Kudallurinte Ormapusthakam

All about Kudallur- thats the best description this book can ever have, because each and evey page of this book says something deep and amazing on Kudallur. Like the name suggests, its a look back to the ways through which Kudallur came through. And also remembering the great icons whose achievements and efforts were precious to the village. Social, cultural, natural and historic aspects of the village are well covered in this book. The book is released as a part of Government U.P.School Silver Jubilee Celebrations.

The major highlight of the book is N.M.Namboodiri's study on Kudallur. He describes the formation of Kudallur. His attempt reveals the historic progression of lot of villages including Kudallur, better called 'Vayyavinaadu'. The article 'Ee Manohara Theerath', written by Achuthan Kudallur brings back his childhood memories in Kudallur. Alankod Leelakrishnan, express his views on Kudallur through the article 'Amaranmarude Gramathil' which focuses on how M.T. books and Kudallur is closely related. He calls Kudallur, a village where the people lives through stories and memories. His article also goes deep through myths connected to the village.

Kudallur's own writer Vaseerali Kudallur also comes up with his memories on the village. 'Oru Kudallur Veeragadha', a walk to Madath Thekkepattu house by T.V.M. Ali brings out more on Kudallur's illustious son writer M.T.Vasudevan Nair and his home. M.T. Ravindran also appears with his words on Madath Thekkepattu house. M.T.N.Nair, brother of M.T.Vasudevan Nair translates a Khaleel Gibran story named 'Perunnal Thalennu'.

P.Surendran makes a close watch and study on Achuthan Kudallur's paintings and explains what makes Achuthan Kudallur different in the artistic world. Dr.Rajan Chungath enters the world of 'Parayipetta Panthirukulam' and presents the readers more details about Thrithala.

The book also takes a look onto the folklore of the village. Mehaboob Kudallur brings out various heard and unheard stories on myths connected to the village. Study on artistic tradition of Kudallur by M.Shivashankaran and feature on traditional arts and festivals by M.Suresh Babu adds more to the folklore. An article on Kudallur's famous game 'Pakidakali' described by Balettan, gives a brief idea on the rules and styles of the game.

The book had succeeded in extracting Kudallur life to a great extent. It does a deep study on Kudallur's diversity in flora and fauna. Butterflies seen on the banks of Nila, birds, fishes and more adds a different dimension to the book. Progression of Nila, agricultural background, surrounding ranges of hills and various water resources are the distinct subjects that comes in between the pages. More interesting facts on roads, buses, electricity, cinema, telephone, radio and library also finds place in the book. The last pages of this book concentrates on articles written by teachers and students of Government U.P.School, Kudallur. Also a brief report on school's silver jubilee celebrations is brought out. Perhaps the only negative point marked with the book is that one or two articles missed focus on Kudallur.

Efforts behind 'Kudallurinte Ormapusthakam' is highly appreciable since the book covers almost culture and society of Kudallur. Also the book had to face lot of challenges regarding the funds and is only for private distribution. Definitely Kudallur people could be proud of this book at all times. The book was relaesd during, the 50 years celebration of Naalukettu held at Thrissur. Kudallur.com is thankful to this book to a great extend because of the fact that the book had been a big support in post web development.
(The description is from www.kudallur.com)

Kudallur: Curtain falls at Sridhar

New Year came. There will be no more show at Sridhar Talkies, Kudallur as the management decided to close it. Perhaps, it will open for the people as a rural auditorium, locally known as kalyanamandapam. Sridhar was the cinema hall for the rural film lovers. Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil and English films were screened here. Its roof is tar sheet; floor is of rough cement patches.
People from the area came to Sridhar. It was a centre for daily workers to cheer with. The most interesting thing is the presences of families come to see a film sitting together. Head-load workers, especially the sand excavating ones came to Sridhar along with their families. The Tamil people who arrived for telecom works too were there. The cinema hall expects families at night show starting at 6.30pm. Matinee would be the get together of teenagers and youngsters. The late night show, known as ‘Second show’, starts at 10.30pm is fully enjoyed by youngsters.
As time passed, transport facilities improved and the village started to go out for watching films. Naturally, Sridhar became the second option for them. But the management of the hall tried to modernize it by implementing advanced Satellite Cinema. But they failed, as many think, to follow up the modernizing programme.
But many of villagers still remember the first film in their life seen at a cinema hall.

