The ancient Calvathy mosque is steeped in history. PRIYADARSSHINI SHARMA traces its origin and antiquity as it is poised to get two more floors to accommodate believers.
WHEN IT comes to antiquity, every nook and corner of Fort Kochi has a timeless past. While the St Francis Church and the Jewish synagogue hog the limelight as `must-see’ in a traveller’s itinerary, many are unaware of the very ancient Calvathy Jamath Mosque, which exists rather silently along the road connecting the two famous monuments.
It is a historical curiosity that so many varied communities who came to Kochi in succession, settled here to form a long lasting affair with the land and became an indelible part of it. None rampaged the land but settled down harmoniously, imparting richness to its history. The Arabs, who were the first to come for purposes of trade, established places of worship, to which the Calvathy mosque belongs.
Dating back to the 14th century, it is claimed that the traders, in order to perform their religious rites, built it in the year1384, where historical evidence of records of prayers exist for the last 619 years. Records tell about a trader, Makkar, from Parapanangadi who elevated the existing structure to its present form. From then on several additions were made to it, with the passage of time. The mosque is credited with the fact that many distinguished personalities like Makki Thangal, renowned for his Quranic interpretations and literary works is buried in the adjoining cemetery, just as the mausoleum of Faridudeen Aulia, is erected on the Eastern side of the mosque. The tomb of Faridudeen Aulia, is renowned throughout the country, as he was a preacher of the Koran and was respected and loved by one and all. Thus on Thursdays and Sundays special prayers are offered to him.
Built in a typical Kerala style the mosque has a timber ceiling and no minarets. A water tank in the centre is in keeping with the traditional architecture. The 2-acre plot which houses the mosque has a burial ground and is planted with many rare trees. Presently plans are afoot to build extensions to the mosque. Says the secretary Mr.A.K RajaAnwar, ” We propose to build two floors of 4000 sq ft to accommodate the believers. It will be in keeping with the style.” Managed till a few years ago by the well-known stevedoring Poovath family, the mosque was managed by Paree Moopan, Abdul Rahimkutty Moopan and Bava Moopan.
In the 1940’s a controversy led to the closure of the mosque, which was resolved in the hands of a popular and loved Imam Maroham Mohammed Ali Musaliar. Hailing from Aluva he was respected and followed the Shariat of Islam. He managed the premises for a good 40 years where, besides managing the day-to-day affairs, he also planted a variety of rare trees in the mosque grounds. In the late sixties, prominent persons like T.K Pareekutty, Abdul Rahim Kutty Moopan, Poovath Hassan, V.K. Hamza, Mohammed Koya, with Poovath Hassan as president formed a working committee to run the mosque.
Today, the Jamath Pally manages the mosque along with a few other mosques in the area. A laudable feature of the Calvathy mosque is that its burial grounds are open to other sects of the Muslim community too.
Calvathy, facing the Western side of the mosque, was the first wharf in Kochi and had an active maritime tradition, much before Sir Robert Bristow planned the present port at Willingdon Island. It was the ancient hub of all sea faring activities, in sharp contrast to the neglected locality it is today. An ancient structure like the Calvathy mosque remains deprived of its historical due and it is time the mosque finds a rightful place among the sites and sounds that contribute to the antiquity of Fort Kochi .
source: http://www.hindu.com / The Hindu – Online Edition / Home> Features> Magazine / by Priyadarsshini Sharma / Thursday – May 15th, 2003
WHILE THE last resting place of Sheikh Ibrahim Zauq in Paharganj has been restored some respectability, thanks to the Supreme Court’s intervention, the graves of Khwaja Mir Dard and Hakim Momin Khan Momin behind the Maulana Azad Medical College are still a picture of neglect. It’s high time something was done to save them.
Mir Dard Road leads to the grave of the great Urdu poet, but the land surrounding it has been sold by the unscrupulous, and palatial buildings have come up around it, leaving only a small plot for the mazar. The grave of Momin is within a boundary wall, along with the graves of Shah Walliullah, the saint whom the poet held in high reverence, and members of the Shah’s family.
Over 40 years ago the hilly land near the grave was bulldozed and plans made to do away with the mazars. A great lover of Momin, Sher Ali Mewati heard of this and came from Mewat (Haryana) to save them. It is said that he lay on the road in front of Teen Murti House and did not get up even when Pandit Nehru was being driven out in his car.
Nehru got down from the vehicle and enquired what the matter was. When Sher Ali told him that the graves of Shah Walliullah and Momin were about to be bulldozed, the Prime Minister got very upset and drove to the spot. The demolition was immediately halted, and later Sher Ali Mewati was able to get the mazars repaired and enclosed in a boundary wall.
