The Manohara Krishna Sankalpa

The essence of beauty that is .. Krishna
(wait for some action in the picture)

മിന്നും പൊന്നും തരിവള കടകം കാഞ്ചി പൂഞ്ചേല മാല
ധനൃ ശ്റീവത്സ സല് കൌസ്തുഭ മിടകലരും ചാരു ദോ രന്തരാളം

Essence of beauty? yes. The beauty is in beholder’s eyes.

I think the Krishna sankalpa (imagination) itself is beautiful. Always smiling face. Even when he killed gory demons he smiled. Never can you see anger in Krishna’s face. No suffering either. He was an infant when he killed poothana. A child when he killed Kaliya, An adolescent when he killed Kamsa, youth when he killed dozens of demons. But the innocent, calm, adorable lovely faces every where – at least that’s what the mythology, writers and the poets reveal before us.

He is the embodiment of love and love alone. He can be your child, He can be your friend. He can be your protector and savior.He can be a father figure. He can be a conjugal lover. He can be a seedless giver of immense pleasure. He has no moustache or beard. He is not hiding in clouds. He is in your very own courtyard. You can scold him. You can call him any name that you may please. Yet if you want He can be your God!.

Once you know him you can’t forget him. He will be there ever smiling for you! What a Sankalpa!

ഹേ പീതാംബരധാരീ

ഹേ പീതാംബരധാരീ

ഒരു കൊച്ചു കച്ചയുമോരോടക്കുഴലും
ഒരു മുടിന്കൊലും ഒരു പറ്റം പയ്ക്കളും
നിസ്സ്വനായല്ലോ കാണ്മാന് ആഗ്രഹിപ്പൂ ജനം
നിസ്തുല സംപത്തി ന്നു ടയോന് നെന്നാകിലും !

Good humor. Laughter. Rest. Happiness.

Why are we so gullible?

You might be considering yourself very smart. You might say, no, I am not gullible. But hold on. Have you taken any loan recently? Have you opened a Bank account? Have you entered in any lease or Rental agreement? Have you signed an employment contract? Have you ever applied for an electricity connection or Water connection? Or any other service provided by the government? Are you paying excess tax? Have you read the tax clauses properly? Have you done any investment recently? Have you purchased a car or any heavy equipment that needs maintenance? Do you know the clauses in there? In all these things there are clauses and conditions that may have gone unnoticed.You might say how can we remember all that? We do everything in good faith – until we are cornered. That’s the catch. We allow ourselves to be cheated – we are gullible.

If ever you find a good lawyer and sit with him with all the documents you have you probably will be amazed that on every opportunity you have been taken for a ride. People, establishments, government were someway cheating on you. The agreements you signed were either not clearly understood or not read. When we sign a contract we sign it in good faith. We believe in the person contacted. The bank manager, the friend who came to our house, our neighboring Insurance agent, our close relative who suggested this thing or that thing – we trust all of them.

Never sign a contract without reading the terms and conditions and understanding it.

Never sign anything in a hurry (The loan agents of financial companies & Banks often bring the original agreement at the last moment. These forms will have conditions other than what is mentioned in the proposal document that is given to you for reading prior to the deal.)


Never take it for granted that the terms and conditions are ‘as usual’ or ‘normal’. There is nothing called ‘as usual’. Any condition is amendable as per your demand. People believe in the printed forms and think that they are statutes that can not be changed.

Insist on the signed contract copy. Preserve it.

One thing we should know is that with the advent of consumer courts and consumer protection rights, the manufacturers, the dealers, Banks, establishments, government organizations have become cleverer. They take extra precaution. They overreact and go to some extremes. I recently got a document to sign from a reputed financial institution. It said that it is a SEBI requirement and upon checking I found that it is not.

By the way did you check your recent bank statements thoroughly? It says that if you do not inform them within 15 days, what ever is there in it would be treated as correct!

If you are living in Kerala look at the terms and conditions they print behind an electricity bill.

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.

Why farmers commit suicide ?

Recently a prominent web site conducted a POLL . It was related to farmer’s suicides.

They asked five questions.

Why are farmers committing suicide?:

Psychological imbalance

Climatic changes

GM(Genetically Modified) Seeds

Are they committing suicides?

