Tag: history

Exploring Alleppey: A Journey Through Kerala’s Backwaters

December 23, 2024

We drove from Munnar to Alleppey in five hours. Our journey through Kerala’s backwaters led us across numerous canals to Alleppey, a city with a population exceeding 300,000. Alleppey district, with over two million inhabitants, boasted a 96% literacy rate and harmonious religious coexistence, according to our guide Dinesh. Hindus comprised half; Christians and Muslims, a quarter each.

Reclaimed lakes around Alleppey formed a backwater area for rice paddies and coconut groves. Manual labor initiated the first reclamation in the late nineteenth century. The second reclamation wave of the early 1900s relied on steam engines, while electric motors powered the final, larger phase of that same century. Reclamation efforts resulted in the canals and rice paddies. Today, the backwater area spans over three hundred square kilometers.


Rice paddies and coconut groves formed the economic foundation of this region. The canals served as transportation routes. Rice barges were the conveyances used to bring the rice to Alleppey; this area is the rice bowl of Kerala. The coconut groves created the coir industry. I was unfamiliar with the word “coir,” but Kathy believed it was identical to sisal, a material her seafaring relatives, including her father, used to craft carpets aboard ships during their downtime. However, sisal comes from a species of flowering plant native to southern Mexico, according to Wikipedia, cultivated and naturalized in many other countries. Like coir, it produces a rigid fiber suitable for rope-making.

In contrast, coir or coconut fiber is a natural fiber extracted from the outer husk of coconut and used in products such as floor mats, doormats, brushes, and mattresses. Coir is the fibrous material found between the hard internal shell and the outer coat of a coconut. Brown coir, derived from mature coconuts, also finds use in upholstery padding, sacking, and horticulture. White coir, harvested from unripe coconuts, makes finer brushes, string, rope, and fishing nets. This material doesn’t sink, so it’s useful in deep water at long lengths without weighing down boats and buoys.

The Alleppey area has always been popular with domestic and international tourists because of its climate. When the rice markets collapsed in the 1960s, rice farmers converted rice barges into houseboats for tourists. There are more than one thousand houseboats now, also called kettuvallams. Coir ropes tied in knots hold the entire boat structure together. This boat uses no nails. Instead, the boat comprises vast planks of Jackwood or Aanjili joined with coir.


Dinesh explained the coir industry has become a significant economic force in the Alleppey area. After giving us all this information, Dinesh took us to the port where we would embark on a Kerala backwater cruise on a kettuvallam. A backwater cruise was our principal attraction when we came to Kerala, and we had grand expectations.

Dinesh left us by the houseboats, docked side-by-side and connected to the port via gangplanks. We started walking toward the kettuvallams, and it was such a major disappointment! At the water’s edge, a dirt path ran alongside the port’s bulkhead. The path extended several hundred meters, with boats moored at the bulkhead and trees bordering the water. Garbage lined the entire pathway. The path was littered with paper boxes, wrappers, and empty soda cans!

I expressed my disgust to Kathy, declaring my intention to leave. Given this awful beginning, what good outcome can we expect from this trip? They advertised Alleppey as notable for its backwater cruises.

But then, a young fellow approached us and asked if we were his passengers. We said that we were waiting for our cruise. We crossed a gangplank to his boat, and the atmosphere suddenly changed. Inside, the boat featured teakwood lounge chairs, a bedroom, and a bathroom, all spotlessly clean. Two boatmates and a chef stayed in the kitchen area.

We departed, gliding along the canal toward a massive lake. Relaxing on this lavish boat allowed me to contemplate the stark difference in condition between the decrepit shoreline and the well-maintained boat. Was it because the coastline and its maintenance are a municipal responsibility, and no money is available to upgrade it? Perhaps boat owners prioritize tourist competition and maintaining boats while lacking resources or desire for approach improvements. I think boat owners should be more keenly interested in a pleasant and attractive approach to their boats.