The area where this kabristan is situated is known as Mehdian. Sher Ali Mewati, they say, actually lay before a bulldozer to stop the demolition and his leg was fractured in the process. Whatever may be the truth, the area needs another man like him to preserve it from encroachment.
Khwaja Mir Dard was born in 1719 in Delhi and died on January 7, 1785. “Mysticism ran in the family, for he was descended on his father’s side from Khwaja Baha-ud-Din Naqshbandi, and on the mother’s side from Hazrat Ghaus-e-Azam,” says Professor Muhammad Sadiq.”Dard studied theology with his father, and learnt the art of poetry from Khan-e-Arzu. For some time he was in the army, but he gave it up to lead a life of retirement and study and, at 39, on his father’s death, succeeded him as the head of a sanctuary.”
The vanity and unreality of life and its joys and sorrows, unity of existence, the greatness of man in the hierarchy of life, the mirage of the intellect, praise of intuition, the extinction of self and suspicion of worldly life, pietism, contentment, resignation – nearly one third of his poetry is devoted to these ideas.
Professor Sadiq says that Momin Sadiq’s ancestors had migrated from Kashmir to Delhi. “His father, Hakim Ghulam Nabi, was a physician of note and connected with the imperial court. Momin was born in 1800 and was given that name at the instance of his father’s spiritual guide, Shah `Abdul’ Aziz. His education had been thorough and systematic, as is proved by the embarrassing profusion of technical terms pertaining to medicine, astronomy, mathematics, music, etc., in his qasidas. A man of pleasure in his youth, he forswore his Bohemian ways when he became a disciple of Sayyid Ahmed of Rae Bareily, but he was far too human to sink into a dour puritan. The fruits of his conversion can be studied in his Masnavi-e-Jahadiyya and a few other pieces. He died in 1851.”
Momin is said to have predicted his death in verse, as he was also a najoomi (astronomer-cum-astrologer), saying he would end up with broken arms and legs (“dast-o-bazu”). This is actually what happened years later when he fell from a ladder and died after nine days. His famous couplet, “Tum mere pas hote ho goya/ Jab doosra aur koi nahin hota” made his contemporary Ghalib remark that Momin could take his entire dewan and give him just this pearl of a couplet in exchange.
Momin’s best work is Ab-e-Hayat (Parnassus literally, but water of paradise figuratively) Shouldn’t his grave and that of the great Mir Dard be preserved?
source: http://www.hindu.com / The Hindu – Online Edition / Home> Features> Magazine / Down Memory Lane by R V Smith / Monday – May 24th, 2004
CLASS ACT Tabu is upbeat about her forthcoming movies / Photo: Rajeev Bhatt / The Hindu
A visit to Hyderabad spells more than just work for Tabu. She has finished shooting for a short film on HIV/Aids produced by BBC, but she is in no hurry to pack her bags to Mumbai.
Her new home in Hyderabad is nearing completion and she plans to give the finishing touches. When that’s done, she’ll be back to court the arc lights for a few but coveted projects.
“Things are turning out just as I wanted. Inshallah! I had taken a yearlong self-imposed break after Meenaxi. Feels nice to be working in some good projects again,” she tells us.
The cause comes first
Being a celebrity, she knows that endorsing a cause is like living life on the razor’s edge. Like she says, “I’ll endorse a cause only when I believe in it. For instance, I’d like to do something substantial for the cause of the girl child. But I’d never want to draw unnecessary attention. I prefer the cause being highlighted rather than the celebrity associated with it.”
Talking about the series produced by BBC, Haath Se Haath Mila, she says, “It talks about people affected by HIV and are yet working in that field to create awareness. I shot an episode with one such victim who is doing voluntary work in Hyderabad.”
Bookmark
When Vishal Bharadwaj signed Tabu to play Lady Macbeth in Maqbool, Tabu hadn’t read the Macbeth. And neither did she want to, lest it affect the way she interpreted the film’s script.
But Mira Nair’s screen version of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake was another tale altogether.
“I had read the book much before Mira planned the film. Even back then, I could see myself playing the part of Ashima. As an actor, I am used to associating different characters in a book with different actors.
When the film came my way, I felt like reading the book again. But I resisted that thought since I didn’t want to be influenced too much by the book. I wanted Ashima to turn out the way I had perceived her. It’s not a new character for me. I’ve done strong films like Astitva, Chandni Bar and so on… But the situations that influence Ashima are different. It’s not easy to condense a book into a film. But where Namesake is concerned, Jhumpa Lahiri is pleased with the film.”
