trip to Kaavalam

Me and Pramodh decided to spend a day in our famed backwaters.

So we drove to Allepey had breakfast In the Brothers Hotel ( since 1973 )..will post separately.

Later we reached Boat jetty of State Inland Transport Dept .

For decades the Boats are being run to many places like Kottayam ,Kollam ,pathiramanal Kumarakom , and places in Kuttanad like Kaavalamill-painted.

The boats are ill painted like KSRTC buses.

But it was comfortable and seats were plenty.

We were going to Kavalam in Kuttanad.

Kavalam is birth place of kavalam Narayana Panicker. Musician and dramatist .

It just cost 22 Rs for the one and half-hour tri.

It was very breezy though the sun was quite hot.

We just wanted to go to some quaint shop that served good food and toddy so we asked the conductor who told us to get down at Rajapuram .

When place came he told us to walk along the bank and we would see it!

We knew the same boat would return by 2.20 pm .

So we walked along the banks

at places it was dangerously narrow and with big loose stones a single mistake we would be in the backwate

Luckily we reached the shop without any accident.

We were given a table with a nice view .

We ordered some prawns roast as a starter and parotta and Appam with nadan chicken curry and one glass of Mundiri toddy or kallu

The food was delicious the toddy too was tasty and fresh.

Since a toddy has only around 8.1 % of alcohol it's more like a Breezer and one glass just quenched one's thirst but we stopped with that.

The food was good though the chicken was chewy and appeared old!

So we respected it and left it alone.

After this, we gingerly made our way back and got back into our boat.

Kuttanad is low-lying and is rice bowl of Kerala its 11 mts below sea level is said .

There is usually one harvest in a year, during monsoons fields are flooded.

Many houses on banks are on pillars with nothing in the ground floor as during floods its safer for them

But still monsoon floods many houses and we saw some community kitchens.

Many used these boats to go to work and tourists are rare in these boats.

The backwaters is full of house boats.

The only thing we missed was the rain as it was hot and sticky when no breeze.

We returned to Allepey and to Cochin later

 

Brothers Hotel Allepey

Warning ...long post

This is a food post Iam sure most of you will enjoy .

Food is something that's part of most of us but for some its more than it too .

We all remember the food we had ,food as children prepared by our mother is dear to us ,food which made us happy always has associated memories .

Like music food melds nostalgia with it.

When we listen to an old film song we go back to our memories associated with it , we remember the people whom we knew in the realm of that song, some songs are special as they touch the chords of love and romance in us transporting us to years back,

similarly, some food touches the happiness spot in you and takes you back like a time machine.

When it comes to Alapuzha ( Allepey or Allapuzha in Malayalam is a coastal city called Venice of Kerala 50 km south of Cochin )most remember the food there.

Though I lived in Madras in childhood with no connection to south Kerala food, mostly sea food, I developed a taste for Kerala cuisine.

ther home we used to take more of food by my mother made like in her tharavad with lot of coconut ,vartharacha sambhar, mostly vegetarian and rarely varatha aracha mutton curry ,I never knew Beef was food !!

or tasted no sea food as we lived in Mylapore a Brahmin dense area and frying fish was blasphemy an abaswaram or almost a criminal offence

so mother made typical veg dishes blended from kerala and Madras Maamis styles with a rare mutton dish )

Only after settling down in Kerala at 26 years I realized Kerala cuisine was so vast and tasty .

I love Beef too,though we still don't make it at home,

Duck rabbit and sea food which Iam still not passionate about egg roast and of course parotta the symbol of ill health byPuritanss but loved by rest pittu Aaapam nool pittu dosas etc etc .

Though I prefer Basmati rice made Dum Biriyani to the kaima rice made modified neychoru termed Biriyani in Kerala I enjoy it too and I love Kerala fish curry meals.

I willingly wanted a lengthy intro on my food culture before this important post on BROTHERS Restaurant in Allepey town since 1973 .

Though I had gone earlier and had Biriyani it was on a stop over in a drive from Trivandrum but it was during Covid times the items were limited and eating in restaurants with all the masked people looking scared was just not the same .

So when me and Pramodh my co brother drove to Allepey to explore the backwaters we debated to either go to Coffee house or to Brothers restaurant and settled on the latter .

Right in the middle of the town one could get into hotel parking lot through a bottleneck entry or park on road ,luckily after opening Allepey bye pass more than 50 % traffic through town has come down .

The quaint old town with roomed houses had more relaxed roads these days and the antics of an ancient traffic police man amused us !