We were not the only ones getting into the canal system; several houseboats were leaving, and it looked like a busy street with lots of traffic. The blue sky and summer weather were lovely, but many people following the same routine detracted from the trip’s special quality. Despite that, we sat in lounge chairs and enjoyed the scenery. And the entire trip was like that; enjoyment depended on your perspective.

There were minor drawbacks. For example, the boat lacked alcoholic beverages, such as beer, but I could purchase some in the small villages along the way. People complained about the lack of Western channels on the boat’s TV. Television viewing hadn’t crossed my mind. I  took a positive approach and enjoyed every moment.

We cruised until we stopped for lunch by the shore, joining other boats in line. But the lunch was ample and delicious, consisting of local fish we enjoyed. We also stopped and bought fresh prawns for our dinner. It was in addition to the full vegetarian meal included with the trip. The cabin crew provided tea and banana fritters for a snack. We had ample food for dinner, including chapati, del curry, aloo gobi, cabbage, a vegetable salad, and vendakka. The chef prepared the food with local spices and heat.

The waterway offered a view into daily life: women in vibrant sarees washing clothes, children returning from school, and people fishing or traveling by small boat. Observing children playing in the water, we guessed the polluted water must have built up their immunity. We also saw commercial barges moving rice. The people along the shore waved at us.

Travelers we spoke with later expressed different views on the boat tours. Some thought an hour would be sufficient. Others found the trip dull. In contrast, we enjoyed the private time we had on the boat. The boat trip offered a relaxing, mosquito-free evening. We observed the morning rush hour in the tiny village where our houseboat docked. Boatloads of children went to school; others were readied for fishing. The chef served us breakfast of idli with sambar and tea. Then, the captain took us back to the dock to disembark, where Dinesh awaited us.

Dinesh took us to the fish market next. I have always liked fish markets, seeing the variety of fresh fish caught in the area, and the Alleppey market was no exception. Photographing the busy fishmongers proved rewarding. Several looked like genuine characters with enormous mustaches and used their long knives to clean fish expertly. Before taking their picture, I asked them if they would mind. Nobody refused.

Having walked around the fish market, Dinesh took us to the Tharavad Homestay, where we would spend the night, leaving us at the door for the evening. He mentioned he could not park overnight in the guesthouse driveway. I suspected hired drivers could not leave their cars in this neighborhood even though we were traveling in an unmarked SUV.

The hosts, Maria and Zac, received us at the homestay, and they were the most hospitable people I had met anywhere. They showed us our bedroom, which was large and spartanly furnished with a bathroom that was not modern but functional. Breakfast was included in our reservation, however, dinner was at our own expense. Although we were the only guests there, Maria provided us with a choice of menus for the night. She was an excellent cook serving local dishes.

During dinner, conversation with our lively and insightful hosts covered all aspects of Alleppey and Indian culture. They were well-traveled, and we discussed politics. The election of a communist government in Kerala surprised everyone, including our hosts, making it one of the first Indian states with such a government. The hosts were involved in the coir industry and had a son in the United States.

The next day, we visited the coir museum and saw lots of coconut remnants used to make the coir in the area. After breakfast, Dinesh picked us up and drove us to Kanyakumari.


Exploring Munnar: A Tea Lover’s Paradise

December 22, 2024

A two-hour drive from the heat of Kochi brought us to Munnar, a hill station 1600 meters above sea level. With a population of 40,000, Munnar was a tourist destination for honeymooners, hikers, and tea connoisseurs. Dinesh took us to the Shamrock Hotel for overnight accommodation. From our Shamrock balcony, mountains and tea plantations were visible.

Munnar’s downtown market bustled with people. Although I assumed hill stations had limited shopping, I found the town market fascinating. There were various teas, coffees, and spices, like pepper, cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom. There were also wooden artifacts, handicrafts, fabrics, aromatic essential oils, homemade chocolate, and more. Stalls lined the streets, offering many things, from rice to pots to utensils. Although many items appealed to us, we had no space for additional purchases in our suitcases. But grabbing one of those fine-smelling coffees was in order. With coffee in hand, we strolled around the stalls offering fruits and vegetables neatly piled up, sweetening the air that was already perfumed by scents of spices and coffee.