The buzz is that the film will be screened at the Cannes Film Festival later in May. Speaking of films that have been inspired by books, Tabu adds, “Very few films do justice to a book. On that account, I enjoyed Bridges of Madison County. Meryl Streep breathed life into the entire film.”
A few good films
In the making are select projects — Kunal Kohli’s Fanaah co-starring Aamir Khan and Kajol, Cheeni Kum with Amitabh Bachchan, and a Tamil film to be directed by Gautam Menon. Having shot for Fanaah in Poland a few weeks ago, Tabu shrugs, “The makers don’t want me to talk about the film now.”
But she is more forthcoming on acting with Amitabh Bachchan.
Remind her that Bachchan had once confessed that one Indian actress he would like to act with is Tabu and the actress smiles, “What can I say? It’s tough to express it in words when someone like him appreciates your work. We’ll start shooting for Cheeni Kum in April. It’s a mature love story, but not a serious film. We both play our respective ages.”
Detractors accuse her of being too selective about her films. Tabu shrugs it off with, “I do projects that I’d like to be associated with. At different points of time, different thoughts have influenced my choice of films. I don’t do a film to prove a point to anyone. I am at ease doing a strong social film and at the same time, I don’t mind doing an entertaining, light-hearted film.
“After almost 18 years in this profession, I think I’m only answerable to the audience if they feel I’ve done a bad job. Acting, in its purest form, has held me in good stead. When I’m focused on that, everything else is secondary.”
source: http://www.hindu.com / The Hindu – Online Edition / Home> Features> Magazine / by Sangeetha Devi K / Thursday – March 09th, 2006
The indelible Madhubala led a tumultuous life albeit with great elegance.
She was the flawless beauty. A woman of resolve and uncanny character. Her mystique and charisma attracted the West to our showbiz shores. More than Raj Kapoor, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand, the cogs in Hollywood wanted to know who she was, so when Hollywood director Frank Capra visited Bombay, all that he wanted to do was meet her. She was the veritable Indian beauty, our answer to Marylin Monroe. But unlike her Hollywood equivalent, she evoked awe and respect in the Hindi film industry. Her sex-appeal was preceded by her tehzeeb. Unlike Marylin who was chided for being the blonde, she was considered a professional par excellence. As the story goes, she was so dedicated that she obsessed about punctuality. In the late ’40s, she reported on the sets of her film a good hour-and-a-half before time. This after she had braved torrential rain, floods and a trip in the local trains. Her then director Kidar Sharma was pleasantly shocked. She continued to display the same commitment even when she was a top-billed star.
A young Madhubala is pictured with her father Ataullah Khan. Her father was a key figure in Madhubala‘s career. He would maintain strict control over who she could meet and where she could go. Reportedly, he even imposed a 7 pm deadline for the actress.
Beauty with a heart
She was the most exquisite woman celluloid ever witnessed. Her beauty had the power to mend broken hearts. Dilip Kumar was nursing heartbreak in 1950 but when he met she on the set of Tarana, it was her fluttering smile that stole his heart. The list of her suitors just went on and on.
Madhubala (R) with co-star Chanchal (L) in Mehlon Ke Khwab. This the mad cap comedy with Kishore Kumar was one of Madhubala’s early foray into comedy.
Prem Nath who was good friends with Dilip Kumar, also vied for her affections. So much so that, his friendship with Dilip apparently went kaput. Despite the flooding interest of men, she never found what she was looking for – true love. But that didn’t change her intrinsic warmth. She was known to be compulsive about lending a helping hand. She was known to give away a purse full of 100 rupee notes to the less fortunate on her sets. She would even greet trespassing paparazzi with her famous melancholic smile.
Light-hearted romances worked for Madhubala too. Movies like Tarana with Dilip Kumar added good steam to her career.
Sweet poison She was the most sought after actress in B-town. She could do comedy, tragedy and romance with consummate ease. But for all the talent in the world, her initial foray as leading lady wasn’t well-received. Barring Mahal (1949) and Tarana (1951) all her initial movies failed at the box-office.
Pradeep Kumar and Madhubala worked together for the first time in Passport. This film was one of the highest grossers of 1961, simply because the audience wanted to see more of the Mughl-E-Azam star.
She was called ‘box-office poison’ and was relegated to films like Lal Dupatta, Singaar and Desh Sewa. But as resolute as she was she bounced back with films like Badal, Sangdil, Mr & Mrs 55 and Howrah Bridge. By the time Mughal-E-Azam hit screens in 1960, she was at the top of her game. Her last film to release was Jwala in 1971 with Sunil Dutt.
