Keshavan !!

I was making  pancake for school lunch this morning and while spreading butter on the hot pancake, I ended up thinking about my maternal grandmother. My grandmothers from either side differed greatly even though both were strong willed and extremely stubborn ! Both were very good cooks, however it was my maternal grandmother who loved to cook all sort of things. We always had a standard menu in Chengannur house consisting of fish/meat curry, thoran and moru where as my maternal grandmother loved to cook pasta and noodles.

Souring milk to make butter was considered a waste in chengannur house, as milk was to be used only to make coffee or yogurt and any excess was to be sold.  whereas my maternal grandmother loved to make butter at home because she used the butter to bake cakes..(cake was considered a luxury in chengannur house!)

My earliest memory of my maternal grandmother is  of me sitting on the kitchen floor, which I wasn’t allowed to do normally as only servants sat on the floor. But in this particular occasion, I was allowed to sit on the floor as my grandmother was worried that I would fall down from the bench while she the churned butter. ( perhaps, she knew that I never sat still and she must have been more concerned about the pot than me!) The pot that held the soured milk didn’t have a flat bottom and to prevent it from toppling over, Ammachi kept it on top of a ring made of coir. At some stage, there was a rope holding the pot, but I can’t remember how it was tied. The reason I liked sitting on the floor was because,every now and then Ammachi would stop churning and scoop a bit of butter with her fingers and give me to lick. Her butter churner was plastic and I think it would have been a red colour one when she bought it. Over the years, it faded and became a very pale pink colour paddle and the handle was very oily.. after she finished churning the butter, I got to lick the paddle clean ! But it wasn’t just the butter that made me cherish those moments. It was the songs. Ammachi always sang songs while she was cooking. My favourite was

Alappuzhakkaran Keshavan Angiley,

enikkoru kudam thoda venam..

neram velukkumbol, muttam adikkumbol

koode adikkana thoda venam..

ammayi ammayum, njanum pinagnumbol,

koode pinangunna thoda venam..

This was a very long song.. I don’t even know if thoda was the right word..It is meant to be the huge/heavy   earrings older Malayalee women used to wear in the early part of 20th century that used to make the ear lobes stretch and touch the shoulder ! It was supposed to be very fashionable at that time.  I remember my great grandmother with a huge hole in her ear. I don’t remember if she wore the thoda all the time because I only met her once and I must have been about 3 or 4 years old and she wasn’t wearing a thoda then. I do remember seeing the thoda in my grandmother’s jewellery box years later and the places where the gold was worn off, you could see the black lead filling. I assume eventually the thoda was melted and made in to something else.

So, does any of you know the Keshavan angiley song? I have asked so many of my family members, none of them remember the song..

5 thoughts on “Keshavan !!

  1. Hey, I know that song. Had forgotten about it altogether! don’t know the lyrics as well, though. What I know us slightly different.

    my mother used to sing the first line same, and the second line used to be
    Muttamadikkumbol tharikidathithaI
    Vellam Korumbol tharikidathithaI

    At least that us what I remember. Supposedly, she once slept of during evening prayers and was dreaming that she was dancing on drive-thru when she was a kid.

  2. I hit enter before I wanted to.

    Supposedly, my mother slept off during evening prayers and was dreaming that she was on stage, dancing. When it was her turn to recite the prayers, she sang this song aloud instead of the prayers. Let me find out if any of my cousins know the song. every one knows the incident.

  3. Thoda is the heavy earring worn by Malayali women. It actually creates a hole in your ear lobe because of its weight and that was supposed to be beautiful!! If you visited palakkad, you could see shining diamond ‘mookutti’ too..

    My memory is of seeing old women in Kerala, all dressed in white, sometimes with out a blouse, just a ‘mundu’ to cover themselves, with heavy bangles (kada) made out of gold, basically sitting on summer afternoons in their houses. It was some sight for a kid visiting Kerala in the summer. Some of the women ate ‘pogala’ (tobacco).. one I remember had not teeth and the other one had red colored ones!!

    • MS: You described my great grandmother..I only met her once. She had no teeth and therefor I didn’t understand a word she said, her ear lobes touched her shoulder and it was scary and she chewed pokala and when I saw her, she was sitting on the parapet and was holding two fingers on her lips and was spitting the tobacco out and it missed my head by mere centimeters..I can’t remember what she wore that day.. it was something white, but I don’t think it was chatta and mundu..

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