A mosque was being renovated, and a Christian church was nearby. Walking, we saw drying sheets spread across open fields. I wondered if the locals would ever switch to using dryers.

A nearby attraction was the Tata Tea Museum, which opened in 2005 (until 2005, the Tata Group owned extensive tea plantations in this region). The exhibits explained the tea-making process and helped us understand what we saw on our field trip.

To harvest the tea plants, women plucked tea leaves into big sacks worn on their backs; supervising the women was always done by men. We watched this operation and attributed this division of roles by gender to historical precedent and/or class. When the sacks were full, the women transported leaves to the plant for size-based sorting. The next step was to remove the leaves’ moisture and then crush them. Further drying by blowing air through the laid-out leaves created oxidation. As leaves dry, their color changes and lighter brown leaves are harvested first for lighter teas. With further drying, the leaves turn darker for stronger teas.


After the museum guides explained the tea-making process, they offered samples of teas from light to darker varieties and provided a history of tea, the world’s most consumed beverage. The tea plant comes from India and China, with three varieties: China, Assam, and Cambodia. Of course, there are hybrids.

The Assam variety was cultivated in the Munnar area. This tea can reach twenty meters in height. It’s smaller after pruning and lasts up to four decades. When grown at elevations near Darjeeling in Assam or Munnar in Kerala, the tea leaves produce a variety of flavors.

I found an interesting description of a legend in the museum of how tea drinking started. The Hindu legend’s origin is attributed to a saintly priest, Bodhidharma. About 1,900 years ago, the eventual founder of Zen Buddhism was in the fifth year of a seven-year sleepless contemplation of the Buddha. Finding himself dangerously close to falling asleep, Bodhidharma snatched some leaves from a nearby bush and chewed them. He was immediately revived. Bodhidharma turned to these leaves, the leaves of a wild tea tree, whenever he again felt drowsy and was thus, according to legend, able to complete his seven years of meditation.


Note: The history of tea plantations in the Munnar area starts in the second half of the nineteenth century. The land was undeveloped until British resident John Daniel Munro came to Munnar in 1857. He thought of creating a plantation in the area and leased hundreds of square kilometers of land from the Poonjar royal family. In 1872, the Scottish Finley Muir Company acquired the local tea plantations. In 1964, the Finley Group collaborated with the Tata Group to form the Tata Finley Group, which became Tata Tea, Ltd. in 1983.



The Rich History of Jew Town in Kochin and the Chinese Fishnets

December 20, 2024

The next day Dinesh showed us the Chinese fishing nets. These were stationary lift nets. Circling them, I discovered teak pylons hammered into the ground supporting a shoreside deck, from which the enormous net cantilevered. Four poles, lashed together at the apex, supported a twenty-meter-wide net stretched between their bases. Two of the poles connected to the edge of the platform while the other two cantilevered over the water.

From the platform, workers used ropes tied to the apex of the four poles where the poles met, to raise and lower the net into the water. It took up to six men to pull up the net when submerged. The workers lowered the net for about ten minutes, then lifted it to remove the fish. Tourists could buy the catch of the day, prepared as fresh fish, at little sidewalk restaurants. The entire operation was a crowd-pleaser, and I watched it for a few hours.

I heard two stories about where the nets and this construction came from. One was that the Chinese explorer Zheng He brought such nets from the court of Kublai Khan. The other story was that Portuguese traders returned with the idea from their travels in China; confirmed by the fact that many fishing net parts retained their Portuguese names. Both narratives dated the fishing nets back to the fifteenth century. There were only eight such nets left. Watching the nets go down and up was a relaxing sight.