(L)Mughl-E-Azam was the epic film in Madhubala’s career. Not only were audiences curious to see her and Dilip Kumar together in the same frame, they wanted to see why the magnum opus took so many years to complete. (R)It was during the shooting of Mughl-E-Azam that the first bulletins of her heart ailment became public. Director K Asif had reportedly got her shackled in real iron chains which hadn’t helped the ailing actress.
Business savvy
With the world at her feet, she could’ve had anything she fancied. But her ambitions were modest. The sole reason she worked in films was because she was the breadwinner of her huge family. In the late ’40s, when she first featured as a lead actress, Suraiya was the top heroine.
In the early ’60s musical comedies had become a staple for star her. Her pairing with Kishore Kumar was being appreciated a lot and one such caper was the fun-filled film Jhumroo.
Call her a beauty with brains because she made sure a dozen producers hired her thanks to her more lucrative deals. She used to sign films at one fifth the price that her contemporaries were charging. The modest remunerations changed into fat pay cheques when she became a star.
After a long period of absence Madhubala tried to comeback to the movies in the late ‘60s. Jwala (1971) with Sunil Dutt released two years after her death.
Tragedy hit
Right through her life, she lived in the shadow of her father Ataullah Khan. He’s known to have controlled what movies she worked in, whom she met and what places she could visit. It was his alleged domination that lead to the unfortunate end of her much-talked about love affair with Dilip Kumar. She had her moments of belligerence, when she attended the premiere of Insaniyat (1955) on Dilip’s arm. But eventually the friction led to a public split, what with Dilip having a showdown in court. The trauma of it all broke her already fragile heart.
Madhubala’s death was a grave loss. Here you can see Prithviraj Kapoor visiting her burial site in Mumbai.
Yes, the most beautiful Indian woman in the world born on Valentine’s Day, February 14, suffered from a ventricular spetal defect, a hole in the heart. Nonetheless, she was able to ward off depression and anguish and tie the knot with Kishore Kumar. But she was slated for a tragic end. Her health deteriorated. Even though Kishore did his best, he couldn’t save the inevitable. She faded to an ailing heart.
source: http://www.filmfare.com / FilmFare.com / Home> Features / by Rachit Gupta, Features Editor / Monday – November 11th, 2013
With barely three weeks for the Lok Sabha election, Kerala’s political parties are grappling with the fallout of defections, new alliances and the challenge from formidable opponents.
But this poll season, it’s business as usual for 36-year-old Abdul Khader–a song writer based in Kochi–as he works overtime in the recording studio, creating songs for the two warring political fronts with the same gusto. Kerala has been a flourishing market for “parody songs” since the 1990s, but a post-digital lull had hit the industry before Assembly and Lok Sabha elections revitalised the market.
Abdul started out with election parodies in 1997. Seventeen years later, he has morphed into a busy producer churning out songs on demand both for the ruling United Democratic Front and the opposition Left Democratic Front.
“This is a fairly easy season because it’s the Lok Sabha election. With 20 constituencies, there’s a maximum of only about 60 candidates to work for. With the Assembly election that covers 140 constituencies, it’s a different scene,” Abdul said.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> National / DHNS , DH News Service / Thiruvananthapuram – March 19th, 2014
Mammootty takes up farming in a battle against chemical fertilisers
SAYING NO TO CHEMICALS Mammootty has turned to natural paddy cultivation.
Mammootty has played farmer in many films. Now, dismayed by the use of chemicals in farming, he has taken the tractor wheel in his own hands. Busy with his main vocation, the actor had given the 17 acres of land he owned in Cheepungal, near Kumarakom in Kottayam district, on lease for paddy cultivation. This season onwards, he says, he will cultivate the paddy himself. Mammootty insists that his renewed interest in farming is not just a hobby or gimmick and reminds sceptics that he hails from a peasant family.
“When I leaarned about natural farming, I got interested,” he says. “This is very natural paddy cultivation by using only natural manure like green leaves, cow dung, etcetera.” Mammootty has no plans of turning to organic farming. He thinks it is not viable.
It was a pleasant surprise for Cheepungal locals when the superstar appeared on the farm last Wednesday in a traditional white dhoti, brown shirt and his favourite sunglasses. Appu, his childhood friend, and KM Hilal, a former Left-wing student leader and now a natural farming proponent, accompanied him to the paddy field. The actor drove the tractor and assisted the workers in transplanting the saplings. Mammootty, who has won the National Award for best actor three times, hopes he can inspire others to turn to natural farming. “For paddy, chemical fertilisers are absolutely unnecessary. Cow dung and cow urine are the best manure,” he says.
