Kizhakke Madom-My Grandfather's House

Kizhakke Madom. Mankompu. P.O.  Alleppey District. Kerala.  

My grandfather’s house. The house my mother called Home. My mother and her nine sisters. And before that, my grandfather and his siblings. The house that has stood for over a hundred years. The home where ‘The Sisters’ met with their three dozen offspring. And their kids too. The Family Home that tied the family together.  

Kizhakke Madom. Mankombu. In the middle of the ‘50 places to see before you die’ Backwaters. In ‘God’s Own Country’, Kerala. Serene, Idyllic; Sleepy, Idle.

Kizhakke Madom. The House on the East End. A house that was an Address by itself.  The house with countless mango trees, coconut trees, banana trees, jackfruit trees, guava trees and many other nameless trees. The house with its own private pond, private boat, two dozen rooms, hidden corners, dark alleys, attics, secrets. The house where every part had a name. Tekkamuri, Maramadi, Madaperra, Maditazhai, Puthacheri, Kittaam.

Kizhakke Madom. The house that the Sarpam (snake god) loved. The home that Sarpam would not leave. A house where the Sarpam is feared as much as He is worshipped. Every Day. Even Today.

A visit to Kizhakke Madom was an annual ritual in my life from the year I was born. A ritual, I had no say in, but did not initially look forward to. You see, we didn’t just visit Mankompu each year. We relocated there every summer. For the entire summer vacation of two + months. Every single year. From where I lived in Gujarat in the west of India, going to Mankompu was not unlike a trip to Timbuktu. It took around 3 -4 days to get there. One way.  First by Train. Then again by Train. Then by Car. And finally by Boat.

Mankompu was a little island with no tarred roads, no vehicles. The only way to get there was by boat. The ‘Row, row, row, your boat’ kind, mostly. Or by motor boat if you came from Alleppey.  Everybody on the island got around on foot. Literally. No shoes please. Atleast not usually. It may have been only an hour away from the nearest city, but it was almost as if it was forgotten by time.

There were very few shops there that sold just the essentials – soaps, some grocery, Parle biscuits and a little candy. Knicks and knacks could only be bought at the Sunday weekend market. The only outing was going to the village Temple. Morning and evening. Eating out was eating in the courtyard instead of indoors. The telephone was likely one of Graham Bell’s early pieces. It served more as an adornment than as a means of communication. You only got a Phone Call if there was Bad News. Otherwise, you communicated by telepathy. Toys consisted of handmade fans – made by Balan or Aiyyappan-my grandfather’s faithful men. There were no movie theatres to go to;no libraries either. When televisions finally came to the village, everybody else had one- except Thatha (my grand-dad). I remember talking with him and trying to negotiate buying a T.V. He just chuckled indulgently. And never bought a T.V. anyway. So we ran to neighbours houses to watch Ramayana or Mahabharata. My grand-father never bought a refrigerator either. Who wanted to eat stale food anyway? Milk came home –fresh off the cow- twice a day. Vegetables plucked off their sources and cooked every day. On wood-fired stoves.

A visit to the Loo was one that needed much preparation. It had its own name. Kittaam. Like it was another town. It almost was. You walked around 200 meters off the main house into a dark un-lit, tumbling structure that was the Loo. You had to prepare yourself to commune with the spiders while there. And the lizards and the cockroaches. After sunset, you Held It All In.

My other ‘luckier’ cousins visited Kizhakke Madom in short bursts. A fortnight maybe. Sometimes a month. I was there to receive them and send them off. Besides, only a few of them were even around my age group. Time went quickly when there was company- doing the things kids usually do-climbing trees, going on ‘discovery’ trips to unused portions of the house, fighting, playing games in the compound. But that was not always. And I had enough Time to rave, rant, complain, get bored, dream, laze, enjoy and eventually, Fall in Love. Over 15 years. With my grand-father’s house. Kizhakke Madom.  

When I was in my teens, my grandfather passed on. And my summer vacations stopped. Suddenly there was No Where to go. Because Kizhakke Madom was now no longer ours. It belonged to my grandfather’s brother-we shall call him Uncle. You see, my grandfather –not for the lack of effort- had produced no Sons. No Heir, No House. As per The Law.

Many times, we cousins considered asking for the house. Or buying it back. Many of my older cousins grew up in Mankompu, went to primary school there. So have even deeper bonds than I with Kizhakke Madom. But The Sisters intervened. Who would take care of the Sarpam(snake god) ?. For the Sarpam was a demanding God. He had to be worshipped every day. Fed with milk every day. And if you invited His Ire, He would Curse. So nobody asked Uncle. They said ‘Let Uncle take care of Kizhakke Madom’. And he did. But we could never go and live there again. We visited the temple every few years-the family deity. And if Uncle was around, we could stay overnight. Else, we would sit in the courtyard of the house and have a meal. Reminisce about old times, and head back to the city the same day.

A few years ago -the time came when uncle could no longer take care of Kizhakke Madom anymore. Under him, the house had changed a lot. Parcels of land around the main house had been sold off. And old teak structures had been dismantled and sold piece by piece. But the core of the house still remained.

Again, we considered asking Uncle about it. Again the Snake God raised His Head. So, we dropped the topic. And the house. Uncle did not want it to fall into the wrong hands. People with no respect for its legacy and history. So he donated it to A Mutt (a religious organization) far away. He extracted a promise that they would use it well. Build a Veda School. And soon after, he passed away.

I last visited Kizhakke Madom 2 years ago. To show my daughter and my husband where I had spent 15 summer holidays. The house was vacant. Nobody lived there. Nobody had cleaned it in a while. The Mutt has too many properties to handle apparently. And No-Man’s Land Mankompu is apparently too far for a Veda School. The courtyard was filled with deep puddles, with little tadpoles swimming all around. My daughter refused to enter. My mother and I dodged the tadpoles and went up to the small temple of Snake God. He now owned all of Kizhakke Madom. The house that had cradled scores of babies, raised dozens of kids, held hundreds of stories within its walls, fed several thousand meals in its lifetime, stood abandoned, neglected, alone.

There is a fresh round of discussions among the cousins. Should we approach the Mutt for the house? Should we buy it back?  The Snake God will rear His Head again.