But Kochin had more to offer us; Dinesh took us to Jew Town. I said, What? The idea of a city area named after an ethnicity seemed unique to me, until I remembered examples like Ottawa’s Little Italy and the many Chinatowns. I learned that the oldest Jewish settlement in India was in Kochin and that they traced their ancestry back to King Solomon. Known as Malabari Jews, they built synagogues along the Malabar coast, starting in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. Following the expulsion of Jews by the Spanish in 1492 in Iberia, Sephardi Jews made their way to the Kochin area. These people were called Paradesi Jews—the word means foreigners.

The Sephardim spoke Spanish but learned the Judea-Malayalam language from the Malabari Jews. The two communities maintained their respective ethnic identities, languages, and customs. In the late nineteenth century, some Arabic-speaking Jews immigrated to the Kochin area and became known as Baghdadi Jews. The synagogue we saw dates back to 1568. It was one of only eight synagogues left in Kerala that were functioning and had congregants; the oldest congregant was ninety-six years old. After independence in India was declared in 1947, many Jews moved to Israel. Today, there are few Jews left in Kochin, and Jew Town consists mostly of antique stores, and the one synagogue that we saw.

We went inside the synagogue and learned how the various Jewish ethnic groups used the synagogue. Synagogue membership was granted in full to the Paradesi Jews, also known as White Jews, who were of Sephardic descent from Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands. The so-called black Jews, or Malabari Jews, could worship in the synagogue but were not admitted to full membership. I did not learn the status of the Arabic Jews.

The 1968 four-hundredth anniversary of the synagogue saw global Jewish communities celebrate, with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in attendance. The celebration demonstrated how the Jews from Kochin melted into the global diaspora.

On our way to the Green Woods Bethlehem Homestay, Dinesh convinced us to visit the Church of St. Francis on the site of old Fort Kochin. Kochin’s history and its succession of rulers are interwoven with the story of St. Francis Church. The history of this church started with Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese explorer who discovered the sea route from Europe to India. Portuguese explorers later built Fort Kochi in Kochin, which contained a church honoring St. Bartholomew. The construction of this wooden church was completed in 1506.

In 1516, Franciscan friars replaced the wooden church with a brick-and-mortar structure dedicated to St. Anthony. Vasco da Gama died in Kochin in 1524 and was buried in this brick-and-mortar church. After fourteen years, they moved his remains to Lisbon. But the gravestone of Vasco da Gama was still visible on the ground at the southern side of the Church of St. Francis.

The church remained Franciscan until the Dutch captured Kochin in 1663 and converted it to a Protestant government church. After the British captured Kochin in 1795, the church’s denomination changed again—this time to Anglican, run by the Anglican Communion, and renamed the Church of St. Francis. Historians believe the Anglicans changed the name to St. Francis. The church we saw was small by European standards and needed renovation.

The Coffee Klatch: Why Canadians Compare Themselves to Americans

November 16, 2024

When I sat down for coffee, my friend asked, “Will your children return to Canada?” I understood he was talking about Trump’s presidential victory in the US and its impact on people. Trump’s win caused widespread consternation among my friends.

I said no. Why would my children return when they have good jobs, own their houses, and are growing families in the USA? I said that I do not talk with them much about politics; we talk about their families. Besides, a new government would not make any difference to them, at least in the short term.

His question upset me because it steered our conversation immediately toward US politics. Why are we Canadians so preoccupied with US matters? Yes, the US is our largest trading partner; most of us visit and travel to the US. But don’t we have our own political issues to talk about?

I find scant news about Canada despite watching Canadian TV channels. Two recent provincial elections were hardly covered on the national TV channels. Ontario’s big news recently was that the Premier ordered municipalities to remove bicycle lanes on major roads to ease traffic jams. I agree with him; on some major roads in Ottawa, the bike lanes take up space, making for dangerous driving while watching for cyclists right next to you. And, of course, one cannot park along the curb to visit stores because of the bike lanes. Beyond the bike lanes issue, what comes to my mind is the Premier’s promise to give every Ontarian $200, anticipating an election next spring. These news items produce no excitement in me.