Mammootty is keen to protect varieties of paddy seeds that are diminishing due to chemicals and is seeking experts who can guide him. “Our ancestors had 3,000 such seeds and at present only 60 exist,” he says. “These seeds succumbed to pests and pesticides.”
Mammootty seems to have been inspired by the concept of Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF) popularised by agri-scientist Subhash Palekar. This promotes crop rotation, mechanical cultivation, biological pest control and green manure. Earlier, Malayalam actor- director Sreenivasan and director Sathyan Anthikkad were in the news too for similar agricultural ventures.
source: http://www.openthemagazine.com / OPEN Magazine / Home> Open> Regulars / by Shahina KK / July 23rd, 2013
Once upon a time, a queen lost her kingdom to a foreign invader. Under the terms of surrender, she was allowed to retain her title, inheritable by the seniormost member of the royal family. She was also assured an annual payment to maintain her standard of living. It was a generous sum back then. Then came the passage of time. Sovereigns vanished into history and elected governments came into existence. The royal family didn’t live happily ever after. Their annual pension, a fixed sum, was ravaged by inflation.
It began to look smaller and smaller, until it came to a point where it was not even as much as the monthly salary any of them earned.
And then the family decided to make a calculation. When they were first allotted that sum, how much gold could they have bought with it? And how much would that gold be worth today? This figure, they convinced themselves, was the sum that they should logically be getting.
And so they went to the government and asked for it. Else, they demanded their kingdom back. They will probably not get either.
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That, in short, is the story of the Arakkal family that once ruled the city of Cannanore (now Kannur) and Lakshadweep Islands, a reign that lasted five centuries. The trust that governs their affairs recently made the bizarre demand that the Indian government either raise their pension or return Lakshadweep.
I had to wait ten minutes after ringing the bell at the present queen’s residence in Talassery, a town 20 km away from Kannur. A huge house modelled on the original palace that is now a museum of history, it is as silent and empty as any other house along the Malabar coast whose members have left for greener pastures abroad. The queen has three sons, all working overseas, and one daughter. It is the daughter, who looks around 50, who opens the door and welcomes us in. She had been busy with her evening prayers and apologises for making us wait. She and her mother are the only two residents of this palatial house.
I am taken to the queen’s room, where the 92-year-old Sultan Arakkal Adi Raja Sainaba Aishabi, also known as Arakkal Beevi, reclines on a bed. More than three years ago, she had suffered a stroke and never fully recovered. But she welcomes me with a gladdening smile. I have to bend forward to catch the words of her broken voice.
“Journalists often come here,” she whispers, “though I am not well enough to talk. You may get sufficient information from my children. Please don’t forget to have tea and some food before you leave.”
I ask her whether she is aware of the Arakkal royal family trust’s demand. She answers with the same bright smile. It is her daughter who speaks. “She is too old to get into such headaches,” she says.
For centuries, the royal title has been passed along to the seniormost member of the family irrespective of gender. A male king would be called Ali Raja Adi Raja (‘lord of the sea’) and a female, Arakkal Beevi.
According to historians, the Arakkal Dynasty was Kerala’s only Muslim family of rulers. There is no consensus on their origins, but some say their assumption of power dates back to the 13th century.
According to a piece of local lore, the dynasty was founded by a minister of Kolathiri Raja (the then regional ruler) who converted to Islam and became a ruler.
Another says that the Arakkal royal family traces its lineage to Mohemmad Ali, a nephew of Cheraman Perumal (a regional ruler before the region split into different principalities) who is said to have embraced Islam. The only thing certain is that the Arakkal Dynasty had sovereign control of Cannanore that later extended to Lakshadweep islands off the coast of Kerala in the Arabian Sea.
The arrival of European seafaring powers bolstered their kingdom’s trade and commerce. They had a love-hate relationship with the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British. According to Dr A Sreedhara Menon, a scholar on Kerala history, the Arakkal principality of power came to an end in 1790, the year in which St Angelo Fort of Cannanore was stormed by General Abercromby, the then British Army general. Locally known as Kannur Fort, it had been built in 1505 by the Portuguese; it was later owned by the Dutch, who then sold it to the Arakkal king for Rs 1 lakh. The fort is now a tourist destination. The East India Company later forced the then Arakkal Beevi into an agreement under which she had to give up control of Lakshadweep islands. She was allowed possession of Cannanore city, but deprived of any claim to sovereignty. The East India Company pensioned off the Arakkals the same way they did other local kings and chieftains in India.
By 1900, the family had lost every trace of power. In 1905, they had to make another agreement with the British giving up all sovereign claims on Cannanore and Lakshadweep. In return, they were entitled to receive an annual pension, termed malikhana, of Rs 23,000. This is a sum they still get, though from the Government of India, which took over the obligations of the departing British.