Government Policies

VOTE

This is surprising . It looks the questions have come from urban comfort. These kind of ‘intelligent ‘ journalists are ruling the ruse. I remember having seen a debate program in NDTV while I was in Delhi. There were about 100 people in the audience. The debate was about issues to be discussed in parliament. The anchor asked “how many of you support farmer’s cause?” To my utter surprise there was literally no one to raise the hands!. The anchor also got surprised he then said “ What is this ? are you guys not eating anything ? “

They all laughed it out and continued with another topic. This is how urban India thinks of agriculture.

Look how easily they decided upon five points. Are there no other points? Where is the economic hardship? Rise in price of products in general and sky rocketing labour charges? Is there a comparable increase in price of agriculture products?

What about change in life styles? I think in my home state that is the main reason. Climate change and consequent untimely rain is a recent incident. Since that has happened to many people government has plan to compensate the losses. Indebtedness is another major cause. Government is addressing this issue in an awkward way. The writing off of loans will only encourage farmers to take more loans. There will be more collective and continued demands to write off future loans and it may be politically inspired also. What are we going to do?. Tax payer’s hard earned money will be wasted like this. A whopping 60,000 crores! And the politicians take pride on this. They do not care how it is distributed. As long as they can project this amount in election meetings that is enough! It is clear that the government do not have enough machinery to verify the loan and check the distribution. Honest people who paid up their loan suffering much hardship will be neglected and unscrupulous guys who did not pay up will be rewarded.

Coming back to Changing life styles. In Kerala, mainly farmers from Wayanad are committing suicide. I would say besides all other things Change in life style is a major cause here. Earlier these farmers lived in remote areas inaccessible by road. They lived with minimum things. They had very limited needs. Now there are roads to every nook and corner and there is electricity too. Along with electricity all gadgets came. Television is the most important thing. It spoiled the mindset. The demand for things hither to unheard and unused increased dramatically. More shops and shopping complexes was the result. More avenues to spend money drained the purse. But there was no income to cope with this. The prices of agri products reduced because of globalization. Import of pepper, copra, cardamom and other spices from Sri Lanka, Africa etc. caused less demand in local markets. The labour charges increased considerably because of leftist interference and unionism.. Since the family’s life style changed the farmer had to meet the demands. He wanted more money to live. On the other side his income decreased. The banks and local moneylenders came forward merrily. Loan melas of Wayand were famous. Every bank had conducted loan melas. Couple of years … and the Japthi notices starts arriving. It reaches point of eviction from houses. What the poor weak minded farmer will do? Other than deciding to leave the place quietly? Sometimes en-masse with family.

Things have not been corrected or amended. No new ideas are discussed to thwart the problem. People are still living in same conditions. This 60,000 crores write off will not do anything. UPA and allies are thinking that will fetch more votes. We have to wait and see. The money is going to go to different hands. Come next budget this 60,000 crores will have to be doubled!

In order to sustain economically many farmers are turning to cash crops. This has resulted in food problem. Swami Nathan is at the helms now and green revolution is failing.

What’s the way out ?

I think large scale co-operative farming or inviting big multinational corporations by opening up Agriculture sector to foreign investments is the only way. There will be many people opposing this suggestion. They would suggest public sector undertakings or Indian companies for the job. They would also argue that we will be slaves of MNCs.

But I think ultimately that is what is going to happen. We have no know-how or technology to mass produce agriculture products. Neither do we have storage capacity or storage technology. There is no visible invention or progress in these sectors. India is a fertile land. It can produce the rice needed for the world. Sure these small time farmers will become employees of MNCs. But their living standard will increase. Small farmers with small land holdings should cultivate vegetables,fruits, spices & medicinal plants not food grains. That should be left to big corporations. Government has to help the marginal farmers in this way and not by writing off the loans. I think this everyone will benefit. India government will become richer. We will control the food market. Americans helped the Gulf states to drill for oil. Both benefited but now the Gulf states control the oil price.

Wrong perceptions about our rights and freedom should vanish. Leftists will oppose it in a big way because of their inherent decease called ‘USmania.’ But time will tell they were wrong at every turn.

We are now waiting for crop failures, farmer’s suicides, and the food problem.

We need calamities to learn.

We need hundred of thousands of deaths and destruction to act.

Until that time let’s sleep.

Simply Sitting technique - Answering a query.

I wrote this as a reply to my friend's what if query.

Simply sitting ideology !

I must admit I coined the word - unwittingly. I don’t know if anybody has used that term as plain as that for meditation. No cult or group will ever choose it because they will not benefit in anyway. No body wants to learn such a thing like ‘simply sitting’ by paying money. If you call it ‘Zazen’ ( for Zen – sitting) may be people will pay.

