Category: Classic Kovai

The people of Vysial Street were known for the festivals and customs. Come adi month or ashadam in Telugu, the women will begin to get busy. They will begin to purchase the essentials required for the festival season. Cotton, turmeric, banana fibre, cooking ingredients, oil and ghee for pooja, sambrani, rope needed for the tying up of plantain to the mandapams, bangles, arecanuts, fabric, blouse materials, kumkumam, turmeric pods etc., The women of the household will begin to assemble the hardware required from their lofts, storerooms, cupboards and lockers at…

Food helps us understand the cultural exchanges and commercial connections. The mercantile community was among the earliest to try out new items. They had the unique advantage of doing so for they dealt with the ingredients on a day to day basis. Items like Bengaluru pulusu, soup charu etc., were the outcome. Soup charu was full of English veggies and it was had with bread crumbs. Mysore charu was much preferred as a welcome break. It was an interesting type of rasam. Pickling was another art. The huge and wealthy…

The mercantile community of Vysial Street celebrate a number of festivals at their Vasavi Kannikaparameswari Temple. The Navarathri is used to be the time when eleven types of flavoured rice would be served to the people of the locality. Puliyodharai, Thakkali pandu annam, Pongal, chakkara Pongal, thenkai annam, nimma pandu annam, podi annam, kadambam annam, perugu annam etc., used to be cooked and served to thousands of people. The flavoured rice used to be packed in plantain leaves with old newspapers as the external wrapper and distributed from the entrance…

Coimbatore has been know for its tasty food. A number of homemakers, cooks etc., made excellent food. Many of them became food vendors. They used to make at home and deliver at houses of their clients. The people of Vysial Street were known for their unique food. These merchants had migrated into the Tamil speaking regions of the peninsula long ago. They used to live in clusters all over the Madras Presidency. Most of them used to live in a neighbourhood and were attached to their community deity Vasavi Kannika…

D.Balasundaram is known for his technological expertise but his essays and works bring out the philosopher in him. He was an amazing person and one of a kind. He led a simple life in his quaint bungalow and would always be found amidst books. The chapter ‘Isha Murthy Upasanai’ is the best treatment according to the noble soul. He states that the ones who are suffering from worries or other afflictions to do with the mind can find solace through the worship of their favourite deities. He quotes the kural…

Textool Balasundaram (1913 – 2009) was a top technocrat. He was first to indigenously produce textile spinning equipment in India. The UK educated technocrat had been responsible for the large scale industrialization of Coimbatore. His good work resulted in mass employment. Once upon a time the people in harness used to acknowledge his role in the society. He had also worked on a charkha for the spinners in the villages. The Sheffield educated Balasundaram lived with his wife Kamalam on Avinashi Road and was known for his deep thinking. He…

The Cement industry walked into Coimbatore through Madukkarai. The Madukkarai Cement Works was established in the year 1934 with a production capacity of 60000 tonnes in early stages and it was scaled up to 300,000 tonnes in about 20 years. About 2000 people were employed in this factory during the early years of the republic. Manufacture of cement had commenced in the Madras Presidency way back in the year 1904. It did not achieve the full result. It was only in the year 1913 that it became a success in…

Coimbatore had its first joint stock company in Janopakara Bank Limited in the year 1883. It was being managed by C.Sadasivam Mudaliar, the father of Diwan bahadur C.S.Rathinasabapathy Mudaliar. The Europeans went into the Nilgiris in the nineteenth century and it gave an oppourtunity for people in Coimbatore and Mettupalayam. P.Samanna Naidu of Mettupalayam took part in a number of operations in the last decade of the nineteenth century and was very successful. S.P.Narasimhalu Naidu visited Mumbai in the year 1885 to participate in the first session of the Indian…

The freedom movement did marvels for the country. India had been battered under the English. Her share in global trade had come down from 19% to less than 2% between the years 1800 and 1900. Famines, poverty, illiteracy and literal slavery had become the order of the day. Life became very difficult for survival was in question. Millions of cotton farmers, the spinners and weavers of the villages suffered because of Lancashire cloth. India had gradually got de-industrialized. Therefore the country lost its voice and a fortunate few were left…

India was ruled by several rulers for centuries and some of the Indian empires were among the most powerful on Earth. However, the villages were ruled by the people directly. A lot of evidence shows us that democracy prevailed at the village level. Utharamerur in Tamilnadu was perhaps one of the best examples. The inscriptions that exist in the village talk about the democratic system belonging to the period between 750 AD and 1250 AD. Elected representatives had to be educated and should not have encroached upon public property. Their…