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On 10 July this year, a decision was taken at a meeting of the royal family trust to press the demand for a raise (or a return ‘surrender’ of their kingdom). “It is not the first time we have made this demand,” says Ali Raja Adi Raja Hameed Hussain, the eldest male member of the royal family. We are at a shop he has in Kannur, where he runs the family business of spice exports. He takes a bundle of papers off a wooden shelf to show us. The stack includes copies of representations submitted to Central and state ministers to raise their malikhana. “We have been demanding a reasonable hike for long,” he says, “This time we decided to make it public through the media.”
While that may be so, why they consider their demand reasonable remains a mystery. India, after all, is a democracy and there is nothing that entitles them to such a payment. “We need money because we want to continue the charity work which had been done by our ancestors,” says Hameed Hussain. But why demand public money for purposes of charity?
“Because we are descendants of a sovereign ruler,” replies Ali Raja Mohammed Rafi, younger son of Arakkal Beevi Sainaba Aishabi, who runs an advertising agency in the UAE. “As per the contract of 1905 with the English East India Company, we are entitled to receive an amount sufficient to maintain the standards of royal living.”
The agreement, a copy of which is with Open, reads: ‘The Government would pay to the Adi Raja and to his heirs and successors a Malikhana of Rs 23,000 per annum in equal monthly installments one half being paid to him during his life and after his death to the head of the family for the time being as a personal grant for the maintenance of his position and dignity and the other half being paid to him and to his heirs and successors as heads of the family.’
Mohemmad Rafi, who is the managing trustee of the royal trust, says that Rs 23,000 was a huge amount in 1905. If calculated in terms of gold, he says, it would have bought 64 kg of the metal in 1905. “Considering the value of gold [now], we should get around Rs 14 crore per annum,” claims Mohemmad Rafi. “We know that is not practically viable and so we are demanding only a reasonable hike in the annual pension.”
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This is not the Arakkals’ only family tussle over ancestral property. There is an ongoing dispute with another family of Muslim landowners, the Keyis, over 1.4 million Saudi riyals—about Rs 2.2 crore—said to be lying in the Saudi Arabian government’s treasury. The exact sum cannot be verified, though many believe it to be in the tune of Rs 90 crore. About 150 years ago, a member of the Keyi family, Mayinkutty, is said to have built a guesthouse in Mecca to accommodate Hajj pilgrims from Malabar. In 1971, the Saudi government demolished this structure as part of a development exercise, allotting 1.4 million riyals as compensation to be handed over to the Keyi heirs. At that point, the Arakkal royal family also staked claim to the amount on the grounds that Mayinkutty had married one of their members, Aychi Beevi. “It is beyond dispute that we are the legal heirs of Mayinkutty Keyi and have legitimate claim over that property,” says Mohemmad Rafi.
The Kerala government recently appointed an IAS officer, TO Suraj, to look into the matter and take a final decision. He says that neither family might have any right to it. “In my understanding, the property was dedicated to the Wakf for the welfare of pilgrims,” says Suraj, “The government is trying to attach the property [for use of] the Wakf Board by due process.”
Professor Rajan Gurukkal, a historian and former vice-chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi University, thinks that would be ideal. “It should go to the government and be used for a public purpose,” he says. Gurukkal also thinks that the demand to raise the malikhana has no legal validity. Dr KKN Kurup, a historian of the Malabar region, author of a book on the Arakkal family’s history called Aliraja of Cannanore and former vice-chancellor of Calicut University, terms the demand “absolutely irrational”. He says there is no reason to spend public money on the upkeep of aristocracies and royalties of the past. “The malikhana was maintained primarily on the condition that they should be loyal to the English East India Company. How can they claim the same even after independence? Does it mean that the Arakkal family is still loyal to the British? What if all the heirs of rulers of princely states make similar demands?”
source: http://www.openthemagazine.com / OPEN Magazine / Home> Open> Feature / by Shahina KK / August 23rd, 2013
In the hands of a master chronicler, Mumbai’s underworld reveals itself to the world. Hussain Zaidi’s latest book is interesting, to say the least.
Publisher : Harper Collins India Pages: 271, Price: Rs.299
From Byculla to Bangkok by Hussain Zaidi is alternately spine-chilling and moving. As Zaidi takes readers through the inner mechanism of the Mumbai underworld, it becomes obvious how much intense research has gone into the subject. In retrospect, only a seasoned journalist like Zaidi (who was a crime reporter at Mid-Day and Asian Age, among others) could have kept a neutral voice while writing about the underbelly of the city. Byculla to Bangkok takes off from Dongri to Dubai, his previous chronicle on the mafia.
