Pothu - a thief deterrent

Coconut is/was the main commercial crop of Kothazham. Kothazhans fiercely protected it. Once thieves from some neighboring village (as if there are no thieves in Kothazham) came and started stealing coconuts in the night. This annoyed the Kothazhans and they protected it with Pothu. Pothu is a small covering of thorns - mainly made of bamboo thorns. It looked like the trees were wearing a small shirt.

Now to deter the thieves they put it at a fair height so that the ladder used by thieves will be below it. So the thief will not be able climb up. But the thieves were cleverer. They used bigger ladder. Perhaps they were more technology savvy and never used any ladder at all. We do not know. Whatever it is, Kothazhans always thought they are using bigger ladder. So they raised the pothu higher and higher but that did not deter the thieves. At last the pothu was placed on top of the coconut tree itself. Kothazhans wondered how will the thieves now rest the ladder in the sky ! No way. As expected the stealing stopped. Kothazhans patted themselves for a job well done.

The truth of the matter was the thieves were a bit cautious now because they thought that loosely kept pothu may fall on them at any time. Strangely history books have not recorded how many Kothazhan siblings have got injured by the falling ‘pothu’s.

Salted Mango Pickle !

The story of pickle and Kothazham is very interesting. The main temple in Kothazham is that of Lord Shiva, the destroyer in Hindu pantheon. The imposing temple atop a small hillock, with 39 steps has a sprawling complex with a huge pond mainly for devotees to take a dip before entering the temple precincts and the priests to bathe before beginning the pujas.

In olden days when the village had a large number of jackfruit and mango trees, people used to preserve it for non-seasonal use. And for making pickle, they used to dump the mangos into the pond, which had salty water those days. (There is some incongruity in the belief of salt water in the pond at a place on the Eastern Ghats. This story could have taken place, if at all it did, at some place near the seashore. But by fate accompli befell on Kothazham).


Now after a couple of months or so when the pickle was ready, the villagers gathered around the pond to collect every person's share. First one villager tied a big Chinese earthen pot used to preserve pickles onto his neck and jumped into the pond. As he did not come up as expected after some time, other got panicky, not for the safety of the first jumper, but the very thought that he might be collecting the whole pickle. So they all followed suit, one by one and jumped into the pond with the big earthen pot tied onto their neck.

And in no time, a large number of able-bodied men in Kothazham went down the pond, never to return with the pickle they were supposed to fetch!

(courtsey - N.B.Nair - ANI Delhi )

Dog in the well

Here is a brand new one. A dog fell into a well in Kothazham. Kothazhans got alarmed. The dog saved itself. Fully wet, tired and shivering with fear was resting in the ring of the well. Kothazhans could not dial 101 or 100 as BSNL had jammed Reliance phones or vice versa. Airtel and 'vada' phone had not arrived then. They tried many things to save the poor dog. Like asking it come out, barking at it, dropping a rope, a ladder, dangling a fish, extending a rice ball etc. etc. They tried to drop a cane basket and asked the dog to jump in it. That also did not work. At last they listened to village sex bomb Ponnomanakutty’s bright idea. She explained that it is now Kanni maasam ( Malayalam month Kanni – zodiac sign Virgo ) and it is the mating season for the dogs. So why not we drop a bitch (female dog) who is in heat?. Everybody agreed that it was a novel idea. So they caught a bitch and dropped it in. As soon as the vallikotta (cane basket )came down, the religion, caste and the horoscope matched, the shivering dog immediately jumped into it. Sesham chintyam ( Rest is history !)

Stork soup

Here is another one. Kothazhans wanted to cook some good Kotti curry ( Stork or crane Curry – These days nobody cooks it fearing they will be misunderstood as kothazhans. All Keralites have become foreigners eating only chicken curry! ). The Kothazhans devised many plans to catch Kotti ( ‘tt’ should be pronounced as in American ‘Patty’ ) .All the plans turned out to be foolish ideas except for one. This idea was of a brilliant young Kothazhan whose name was Ittikkandappan. He explained the thing brilliantly with power point slides. According to that : When the sun shines at about 11:00 A.M. in the morning the Kottis normally go to sleep. So at that time take some butter in your hand . Go slowly near to a kotti. Sh… no sound …. Put it directly on its head. Now due to the heat of the Sun the butter starts melting. Now the kotti senses it and alas it can not open its eyes. Catch it now ! … What an idea! Screamed the Kothazhans. They did not wait for the Presentation to end and Laptop to be closed. They rushed to the fields!

That day they must have enjoyed the kotti curry with lot of ghee in it!

Stealing Well..!

One of the famous joke about Kothazham is that one day a Kothazhan ( male member. Kothazhathukari – for female) went to another village and happened to drink water from a well. He found it so sweet and tasty. On his return to Kothazham he spread the news. Many Kothazhans went there and tried. They found it true. Now it is natural that Kothazhans also wanted a similar well in their village. They dug many wells but it was same old water. Nothing comparable to the neighboring village well emerged!. They discussed and debated the issue for many days. There was no intelligent Pranay Roy or forceful Barkha dutt or intimidating Sreekantan Nair to anchor the debates. So at last they decided on one thing. That they will steal the well from the neighboring village!. And the story goes thus that for ONE FULL NIGHT they did try it ! What happened the next day morning is left to the imagination of readers.

Kothaazham - God's own jokeland

I think every country; every state has some community which becomes victims of jokes. In India it is sardars. But there are communities in every state in India that has become joke victims. But some times some area or village is also known for its foolish people. I don’t know whether anybody has done some research into this. In Kerala there are some traditional communities that have many jokes attributed to them. Namboothiri ( or Namboodiri or Namboothirippad)) community is one of the prominent communities in this category. The other is Panickers – I mean rasi panicker - the astrologers. There could be some other as well which I do not know. But there is an area in Kerala where jokers come from and that is none other than our beloved KOTHAZHAM. But where is kothazaham ? Kothazaham is known to be a sleepy village somewhere in central Travancore. No good research is done to trace it. Perhaps our Universities are full of people from ‘that’ village so they find there is no need for a PhD in that category.

Mr. N.B.Nair (ANI,Delhi) has said on wikipedia that his village Chirakkadav near Kottayam is actually known as Kothazham. I am not sure of its authenticity. I have posted his article in the comment.

Some people say it is in fact Kottayam, although people from kottayam will vehemently oppose it. No body wants to be known as hailing from a foolish village. So everybody disowned Kothazham and the village disappeared into oblivion. There are many jokes attributed to Kothazham. Even today if someone commits a blunder the question asked is “Ethu kothazhathukarana nee?” ( meaning which Kothazham you belongs to?)

I think it is better to attribute Kerala’s traditional jokes to Kothazham than to any community. So I will apply some of the traditional jokes related to Namboothiries and Panickers to Kothazham besides listing the known Kothazham jokes. I may also try to create some jokes of on my own. If you have any Kothazham joke pls. ket me know. I will publish it here.

Many of these jokes are known to most Keralites. ButI hope this is a good way to showcase Kerala’s traditional jokes to a wider public, people other than Malayalees.

All the drawings in this blog are drawn by me except for this one (mine) which was done by a reputed caricature artisit of Trivandrum.

Enjoy … Read on…