THIRUVANATHAPURAM-KIZHAKKE KOATTA TRIVANDRUM –EAST FORT
Dear friends, Recently there was a mail to mefrom our esteemed member Sri Ramani to write about Trivandrum experiences. Ireplied to him I would write in a fortnight. I had been long thirteen yearsat Trivandrum. This period was the most eventful period in my life. My childrengetting employment, the marriage of my children, my promotion as DivisionalEngineer at Calicut and Asst. General Manager and posting to Kerala Circleoffice was during the period. Throughout the period I wasliving in the Kaimanam RTTC Quarters near Karamana. Once Sri Ramani fromBangalore has visited me at Trivandrum. Kizhakke kkotta was my centralpoint of Travel. I startmy writings with East fort- Kizhakkae kkotta. Hope an interesting reading. Hereand there slight humour is added. The posting is in parts. Later developmentsare also added as I have visited Trivandrum after my retirement many times.Main reason- My daughter in law is from Trivandrum. Sincerely, Gopala Krishnan 28-3-2012. Re- written and posted in parts with additions and updating. R. GopalaKrishnan 30-5-2021 1. Kizhakke kkotta The fort around the SreePadmanbha swamy temple is preserved by Archaeological department and a blue boardwith white letters is there indicating the same. The Eastern side of the fortis generally called KIZHAKKEKOATTA. The Pazhavangadi Ganapathi temple is in the East fort. Now thereis a developed park, and a mini bus stand and medium bus bay to cater to thepassengers. Addition - A new over bridge has been constructed to ease trafficfrom west side of Railway station beyond Pazhavangadi temple tillThakaraparambu. When rain comes, the entire area wouldbe water logging. If the rain continues, there would be water in the foot pathup to Pazhavangadi Ganapathi temple. For Trivandrum people walking with raisedcloths is nothing special during rainy season. Foot path would be under waterin the bus bay… Probably an arrangement decidedby Pazhavangadi Ganapathi.Though after retirement in 2004, another 17 years have passed, still with all arrangementsthe bus bay is waterlogging. There are small book shops in thebus bay. I purchased an Astrology book- Ningalutae Jyotisham (Your Astrology)by Pandit Lakshmi das giving basic astrology information from a book shop inthe platform. Behind the bus bay was occupied bytorch repairers, umbrella repairers and watch repairers and similar petty workspeople. On those days one could see always three or four people before them. Now these places might be occupiedby mobile repairs, emergency lamp repairs, electronic watch cell changers etc. 1a. Pazhavangadi Maha ganpathi temple. It was news to me the temple is private and managed bymilitary people. Pazhavangai deeparadhana is famous and if I am in approximate time,I used to make it a point to witness deeparadhana and then return to my quarters. It gave a lot of mental relief,after breaking vedalai (medium ripe coconut) to pazhavangadi ganapathi when wehad problems. At least 6-8 people would bethere spreading or keeping in basket vedalai on the temple sides. Two pointsare seen by me. No selection or no asking of price. The vedali given by them and thecash they take when I gave a 10 rupee or 20 rupee note was considered the bestdeal. Whereas women can enter freely up to sanctum, men have to remove theshirt to go near sanctum. At no time I have heard there areout of stock of vedalais to break. People offer from one vedalai to 501vedalais or more to Mahaganpathi at a time. A small portion of the broken vedalai isgiven to us as prasadam. One day I was coming from westfort side after giving astrological consultations in the Sreekanteswaram upasabha on a Sunday. Update- I am not giving astrologyconsultations now. When I came near the temple Ifound a military truck standing. 8-10 soldiers were there in the temple. Theywere engaged in transferring to big bags, the undial collections and loading totruck. A mini hall is there aboveadministrative office and given for rent by booking for small functions. There are also a few vendorsselling arukumpul for offering to ganapathi near the temple. Ganapathi is notoffered Tulasi also learnt by me later. Three things attracted me aboutpazhavangadi are 1. Keeping in a plate Kalabhamfor use by devotees after worship 2. Excellent tap waterarrangement to wash feet and the vedalai and enter temple 3. Up-keeping of the premises andarrangements to keep chappals and shoes. Though a number of offerings arethere, the most important is offering vedalai to Mahaganapathi. All sasthrikals in Trivandrum wouldfirst ask the people before commencing any auspicious function to break vedalaito Pazhavangadi Ganapathi. My sasthrikal was Late Sri Viswanatha vadhyar and I wouldbe writing later on him. In my boyhood days I was not havingmuch information about Pazhavangadi temple and about Padmanabhaswamy temple. Update- Now many shops sell vedalai in place of streetvendors. Congestion in Pazhavangadi has become more. Entrance from North isused now to enter the temple. 