Simply sitting is an Art. Most people think they know very well ‘ how to sit simply’. The truth is that very few know and very few can unless trained. You may wonder. A few days practice will definitely tell you that. I frankly think that - that is meditation. Just simply sit for half an hour. Not sleeping, Sit with full awareness and NOT THINKING OF ANYTHING. That is the catch. If you are able to sit idle without thinking anything for at least half a minute then that itself is a great achievement. More than minute you have good chance of becoming a Yogi. You don’t have to recite any mantra or say any prayer. You can keep all your pseudo secularist pretensions in tact. No worry of allegiance to any group. No need to wear any saffron cloth. Your prestige pressure cooker will not fall tumbling down. But even that won’t be possible for simple ordinary souls. People have lot of false notions. How they will answer to the question to “why are you sitting idle”? They may not be able answer properly. Without a cult? without joining any yoga class or without going to any satsang? Without changing one’s belief? They are not supposed to sit like that. If he is a family man, wife and children will suspect him. They will take him to doctor. If a child does, parents will get upset. Our duniya is like that. A worker ant is not supposed to stop. If it stops then there is trouble.

I firmly believe and practice daily this simple ‘simply sitting’ technique. You can also try it. If you know some meditation then it is icing on the cake. It is a great experience. It is not my invention. For hundreds of years learned men from the east and west practiced it. Rishi-Munis, Sufi saints, Zen Gurus, Assisi fathers and many more.. They did not name it as I did. Upanishads explained it at great length. They say Dhyanam Nirvishayo Mana: (Meditation is mind without any thought).

Zen has this practice. They call it Zazen. But they concentrate on breathing. And count breathing. They do not close the eyes fully - fearing you may start visualizing something. But no doubt Zen gurus achieve ‘bliss’ early. After years of practicing I can not convincingly say that I have experienced it even for a fraction of second. But I can surely say that on freak occasions I have sensed a ‘happiness’ that is on the way. I would call it ‘satisfaction of existence’. Then fraction of a second is long time. If with years of accumulated ‘Karmadoshas’ I could achieve that then imagine what the pure souls could achieve.

Now if your mind is not calm and receptive skip the next paragraph.

Zen Gurus always practice silence and live in the present with full awareness. Now read next sentence very slowly. Keep your mind as soft as white cotton cloud. Leave enough time gaps after every word, every full stop…. Zen gurus lives very peacefully. They make beautiful clay pots. They cut wood. They water plants. They see leaf. Stones. Brown pebbles. Black seeds. White petals. The difference is that they SEE. We Look. ….If you have been truthful to yourself you would have seen how agitated your mind was.

It is very very difficult to make people understand subtle matters. Things can not be told like that. It is like explaining the unknown fragrances. There definitely has yet another dimension to the otherwise seen mundane world. Your ‘what if’ questions.. are all related to this chaotic – cacophonic - ( perhaps you may call realistic – I would think twice to call it realistic ) mundane world. Our spiritual leaders have always called this samsara chakram or samsara sagaram..(loukika Jeevitham) Knowing it very well and keeping aloof from it is the technique Geeta teaches. So many ‘what if s’ can be answered by just one ‘what if’ as you explained at the end. What if, if you and I were not born at all!

I would end this with a Zen guru joke:

Once a businessman got interested in Zen philosophy and he decided to become a monk. He joined a Zen ashram and lived there with Zen Gurus hoping to learn everything soon. They did not teach him anything. Six months passed .The businessman got frustrated. He slowly approached Guru. He told him plainly that he has not learned anything from them. Guru simply asked “Did you drink Kanji?” To this business man said “Yes”. Guru: “Did you wash your plates?” To this businessman said “Yes”. Guru: “Then go to sleep”.

I think the next day the businessman must have left the ashram. What do you think?
What is the underlying meaning or meaninglessness here?
How can this be explained to ordinary folks?

A 'What if' Question !

This is in reply to posting "Maharishi and Simply sitting ideology.." The comment is too large to be posted as comment. So I publish it. Besides I hope readers will get interested.

Read on...
___________________________________________________________________
'What if ?'

Hi Valsan,

'Simply Sitting' Solutions!

Very interesting!