Although local news has had sparse coverage, US news of the election was shown in detail on Canadian national TV channels every night. Canadians have a love-hate relationship with Americans. They like to winter and shop in Florida and Arizona. However, they often express critical views of life there, mentioning rampant crime and an expensive healthcare system compared to Canada.

You’ll be surprised how often you read a thread on Quora (a social network) about universal Canadian healthcare and its superiority to American healthcare. It is also cheaper, according to the threads. Perhaps. However, the subject is more complex; only eight percent of Americans are without health insurance today, and we should also compare the quality of healthcare in the two countries before drawing simplistic conclusions. Two-thirds of Americans with private insurance have better healthcare quality than in Canada; for example, access to a family doctor is much faster than in Canada, and waiting times for hip replacements are shorter.

Also, in Quora threads, many Canadians think Americans are ignorant; I remember the popularity of Rick Mercer’s TV show (This Hour Has 22 Minutes) when he presented fake situations and asked people to respond, for example, when he said the Canadian parliament building is made of ice. Is that Canadian humor? It was a silly statement and demeaning to the people he interviewed. In one episode, he interviewed Mike Huckabee when he was governor of Arkansas, embarrassing him: Huckabee congratulated Canada on having a “National Igloo” in response to Mercer’s prompt. I think American comedians could come to Canada and emulate Mercer’s performance in the US, showing how ignorant Canadians are.

I went to graduate school, worked in the US in the 1960s, and have fond memories of my life there. That was after I lived in Vancouver, Canada, where people, particularly the British people, wanted to learn about your pedigree before befriending you. I found them class-conscious, and the Brits still considered themselves living in the colonies. In contrast, the Americans asked what I could do and what my skills were, not dwelling on my background.

In my experience, Americans work harder and longer hours than Canadians, which may also lead to higher stress levels. I remember when my brother, who traveled a lot, told me that it was always calming to fly into Canada; the atmosphere was just more relaxed at Canadian airports compared to US ones.

The conversation with my friend over coffee made me think of why Canadians spend so much time comparing themselves to the US, and always in a favorable light. I do not have an answer, but I cannot help wondering whether this results from an inferiority complex, justified or not.

The Evolving Ethnic Character

November 5, 2024

During the late 1950s, I worked alongside Steve as a draftsman at the Buildings and Grounds Department of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Although we were recent Hungarian immigrants, we differed in our behavior in the office; he used to bring his breakfast to work unlike me, I ate at home. He spread some grease paper on his drafting table and ate his breakfast of smelly, garlicky sausage with a thick slice of brown bread. The powerful smell permeating the room bothered the rest of us working there, but nobody wanted to tell him to eat his breakfast at home and save us from the unpleasant smells. Eating a smelly breakfast at work was not Canadian, and still is not. I am not sure if that behavior was Hungarian. However, I heard Steve became a successful architect and integrated into Canadian society in a few years.

In contrast to Steve, some individuals never assimilate into the local culture and instead choose to return home. A Hungarian friend’s mother embraced women’s freedom in Canada and entered the workforce. Her husband was not as successful, and he felt he had lost his masculine dominance in the household, so he returned to Hungary, but the wife stayed in Canada with the children.

I do not know how others in Vancouver perceived my ethnicity when I arrived in Canada in the late 1950s, except that they noticed my English language skills and accent. I improved in record time and assimilated into local culture in many other ways.

One strategy I used was always to try to fit in and go with the flow; for example, I acquired a taste for beer when I drank with my classmates while finishing architectural projects at all-night sessions at the UBC School of Architecture.  I was not too fond of beer then, but drinking with my classmates led me to develop a taste for it.

Other opportunities for cultural assimilation arose when I attended concerts with Elvis Presley at the PNE and Dave Brubeck at the old Georgia Auditorium in Vancouver. Later on, I acquired a taste for rock music. My father could not understand why I listened to The Grateful Dead, The Bachman Turner Overdrive, Credence Clearwater Revival, and their ilk; he thought music was only classical.  