2. Anantha sayi and Anathapuri. While I was a boy probably due to limited knowledgeI never knew why Thiruvanathapuram is called as so. (There are members in the groupsto sarcastically / seriously respond - Now also the same. You are not a maturedwriter. Mostly your postings are deleted or marked to spam. Who want to read your story? ) Very late on reading, Iunderstood Thiruvanathapuram is one among the 108 divyadesams. (Vaishavite temples). Maha Vishnu is lying on the serpent Anantha. During my college days during 1962,I came to write an entrance examination in the Kerala University for astatistical department. It was my first visit to Trivandrum. At that time threepoints were in mind after writing the examination. 1. Visit Padmanabha swamy temple. 2. Visit airport and 3. Visit Sankhumugam Beach. Note- I had no occasion to see an airport or beach earlier There was no problem of changingPants to dhothi at padmnabha swamy temple since I had never worn a pant till Icame to Chennai on employment. Along with crowd I entered the mandapam throughsteps to see Anantha sayi. Very very late I understood it isOTTAKKAL mandapam and we should not prostrate (namaskaram) on the mandapam since in the same mandapam is the sanctum. I saw and worshipped (Anathasayi)Padmanbha through the three doors, seeing head, body and feet in the order. The idol was just clear through thekodivilakku lighted and shown and it was dark. On those days nobody knew it ispure gold with coating. Because of Anathasayi, the placeis called Ananathapuri. Addition- Trivandrum to Chennai express via Nagerkovil,Madurai is called ANANTHAPURIEXPRESS. My maiden personal trip by airwas from the same Trivandrum airport- From Trivandrum to Chennai in 1999’s inAir India I was having a ticket book and the ticket was hand written by thestaff. Later from Trivandrum to Dubai via Oman airways. And later frequent officialtrips to Delhi, when I became eligible for air travel. By the time the quiet Air India office has become crowded and privateticket booking offices with many counters have opened near municipality. The airport already had a lot offacelifts. It has also become silent airport. 3. The plat from chips My colleague Mr Philip told mejust like that, he has to purchase banana chips from the street vendors at Eastfort. I had just joined the telecom training centre as lecturer in 1991. I astonished and asked- You mean to purchase banana. He saidno- It is a practice now for people to get hot chips of quality from streetvendors. I could not believe on that day. The revolution was not knowing to me. Preparing banana chips in the street shops started at Calicut and spreadto Trivandrum and Ernakulam by 1985’s. Mostly sellers were Malayalamspeaking Tamil people- just we could understand from their ascent. They prepared on the spot banana and jackfruit chips and sarkara puratti. If one desired a specific oil and specificquality we had to order in advance. They might keep ready for you with slightlyhigher priced. Most people found it moreconvenient to purchase from them. Icould see later before the secretariat, people waiting to get the chips friedand given. So popular the banana chips at Trivandrum. Updating- Now platform chips have disappeared. Only very fewselected shops selling chips and similar items 4. Sweet Banana chips Later I could gather a shop near oldpassport office, selling sweet banana chips. This had to be ordered in advance.About to ripen banana (yellowish in colour) is prepared as chips. These chips appeareddarkish in colour with light sweet. I will be adding about TrivandrumMaharaja Visit to temple, and second international airport at Chakkai inanother occasion I will continue in next posting. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1276492336.1196770.1622369393231%40mail.yahoo.com.