Whoever has coined this phrase has unwittingly made 'TM' and 'Meditation', the words that are associated with rich and lazy more socialistic!. Now ordinary people can afford to practice it ! They need not join any cult praticing 'sudharshan kriya' and pay for it proprtionate to the amount of air they breath in and breath out ...or get suffocated by the hugging amma..

Standing on my one leg,inside the 8.46 Borivali-Churchgate fast local, my head sandwiched between two tall guys, struggling to take the hot and foul air inside thru my nostrills, I was yearning to sit in a corner and see solutions for whatever I can ...

I was thinking ...What, if ...

I get up in the morning and simply sit in a corner.. No need to rush to kitchen to boil the milk, prepare tea or cut vegetables .. No need to rush to catch the bus whcih comes at 8.40 and hop from the bus to catch this local ... dodge the vehicles to get into my office bus ... No need to rush to my PC to open 'windows' using 'mouse' to get greeted by some new gene of virus.. Or, see unwanted emails and increase my BP after seeing the sensex graph falling... No need to worry about how to develop the algorithm that goes inside the front-end tools to trigger an event that activates the back-end processing..the output of which is taken as input by some remote server simply sitting in some corner of the world!

What if,

My wife gets up in the mornng and simply sit in a corner. She also has to enjoy this 'simply sitting'. She refuses to rush thru her brushing and rush to kitchen to see if I have started the ground work! No need to prepare tea ... no need to worry about steaming Idlis or pouring dough on pan to make dosas which refuses to go round and round and prefers to simply sit in one side of the pan... No need to worry about preparing 'sambar' and accompanying 'Uppery' and stuff it in lunch boxes ...the daily chorus she wants to escape from...

What if,

My daughters get up in the morning and simply sit in a corner ... No need to visit the kitchen before turning the morning pages of daily ...and the colourfull supplements full of 'Bollywood' crab ... No need to get up and open the door when the door bell rings by the newspaper boy or the milk man or the garbage collector...

What if,

The sweeper, the bus driver, the motor man, the rikshawala,the traffic constable, the vegetable vendor, the postman,the pilot,the police .... and all those who make this city move decide to sit in a corner ...and continue to be in that posture.. till they get solutions for whatever the problems ....

Globally thinking...

What if,

Mr.Bush had been given lesson on 'simply sitting' solutions prior to his sending men to make Mr.Osama run, who was till then 'simply sitting' in a corner of some cave in Afganisthan without bothering anybody...

What if,

Mr.Osama had been given lesson on the benefit of 'simply sitting' solutions prior to his activating 'sleeping cells' to take the civilian aircraft and simply hit the twin towers...

What if,

Mr.Bush and Blair had been given lesson on the benefit of 'simply sitting' to find solutions before they decided to jointly undertake annihilation of Iraq looking for that ever elusive weapons of mass distruction...

What if,

Mr. Musharaf had been aware of this 'simply sitting solutions' before he ordered his men to climb up Kargil and 'simply sit' there till our men in uniform reach there to wake them up ...

What if .... I hadn't seen your blog praising the benefit of 'simply sitting solutions'....!

Regards,

SOman

What if .......................................................................................................................?

Sports - Olympics - China - Tibet - India

My dear compatriot, reader, let me ask you, what is the rate of your self respect? How do you rate your patriotism? If you are keen on India’s foreign policy, proud of India as a citizen, then you should be following the recent incidents. You must know how China humiliated India recently. First, the incursions on border second the salvo on Arunachal Pradesh Third warning on Dalai Lama. Fourth is height of humiliation calling our Lady Ambassador at 2:00 A.M. and give warning for the Tibetan Protests in New Delhi. What is our response? We oblige unlike in 1962 when our ambassador was called at 2:00 A.M. we also called their Ambassador at 3:00 A.M. Then for a long time China did not disturb us. But now things have changed. Money speaks now. Business interest is above human right violation. Or is it sheer spinelessness? Fear of a bully? Regional superpower? If you follow the news carefully, you will know that on every occasion China has humiliated us. But each occasion our politicians in Delhi have been compromising, obliging, adjusting - slipper licking! And what not!

I am sure our Ambassador Nirupama Rao, the strong Keralite lady, should have decided to answer appropriately by saying that we can meet during office hours. But alas When she checked with South block the answer was Go Immediately!. Even after prostrating before them they accuse us of encouraging Tibetan Protests. We should in fact unleash large scale support for Tibetan cause. Tibet’s culture is more assimilative in nature with ours than Chinas. Tibetans have been looking for India’s help for years! They have been living peacefully in India for long time now. All right-thinking people should support Tibetan cause. We can not have refugees staying in our country for more than 50 years!. Tibet must be free. And Tibetans should go to their homeland. After all Dalai Lama says he is not seeking Independence he is seeking just true Autonomy. China should listen.

