake, and that while Tamil Sangam literature from the sixth century mentioned the dosai, they did not mention the Idli, though they are mentioned in Kannada literature four centuries later. He adds that the Dukkais are mentioned in Gujaratiu literature from 1068, though Dhoklas are only mentioned in 1520, as a steamed dish. He then goes on to list the inferences of Gode and Narahari, and agrees that three elements of Idli making are missing – namely use of rice, fermentation and finally steaming. He also mentions that Urad dhal outcomes are off-white, and snowy white results poetically described are difficult to explain, moreover, the vasena-polu from Andra for example is a urad dal or millet steamed cake, like the iddarige, but different from the Idli (I will get to this later, it is similar to the Konkani Moode). He introduces the reference to the 920 AD work Vaddaradhan by Shivakotyacarya’s which mentions it among the 18 items to be served by a lady offering refreshments to a Brahmachari!

Indonesian connection

At this stage, Achaya introduces the foreign element, to close the loop concerning fermentation and the use of rice. Quoting him - The Indonesians ferment a variety of products (soybeans, groundnuts, fish) and have a product very similar to the Idli, called kedli. It has been suggested that the cooks who accompanied the Hindu kings of Indonesia during their visits home (often enough to look for brides) between the eight and twelfth centuries AD, brought innovative fermentation techniques to South India. Perhaps the use of rice along with the dhal was an essential part of the fermentation step which requires mixed microflora from both grains to be effective. Yeasts have enzymes which break down starch to simpler forms, and bacteria (which dominate the Idli fermentation) carry enzymes for souring and leavening through the formation of carbon dioxide gas.

I could not find any dish named Kedali in Indonesia (there is a kedali tree in Java – Radermachera in Malaya), so it became apparent that Achaya was perhaps phonetically connecting the Idli to the Tape Ketan or Tape Ketella, which however is nothing like Idli. The Ketan is a combo of ragi and rice packed in leaves, while the Ketella uses casava or tapioca instead of rice. It is fermented, sweet, and alcoholic. Kedli and KIdli also failed to connect, the steamed rice cakes of SE Asia are named lontong/ketupat/nasi impit – where cooked jasmine rice is packed with fragrant pandan leaves, aromatic lemongrass, and a dash of salt, into banana leaves boiled, and served sliced as disks. The Konkani moode looks somewhat similar but is made differently. BTW, Achaya also mentions a Czech dish named Knedlik (pronounced needleek), a similar steamed product.

But then again, I could be wrong, there may have been something called Kedli, readers please direct me to any Indonesian site which explains this and I will correct this paragraph. Until this is proven, I can only say that the Kedli theory is just a suggestion.

Arab connection

This was the one that rankled, and is quoted by all and sundry - Another theory argued by other food historians like Lizzie Collingham from Britain and Kristen J. Gremillion from America, claim that Idli was actually introduced by Arab traders, when they married and settled down in the southern parts of India during the 9th to the 12th century. It is said that these Arab settlers were particular about their diet, and often wanted halal food but couldn’t clarify that too well to the local populace, which led to a lot of confusion.

Arabs started to make rice balls, which would be “flattened and eaten with a coconut paste”, as noted in ‘Encyclopedia of Food History’, edited by Collingham and Gordon Ramsay of Britain, Oxford University Press, and ‘Seed to Civilisation, The Story of Food’, by Heiser Charles B, Harvard University Press, 1990. But this is being questioned by modern food historians like Lizzie Collingham, Kristen Gremillion, Raymond Grew, Makhdoom Al-Salaqi (Syria), Zahiruddin Afiyaab (Lebanon), among others and references available at Al-Azhar’s University Library (Cairo, Egypt) also suggest that Arab traders in the southern belt gave Idli when they settled there after marrying girls from that part.

This was quite strange as an inference and appeared concocted. I could not find this encyclopedia, but Collingham in her book Curry, makes only a brief mention of Idlis, nothing about its origin, Ramsey has made a visit or two to S India for his TV series, Gremillion deals with Anthropology and American Indians, and the listed Arab historian’s unknown figures. Heiser does not mention Idlis, Mary Ellen Snodgrass who compiled an encyclopedia, connects Idli to a 6^th-century Tamil festival booklet, sans details.

Coming to the point, there are many documents and details of what the Pardesi Arabs and local Moplahs, Marakkars, and Labbais who were their progeny, ate from their early contacts. Idli was not among them, though many other rice items such as the Pathiri (rice roti), Pongappam (fermented rice batter appam), Kinnathappam (steamed sweet rice cake), and many others, steamed, fried dried or in oil figure, but nothing close to Idli’s – a dish which is ground, fermented and steamed.  There was no difficulty with halal, they could procure live animals (except cows) when they wanted and halal meat was never an issue in Malabar, Konkan, or along the way. Fragrant meat curries, flavored rice dishes, and sweets have been a fine result of this intermingling of cultures, but surely not the Idli.

One could ruminate on whether the Ethiopian Injera made of flatbread fermented teff flour and then steamed had some connections, but it is tenuous. Throughout Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, other Middle Eastern countries, Egypt, and erstwhile Persian regions, as well as Turkey, I have not come across anything like the Idli, though they have flour pancakes.

A natural development? Chinese influence?

Xuan Zang mentions in the seventh century AD that Indians did not have a steamer used for cooking rice, but the prevalence all over the country of numerous steamed dishes like the Idli, dhokla, modakam, and puttu indicates that steaming was quite common, and one can see that a special pot was not needed for this. Nevertheless, special-purpose Idli steamers did make their entry, like the Idli-Patram, over time. A 12^th-century account related to Prithviraj Chauhan’s court (1149-92) mentions a Khirora steamed rice ball, making it clear that steaming was prevalent.