Have you ever feared for your life?
I have never feared for my life during crime investigation. But when I wrote Black Friday in 2001, I feared for my son Ammar’s life. I received a threat over the phone, saying they knew in which school my son was studying. My heart was in my mouth. But I nonchalantly told them in which class and section he was studying and his school timings before hanging up the phone. It was sheer bravado, but I refused to let them know I was scared. Of course, I didn’t send my son to school for a few days, but the next few weeks were hell. I had not even told my wife about the threat. It was a terrible period.
You have documented the Mumbai underworld from the 70s. Have things changed?
Earlier, gangsters were reckless, in it for money, and unafraid of the cops. Post 1998’s MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act), they were more cautious. The encounters made them realise that the cops meant business. Those who escaped are lying low in places such as Bangkok and the rest are in prisons in India, if not dead. Currently, the underworld is not as active as in the 90s. They have also gone legit in many businesses.
Are encounter specialists maligned?
Whatever the excuse, a police encounter is nothing but an extra judicial killing. I do not condone it as it is wrong to take law into your own hands. Within the police force itself, there was a lot of debate on encounters. Most officers gave in because they felt there was no other way. But the fact remains that encounters made the Mumbai mafia very insecure. At one point, gangs found it hard to recruit jobless youths. And the encounter police of Mumbai did wipe out the underworld.
Your book speaks of politicians who recruited the underworld for personal work. Why haven’t you named them?
Knowing is different from proving. Police officers and other sources have told me of these people but I have no evidence that can stand in a court of law. A don like Arun Gawli had 45 cases against him but they were all dropped because of lack of evidence. So, where is the likelihood that my statements will stand?
Are politicians to be blamed for the rise of the underworld?
Politicians are just a cog in the wheel. Criminals and politicians feed off each other. Personally, I feel we should stop voting for corrupt politicians. Voters put corrupt politicians into power. One bad apple will spoil everything. Why should I be responsible for putting a politician into power only to see him/her misuse the powers?
You have written about crimes and criminals. Under different circumstances, do you think gangsters could have contributed to society?
It is the movies that dramatise such situations. All dons entered this field out of choice. If circumstances forced an educated man to be a gangster, then half of our population would be gangsters. There is no excuse for a life of crime.
If not a crime investigator, would you have been a police officer?
In my younger days, I very much wanted to join the IPS. But my family wanted me to do commerce and pursue management. I know for a fact that a good police officer, someone who is smart, intelligent and brave enough to not cow down to political pressure can make a tremendous impact on society. Today, I keep telling my two sons to join the IPS.
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Entertainment> Lounge / by Jayanthi Madhukar, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / March 19th, 2014 (20th in Print Edition).
Indian writer and poet who inspired women struggling to be free of domestic oppression.
Kamala Das . Photograph: Other
Kamala Das, who has died aged 75, was a renowned Indian poet, novelist, short-story writer, essayist and memoirist. She was also known as Madhavikutty, the pseudonym she used when writing in the Malayalam language. Then there was Ami, the pet name with which she referred to herself in her memoirs. Much later in life, she gave herself yet another name, Suraiyya, to mark her conversion to Islam. Straddling many names was one way in which Das straddled multiple identities.
She was born into a literary family. Her mother, Balamani Amma, was a well-known Malayalam poet and her great-uncle, Nalapat Narayana Menon, was a writer and translator. Das was home-schooled and most of her education came through extensive reading. Her childhood was divided between Punnayurkulam, her ancestral village in Kerala, in the south-west, and the north-eastern city of Calcutta (now Kolkata), where her parents lived. This early lesson in dislocation may have inspired many of her literary themes – the vulnerable child-woman trying to create meaning in an inconstant world; nostalgia for a serene, rural past; the unfair privileges of caste and wealth; and the contradictions of motherhood.
In 1949, when she was 15, she married Madhava Das, a bank official. While still in her teens, she started writing and publishing. Along with other poets of her generation, Das was at the forefront of a new movement in Indian English poetry, a shift in focus from the colonial experience to the personal. However, unlike most of her contemporaries, she was actively writing fiction in her mother tongue at the same time. Throughout her writing career, Das would move adroitly between genres (poetry, fiction, memoir) and languages (English and Malayalam). “I speak three languages, write in two, dream in one,” she wrote in An Introduction, a poem from her first collection, Summer in Calcutta (1965).
