“Where Women Reign” by Sujata Nair

I have got absolutely nothing to do with the authorship of this article. It appeared on the in-flight magazine of Air-India, or the Indian Airlines in the late 1980s, or early 90s. I have searched various combinations of several key words and even full paragraphs in Google, but it all ended up in negative results.

I gather the article is not available in the cyberspace, and thought of making it forthcoming somewhere. I do not know if by doing so I am doing the right thing. Also, if anyone rightly in that position, think I am infringing the copyright laws, or violating any spaces of ethics or morality, I offer to withdraw this article right away.

Also there may be many who think I am trying to venerate a rotten social system, long buried by history. I fully respect their freedom to harbor such sentiments. But this is for those who think otherwise. Also I find it somehow complimenting my own post titled ‘Paradevatha- Remnants of an era by-gone’ available in this blog.

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                                 Where Women Reign

Paradevatha-Remnants of an era by-gone

Paradevatha: Remnants of an Era Bygone 

We have to go at least 4-5 generations back to start the story. Kunnath Achyuthan Pillai Vakkeel¹ (who originally belongs to Edayaly family) is the doyen of the family (Karanavar) at that time. He is having a series of very inauspicious happenings in the family. Kalyani, his daughter has died at the age of 32. Another daughter Meenakshy, who had lost a child earlier, had died in the later stages of her second pregnancy. Yet another daughter Ammu (fondly called Annaamma later) had been having a series of miscarriages, 4 to be precise- that too at the extreme advanced stages of her pregnancies.

You cannot even imagine the agony of removing the full grown foetuses, four times, by physically cutting them to pieces. Just remember we are talking about the 1910^s when such words like keyhole surgery, scanning etc. were unheard of. The strong man, though well ahead of his times, must have felt miserable. So he brings in the famous astrologer Nambiyath Karunakaran Pillai from North Paravur for a detailed ritualistic investigation called ‘prasnam’. The elaborate rituals which took place in the adukkala thalam (the dining area attached to the kitchen) of our tharavad (ancestral home) revealed the presence of an agitated ‘brahma rakshass’ (the soul of an ancient brahmin) and some other unhappy celestial beings. An elaborate ‘chakra homam’ was performed and a pilgrimage was undertaken by the muthassan (Achyuthan Pillai Vakkeel), muthassi (Kunnath Parvathy Amma) and Annaamma to Rameswaram. And also the ‘brahma rakshass’, 'nagathans’ (sarppams or divine serpents) and the other sacred beings were venerated by inducting their presence in these foundations (see picture below).