I further embraced local culture when we started camping and canoeing after marriage. Later, we traveled widely in a tent trailer across Canada with our children and a dog. After getting tired of hauling a tent trailer, we bought a cottage. And cottaging is a Canadian thing; only a couple of immigrants own cottages out of a hundred neighbors where our cottage is (I realize immigrants may not have the money for a cottage).

While I have been in North America since 1957 and consider myself part of North American culture, I am always intrigued when I hear Hungarian being spoken. My language abilities in Hungarian are equivalent to that of a sixteen-year-old, the age I was when I departed the country. While traveling in France last summer, I heard a group talking in Hungarian in Arles. I introduced myself to them, and we spoke about Hungary today compared to the one I left. I had to search for some words since my fluency in Hungarian was spotty, but it was a satisfying conversation.

A recent event drew me back to my ethnic background. Kathy met a Hungarian woman at a grocery store who recommended that we join the Hungarian Community Center in Ottawa.  I followed up and decided to attend a social event celebrating the anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. I hoped to listen to conversations in Hungarian and perhaps meet some people from Sopron from where we fled, so I looked forward to the event. I was somewhat fearful of how I would react to my countrymen and whether I could intelligently converse with them, limited by my sparse vocabulary and lack of practice speaking the language.

Upon entering the building, nobody welcomed us. We found our way to take a couple of seats and looked around. All age groups were there, from children to grey hairs, and they all seemed to know each other. And I heard only Hungarian spoken. There was a celebratory feeling in the air; some people were informally dressed, while others wore pin-striped suits. Nobody showed interest in us.

The MC asked the Hungarian Ambassador to Canada to speak. She spoke in Hungarian, and I whispered to Kathy and explained what was happening.

Although we were in Canada, curiously, there was absolutely no French or English spoken, and there was no acknowledgment of land rights by the Indigenous people of Canada, a custom in all public events now. That made me think that the Hungarians have a thousand-year history occupying the land of Hungary. The Ottomans took over the land at one time and the Germans at another time, but there had never been an acknowledgment of previous land ownership and compensation for taking the land. To my knowledge, the concept of compensation to earlier landowners has no currency in Hungarian thought. That made me think of how people interpret history in different parts of the world.

After the Ambassador’s speech, we enjoyed some poetry and dancing by third-generation Candaian-Hungarians, indicating that some families kept their culture intact. When the Ambassador asked people who came to Canada after the 1956 Revolution to stand up, I counted half a dozen out of fifty, including myself. So, most of these people were second—and third-generation Hungarians who maintained their native culture.

One of the celebration’s highlights was serving “langos,” a Hungarian breakfast food similar to doughnuts, fried dough covered with cheese, cinnamon, and/or garlic. I lined up to get a couple of langos and limited by my language skills, I ended up with two plain ones. There is not much taste to plain ones, so I returned for another one with cheese and garlic to enhance its flavor. I put on too much garlic that burned our mouths, and we took it home, not wanting to throw it away in front of the Hungarian crowd, showing our dislike of it.

Frankly, the event disappointed me because nobody welcomed or showed interest in us while we sat in the audience. Of course, we could have approached people, but they all seemed either to know and talk with each other or to be occupied with moving chairs around and other official matters.

The people were not unfriendly; they seemed to accept and ignore us. For some reason, I felt quite at home, understanding the language, although Kathy felt ignored. I felt as if I was on an island with my old countrymen. When I lined up for our langos at the kitchen, I heard the women working there talking to each other; one kneading the dough and cutting portions to fry, another frying, and the third putting the cheese and/or cinnamon on and serving it. The entire atmosphere felt homey. Based on our strange experience with this celebration, we decided to try again and attend a party next week with dinner, a concert, and dancing. I hope we won’t. be disappointed.