The Brothers has an aura of hallowness in its structure of a roomed cottage almost like entering into the seventies.

At 9.30 am on a Monday morning, the place was almost full.

It was neat and had well-placed tables wash and rest room.

The walls had lot of pictures of celebrities who visited there almost a who-is-who from all walks of life who had meandered in .

Most had happy countenances probably pictures taken after they had food here.

And several testimonials and remarks by celebrities mostly from the film world caught in camera as pictures.

Later on reading I realised how many relationships Malayalam films and Brothers had!

When Madhavan pilla and Ayyappan pilla Brothers decided to start a hotel way back in the seventies they obviously called it Brothers.

That was the time when Allepey thanks to the Appachan group and Kunjacko was making Allepey the Malayalam film capital shifting slowly from Kodambakkam in Madras.

Though that shift to Kerala would take decades more Malayalam films were planned and scripted and many shot in and around Allepey .

Most actors too hailing from South Kerala adopted to it naturally.

Allepey being on Highway to the south from the north was also a stopping place for food and stay.

By then Brothers had started a lodge too.

Many film people had discussions here, many actors stayed here many scripts were written here.

Room 19 is still famous with film people as it had a lucky charm, most films scripted or discussed here went on to become huge hits.

It was the era of Malayalam films breaking on its own with classics like Chemeen and there was a lot of excitement to film more of Kerala in its rusticness in those films instead of staid sets in Kodambakkam studios!

Coming back to the food we ordered the famous mutton curry, egg roast parotta and aapam and tea.

This place is well known for its duck roast too.

In fact, the duck was not served here at all, though ducks are very common here with backwaters around.

Once cameraman Sukumaran staying here for a film brought back a live duck from his shooting spot and requested the Brothers to cook it, though hesitant they cooked a delicious duck roast, from then there was no looking back this became the signature dish of the Brothers.

The food we ordered was splendid.

The Oscar went to the delicious mutton roast which had tender pieces falling off the bone blended in spices.

The gravy was rich tasty and took us to culinary nirvana.

The parottas were fresh warm fluffy and crisp with a tinge of sweetness

The Appams were fresh warm soft succulent and seductive in its satin smoothness and egg roast too was excellent above all the tea was just perfectly made.

Evening too one return before driving to Ernakulam though not hungry we returned to Brothers to close the day where we started and had just tea and delicious sweet banana fritters.

So when in Allepey don't miss Brothers.

Incidentally, they have a big list of vegetarian dishes too like dosas or meals but the star items are still nonveg.

+26

All reactions:

10O Madhu Menon, Govind Raj and 8 others

 

Pubs in Cochin !

 

If there is one thing Kerala needs to learn its social drinking.

People here with exceptions think drinking is equal to binge drinking making fools of themselves and big mess getting into fights in smoky bars.

They do not know in many countries pubs are not crowded dance places with bouncers and girls dancing with young men on all kinds of stuff, its just a quiet place where one can sit over a drink for an hour or more watching people and having some food or meeting an old friend and to talk over a drink.

Being a tourist state Kerala needs to have such places.

Of course I am against driving even after one drink so one should either use public transport or Uber or have a driver

These days drive back apps are there too

Somehow that fun is not in Kerala where even people conclude one is a drunk to even write a post like this!

I recollect Kuala Lumpur which is a great city @ to me where I had a few days to kill and I would go to a roadside pub in happy hours nurse a mojito and get a marguerite for the same price have some burger and fries and keep watching as the busy roads run in front like a film.

Very few people were in the pub at that time and then I would walk back to my hotel

Another place I enjoyed was in New York in a Manhattan bar in frigid December where I sat on a high stool sipping a Manhattan cocktail.

With imposing black Americans standing around slit-gowned ladies in high heels and coiffured gentlemen in Levi's

I felt like I was inside a Hollywood film.

People there just leave you alone to have your fun without any hassles no moralizing crowds and the barman even clicked a picture of myself I remember thanking him and he told u r welcome sir enjoy your drink

jaya jaya

 One has to say Malayalam filmdom is rare one that it has the temerity to make films which aren't in the run of the mill ones like with a hero heroine and the works .

The variety of subjects it takes and the melding of its cast to roles not fitting the moulds is just amazing.

This is one such film .

Male chauvinism is an Indian trait and Kerala men at least many aren't much different.

Mollycoddled by their mothers many Malayalee men are spoilt children with mustaches who build a wall of defense of arrogance and cynicism to safeguard their inadequacies.