Achaya wonders (1994) if the Thosai mentioned in 6^th-century literature was fried or if it was fermented batter spread on a tava, predating the Idli. He also records that the circular appam is mentioned together with the idi-appam in the 5^th century Perumpanuru and that it was fermented rice batter.

But there is a potential Chinese link, and a link to the old Tamilakam Ma'abar which included the parts of today’s Kerala – Tuticorin (Kayal) and Quilon were the ancient ports where Chinese traded in the past. Quilon and Kerala have so many Chinese links and you can see significant Chinese influence – the fishing nets - Cheena Vala, chillies - Cheena Mulaku, pots -Cheena Chatti, Cheena Bharani, Cheena padakkam, and so many more. There were many other ports in the Tamilakam where the Chinese traded.

The earliest Chinese links date back to the 7^th century and Chinese settlements existed at Quilon (see my article Quilon and its trade links with China) with traders and sailors spending many months living there. That said, it is only natural to assume that dumpling steamers were introduced in Quilon/Tuticorin by the Chinese and possibly adapted by the locals to make versions similar to the Idli. They must have used a version of the dosa batter (rice plus urad) and steamed it to make large Idlis.

I am inclined to believe that a rice version found popularity in the Tamilakam like the Thosai mentioned in the 6^th century. In the Portuguese annals, one can find references to the fried version in the 16th century (1534) – the Paniyaram, its seller and her husband’s torn ear lobe, which started a huge caste war between the Paravas and the Marakkars/Labbais of Tuticorin and ended up with the arrival of Joao Da Cruz, St Xavier and the conversion of the entire clan to Christianity! (for details refer to my earlier article on the subject). The Paniyaram, a fried version of the Idli batter with spices seems to be more Chettinad than Muslim.

My conclusion is that the old versions of Idli were perhaps closer to the flat, large steamed Ramasseri or Kancheepuram Idlis. Later versions became smaller with the development of fine Idli patrams in rich households, as we see them today. This requires further study, and I will get to it while studying appams and the puttu.

If indeed the Idli was a natural development from the iddarike and the dhokla, it traveled with the Kannadigas and Marathas to Madurai where they settled down. The Siva Pallakiseva Prabandham, a seventeenth-century work by King Sahahaji, mentions Idlis. Perhaps the Sambar, apparently of Maratha origin, came to be paired with Idli’s during the reign of the Maratha kings at Madurai, then again as it was earlier popular in Maharashtra, the use of dal curries with Idlis may have started even earlier.

The popularization in Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay was by Udupi and Palghat Iyer hotels that initially served Madrasi bachelor employees on the prowl, a quick and cheap breakfast. Thankappan Nair explains its introduction in Calcutta over many a page, well worth reading.

We have so many versions today, the Rava Idli (I recounted its story some years ago), the Kanchipuram Idli, The Mini and masala Idli, the Oats Idli, Quinoa Idli, Pesarattu Idli, Paneer Idli, Sweet Idli, the Khusboo Idli (named after the unconventional Tamil cinema star - spongy because of the use of castor seeds) and many more to come.  Idly upma from leftover Idlis proved to be a good idea! The Konkani Moode is cylindrical and steamed in screw pine leaves. The unconventional ones that most readers may not know are the two varieties from Palghat, namely the Ramasseri Idli (pictured above on banana leaves) and the Rangayyan or the spicy ‘Brahmin meat’ Idli.

Idli’s were served in certain legs of Indian Airlines in the past (an irate passenger complained of getting a toothpick in his Idli at 30,000’– now if you wonder how that came to happen, that is indeed how a housewife knows if the Idli is cooked – push in a toothpick, if the batter is seen sticking to the withdrawn pick, it is not yet ready), but I am not sure they do these days. Though not connected, I can tell you that Chinese domestic flights serve Kanji for breakfast and they are quite good!

According to Thankappan Nair’s research on Idli eating competitions, K Ramamurthy who gobbled 34 Idlis in 15 minutes for a Delhi competition in 1976 was the first national champion, followed by the 11-year-old Swetha. The 6-footer Easwara Iyer, a Lok Sabha member, and a stalwart of the Bhim club in Cochin unfortunately withdrew after eating just 5 (I can easily beat that) in 1980, but Gopakumar and James Koshy triumphed eating 27 each. Sadly, Prasad of Kollengode died after failing to swallow what he ate, choking on his Idlis, though winning the local 2-minute eating contest in 2001 at Vattekad. But Theeta Rappai, the monster eater from Trichur beats them all, he used to eat 75 in a sitting!

The story of the venerable Puttu, another favorite of mine, and further exploration of Chinese links will follow, but then, here at home, our stock of Idli in the fridge has been depleted, so let me digress and head to the kitchen to convince my better half in completing a new batch for next week.

References

Indian Linguistics Vol 15, 17 (papers by PK Gode and HG Narahari)

South Indians in Kolkata – P Thankappan Nair

A historical dictionary of Indian food (1998) – KT Achaya

Indian food: a historical companion (1994) – KT Achaya

Setting the Table - KT Achaya’s pioneering scholarship on Indian food, Mayukh Sen Caravan

Historic Alleys - Quilon and its trade links with China

Maddy’s Ramblings - Sir John of the Cross – The First Malabar Envoy to Portugal and The torn earlobe and the horse trader

Idli gate – some details

VKN Story - Varada narrates Prathal  

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