There are people actors, sports persons who say that politics and sports should not be mixed.They did not like Baichung Butia’s decision not to hold the Torch. People like Aamir Khan, Saif Ali khan ( what do they have to do with sports I don’t know – In India celluloid heroes catch the Olympic Torch – perhaps our sports minister thinks they run faster than PT Usha ) are eager to hold the Torch. Almost all sports persons in India from P.T.,Usha to Leander Paes say politics should not be mixed with sports. So is Kiran Bedi. I am amazed at their statements. Where were they when India did not play in Pakistan for more than decade? Why did we boycott South Africa for a long time?

I think it is a good opportunity to humble china. India should boycott Olympics. Any way we are not going to loose anything expect a free vacation trip for some funny guys in Delhi. You should check how many guys went for last Olympics and how many medal we won. You surely will agree with my statement. There are some big fat guys permanently sitting ( I mean - sleeping ) in Indian Olympic committee. They damn care how many medals we bring. If we call off their pockets will be lean by couple of crores. The saved money can be utilized for coaching the athletes for the Commonwealth games and build infrastructure for it.

Otherwise nothing happens by boycotting the Bejing Olympics.

See an artist’s impression how the Chinese developed the Olympics emblem:

Should we boycott Olympics ?

My dear compatriot, reader, let me ask you, what is the rate of your self respect? How do you rate your patriotism? If you are keen on India’s foreign policy, proud of India as a citizen, then you should be following the recent incidents. You must know how China humiliated India recently. First, the incursions on border second the salvo on Arunachal Pradesh Third warning on Dalai Lama. Fourth is height of humiliation. They called our Lady Ambassador at 2:00 A.M. and gave warning for the Tibetan Protests in New Delhi. What is our response? We oblige. We kneel down. In 1962 when our ambassador was called at 2:00 A.M. we also called their Ambassador at 3:00 A.M and gave warning. Then for a long time China did not disturb us. But now things have changed. Money speaks now. Business interest is above human right violation. Or is it sheer spinelessness? Fear of a bully? Regional superpower? If you follow the news carefully, you will know that on every occasion China has humiliated us. But each occasion our politicians in Delhi have been compromising, obliging, adjusting - slipper licking! And what not!

I am sure our Ambassador Nirupama Rao, the strong Keralite lady, should have decided to answer appropriately by saying that we can meet during office hours. But alas I now hear that when she checked with South block the answer was - Go Immediately!. Even after prostrating before them they accuse us of encouraging Tibetan Protests. We should in fact unleash large scale support for Tibetan cause. Tibet’s culture is more assimilative in nature with ours than Chinas. Tibetans have been looking for India’s help for years! They have been living peacefully in India for long time now. All right-thinking people should support Tibetan cause. We can not have refugees staying in our country for more than 50 years!. Tibet must be free. And Tibetans should go to their homeland. After all Dalai Lama has been saying that he is not seeking Independence they are seeking just and true Autonomy. China should listen. They should start dialogue with Dalai Lama.

There are people actors, sports persons in India who say that politics and sports should not be mixed.They did not like Baichung Butia’s decision not to hold the Torch. People like Aamir Khan, Saif Ali khan are eager to hold the Torch. ( what do they have to do with sports I don’t know – In India celluloid heroes are asked to hold Olympic Torch – perhaps our sports minister thinks they run faster than PT Usha ) Almost all sports persons in India from P.T.Usha to Leander Paes say politics should not be mixed with sports. So is Kiran Bedi. I am amazed at their statements. Where were they when India did not play in Pakistan for more than decade? Why did we boycott South Africa for a long time?

I think India should boycott Olympics. We are not going to loose anything expect a free vacation trip for some funny guys in Delhi. You should check how many guys went for last Olympics and how many medal we won. You surely will agree with me. There are some big fat guys permanently sitting in Indian Olympic committee. They damn care about how many medals we bring. If we call off, we save some money. The money saved can be utilized for coaching the athletes for the Commonwealth games and build better infrastructure for it.

Otherwise nothing happens. See an artist’s impression how the Chinese developed their Olympics emblem:

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…