Many use anger or violence to establish the superiority they are made to realize is their birthright.

What happens when the woman reacts to one such loser is the story.

In the film the hero a small-time wholesale poultry Farmer with some success in it a doting mother and a helpless divorced sister who are all dependent on him is an Emperor within the confines of his house where from his daily breakfast of string hoppers which his mother makes so meticulously to the chilies for drying everything is done to suit his whims.

So he marries and brings a girl home who is a bright student and wants to study further but is married off by her family.

In a few days, the man started slapping his wife on and off to establish his power later apologizing for it typical of domestic violence prevalent in real life.

No one objects to this slapping at home and the girl's parents just ask her to adjust.

So one fine day when slapped she gives him an unexpected hard slap and finally a kick which sends him sprawling.

We come to know over the past few months she had been studying karate online and learned it pretty well.

The husband is wary for sometime later, hesitating to ask her if she dares hit him again.

The slaps passed on between the two ends up in her kicking him so much that he gets thrown out of the house just when his mother and sister come back home from a wedding.

There's some talk of compromise and they live together for some time.

He sweet-talks her into getting pregnant as advised by his friend to tie her to eternal domesticity.

She comes to know of this walks out on him and lives in a working women's hostel takes a bank loan and starts an enterprise.

The video of her hitting him which he had recorded becomes viral and in humiliation, he files for a divorce.

The courtroom scenes with a brilliant lady judge asking questions to both exposes the male chauvinism prevalent in society .

In the end she too signs for a mutual divorce and has a last laugh when she too buys a poultry business to compete and almost destroy his .

To approach such a sensitive but alive topic with sensibility and humour the film passes a message that both men and women are equal and its better to adjust be flexible be complimentary to each other .

A story told with finesse.

Ultimately it always conveys that intelligence skill alone isn't sufficient for success, you need a complimentary supportive environment

For eg the lady hero of the film is far more clever than all in her family or the family she married to.

She would have reached heights in a career like being an IAS officer or professional if allowed to study before or after the wedding but she has lesser beings who never supported her no not even understood her.

She shows signs of business management too when she tried to correct her husband's poultry farm workers who ignored her and her husband too carried it in his foolish ways

If only he had included her as a partner in business she would have made it a better success but ultimately he grew her as a competition and IM sure she would become a corporate magnate.

How many girls are there suppressed and stuck in small egos in the state?

Intriguing question indeed.

    Major H was his short name in RAW

he was the fastest in drawing the revolver in the western command before he joined RAW.

Within years fastness evolved into an illusion .

No one saw anything that was done no one heard anything but the victim plunged into wherever suddenly.

Either on top of the Eifel tower in Paris, the UNESCO in Vienna, Alpian peaks,or Houston's downtown, Tokyo's fish market at dawn, or at Mumbai's Leopold.

This time he drove the jeep into the desert of Jaisalmer and got on top of a swaying camel Al Pacino ( camels name) he sent off the camel man and swayed off into the white sands of emptiness.

He knew the BSF outpost 40 km away was empty as the border had moved away after the last Indo-Pak war.

He tied his camel tied a few km away in the shadows

Dusk in the desert was dark and cold

He walked briskly to the outpost in the knee-deep sand.

The shadowy silhouette of the outpost was pale in the feeble moonlight.

He started digging a hole deep enough to snuggle in when he should cover it with a strong iron board he had brought strewn with sand.

He then stood ramrod straight behind the wall

H waited silently without movement,

He was used to waiting for hours in all sorts of places.

He knew they would come both the terrorist leaders and without escorts

They needed to talk as changes were happening rapidly

He knew as he had his sources,

Suddenly in the dark, he could see two camels closing down and they both getting down huddling together on the sand

The most wanted two for India.

He leaned over the broken wall and sent two bullets flying in the dark which hit bulls eyes with a swoosh

They fell together.

He knew their men a few meters away too had seen it and would come,

He slipped into the hole he had dug with an air tunnel deep into the sands covered with an iron board he had brought.

He hoped they wouldn't find him ,went into an yogic trance while they rummaged on top frustratingly.

After hours they carried off thier leaders

He waited for more time nibbling at energy bar and sipping some water .

It was noon the next day

he listened for any sound .

Slowly he lifted board peeped out

Saw that they left one man to watch .

Silently H got back in waited for the dark ,

Just got out marched straight to the surprised guy and wrung his neck .

He walked to the camel and like any local swayed on it to his jeep

He took his mobile

Done mission accomplished