She began to break taboos with her early poetry, in which she celebrated her sexuality and advised women to “Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of/ Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts,/ The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your/ Endless female hungers …” (The Looking Glass, from The Descendants, 1967).
In My Story (1976), she recounted the trials of her marriage and her painful self-awakening as a woman and writer. She became an icon for women, in India and elsewhere, struggling to liberate themselves from sexual and domestic oppression. Though it was supposed to be an autobiography (and indeed was provocatively subtitled “the compelling autobiography of the most controversial Indian writer”) Das later admitted that there was plenty of fiction in My Story. Perhaps “biomythography” would have been a fairer description of the book.
Das’s rebellions were more multidimensional than she was given credit for. Her female protagonists were not simply in pursuit of sexual freedom, they were in search of poetry, intimacy and divinity. Characters such as Padmavathi the harlot, who drags her bruised body to a holy shrine, personify the unworldly wisdom with which Das endowed her best female protagonists. She also created several nuanced male characters, for example, the hapless father in the 1991 short story Neypayasam, who shelters his children from their mother’s death.
A prolific writer, Das wrote more than 20 books. These include several collections of short stories and poems as well as six novels and three memoirs. In her later years, she also wrote a syndicated newspaper column, in which she held forth with typical unguardedness. Her topics ranged from religion to politics to the beauty secrets of Nair women. She did not feel compelled to stay on the topic and never shied away from announcing a change of mind or heart. Das’s spontaneity often translated into whimsicality and earned the ire of critics, but it allowed her to explore the paradoxes of life and relationships with emotional honesty.
In the 1980s she dabbled in painting and politics. While she attained some acclaim as an artist, her political career did not take off. She stood unsuccessfully for the Indian parliament in 1984 and later launched a short-lived political party, Lok Seva (public service). One of her final acts of reinvention was her conversion to Islam in 1999, a move especially bold because of her aristocratic Nair lineage. Ten years later, she was laid to rest in the mosque where she had taken her vows.
Her husband predeceased her; she is survived by three sons.
• Kamala Das, poet and writer, born 31 March 1934; died 31 May 2009
source: http://www.guardian.com / The Guardian / Home> News> World News> Feminism / by Shahnaz Habib / The Guardian / Thursday – June 18th, 2014
Participants interact at the heritage walk through the Walled City of Delhi on Saturday. / The Hindu
On International Women’s Day, a group of 23 heritage enthusiasts participated in a storytelling walk in the Walled City of Delhi. The walk created awareness about women who stood up for their rights and honour but have long been forgotten.
Barring two men, the rest of the participants were women who satiated their hunger for knowledge by frequently interrupting the host, an excellent raconteur.
Yuveka Singh, who conducted the walk and has experts on archaeology and history in her team, said the walk was conducted after methodical research work and interviewing women living in Old Delhi.
At 10 a.m., the group congregated at the Red Fort main gate. “The two-hour walk was an attempt to know a little more about some fascinating women who are more well known to some of the older residents of the Walled City. We spoke about Razia Sultana because she was far ahead of her times and involved in active politics even before she became the ruler. We wanted the participants, particularly women, to feel that they need to derive inspiration from women of the medieval period and speak up for their rights,” said Ms. Singh, a storytelling expert.
The first visit was to a dilapidated palace of an 18th Century nautch girl, who through her charisma and wit became the ruler of Sardhana.
The group had to pass through labyrinthine streets in the Bhagirath Palace area in Chandni Chowk but a look at the yellowish white edifice, which has nomenclature of erstwhile Lloyd’s Bank Ltd inscribed on it, made them scream with joy. The heritage building is one of the earliest colonial buildings with Greek pillars, which grace its front porch.
Begum Samru’s haveli was the first destination because she played a significant role in saving Delhiites from getting slaughtered by an invading force. “Our visit to Begum Samru’s haveli was a fruitful one as I was able to tell how this courtesan became a ruler of a principality near Meerut. And we also entered the haveli and saw the condition it is in,” said Ms. Singh.
The next destination was the famous Jain temple of Chandni Chowk. This was done to show the syncretic traditions of the Walled City, where Hindus and Muslims have lived peacefully for generations.
The walk concluded with a visit to the Fatehpuri Masjid.
During the walk, participants also learnt about the women in Shah Jahan’s life.
For history enthusiast Jahanara Rabia Raza, the walk gave her an insight into the lives of women who were brave, assertive and not willing to get subjugated by men. “Though I studied History at Delhi University and gave my papers on Razia Sultan, I did not know that the empress used to roam around after covering her countenance with a purdah and smoked hookah with men. She must have had guts to do all that during that period,” she said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Delhi / by Madhur Tankha / New Delhi – March 09th, 2014