Kudallur: Educational Facilities

The village has five schools, two of them private. They are
1, AJB School Kudallur,
2, GBLP School Kudallur,
3, GUP School Kudallur,
4, Al Hilal English Medium School Kudallur (private),
5, Sandeepani English Medium School Kudallur (private)

The first two schools offer education for standard 1to 4. GUP School has 5, 6 and 7 standards. The last two schools offer classes from 1 to 10. Kudallur depends outside for higher education. Most of the students prefer Thrithala High School, Thrithala for High School studies. Govt. VHS School Vattenad and Govt. HS School Mezhathur are the next options. Some of the parents - especially those who are working abroad- like English medium schools for their children. For inter-mediate (Higher Secondary and Vocational Higher Secondary) education the village goes to near towns such as Kuttipuram, Kunnamkulam, Koottanad, Pattambi and Edappal. A lot of parallel institutions work at these towns. They entertain a large number of students. Wisdom College Kumaranellur is the pioneer institution in parallel field.
Students from Kudallur depends SNGS Arts and Science College Pattambi, MES College Ponnani, MES Engineering College Kuttipuram, all the colleges in Thrissur city, some of the colleges of Malappuram and Kozhikode districts for collegiate education. Now a day a considerable number of students of the village go to distant districts and other states. Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Coimbatore, Trichy and Mysore are the places of attraction for professional education.
But, one of the many new trends in the educational concepts of the village causes a great concern. The new English medium schools pose threat to the Government schools. In the case of AJB School, it taught seven or eight generations. But the flow of students- even the children of low- income families- to the new schools made the student strength of the AJBS low. Now it struggle to survive. GUP School also faces this threat.
Even then, the fact that village is 100% literate is a matter of joy.

Kudallur: Old Masjid Gets New Face

The oldest Masjid of Kudallur, the Jumua Masjid Kudallur is undergoing a renewal process, a rebuilding process actually. For this, the old beautiful masjid was demolished and the old valuable Indo-Islamic sculpture was disappeared. It was a beautiful masjid. It stood in the midst of the large khabrsthan (cemetery). Roof top of the masjid was beautifully decorated with single wood sculptures. The main woods are the Teak and Veetty. Big doors of the inner masjid were marvelous. It had four to six big flowers carved on each of them. Four inch iron belts were there on it, at the top, middle and bottom. The doors had no metal hinges.
One should go to the upstairs to enjoy the real beauty of the masjid. Big wooden beams which elevate the roof, wooden carvings which shine as new and so many other things were there to remember.
The beautiful picture of the Sree Muthuvilyaumkunnu Siva Temple could be seen from the terrace of old masjid building, just a few meters away from the masjid. It is heard that one of the oldest rural landlord gave a large area to build masjid and temple near to each other. Do you know that the Hindu- Muslim unity of the village is well appreciated during the 1920’s, the age in which the struggle against the British colonization became powerful in Malabar. The British people used to divide Hindus and Muslims by spreading false stories about tortures. But this kin of rumors had nothing to do with Kudallur’s unity.

Kudallur: Hills are Disappearing

Yes, it is going to happen at last. The Parappuram kunnu, part of Kudallur Hills is going to loss its face. It was better known as Kaadu by the very local people. But the thing now going to happen is, somebody has bought the kunnu and they wish to make it a rubber estate. For the first time I couldn’t believe it. There are many reasons for it. The first and the foremost is the kunnu has a straight slope. Slope means complete slope. Now somebody has come to ‘green’ it. People say he is from some other district mostly, Kollam or Thrissur. The pain haunts me now is the future of the natural spring Chola, in the foot of the hill. The crystal clear water and green surroundings! Some years ago one of the biggest rocks on the hill lost its foot and came fast to the valley. Some women were there near the well in the deepest part of the hill, near the Chola. They cried out and men folks arrived quickly. They saw the fearful picture of destroyed woods and rocks in the path of the big rock. Leave it.
The hills in Kudallur, as anywhere in Kerala are disappearing or losing their green face immediately. The Thannikkunnu, mentioned in MT’s works is a quarry now. Thus the beauty of plain surface over the hill is vanished.

Kudallur: A scenic blend of hills and paddy fields.

Kudallur has a long range of hills. The southern borders are hills, locally kunnu. In M T stories we feel the broadness of Thannikkunnu, lies above Kudallur centre, Koottakadav. Another kunnu is Parappuram hills. While the Thannikunnu is in a plain in its shape, Parappuram kunnu is truly a slope.
In Thannikunnu there was a small natural pond surrounded by black rocks called Thavalachira (Frog Pond). But it was destroyed recently by the quarrying people came to the village from the neighboring districts.
Now the plain is not there. It is made a big barren zigzag land forever. You will be amazed to see the beautiful scene of joining together of the two rivers, Nila and Thootha from Thannikunnu. There is a railway bridge at this meeting place of rivers: Karuvannur Bridge. You can see it in your journey from Shoanur to Calicut (From Pattambi to Kuttipuram). At a far distance you may see the Malampuzha hills fading in to snow. On the other side of The River Nila, beyond the railway line there lays a vast sea of paddy fields. During the rainy season it will reflect the blue earth and will appear like an ocean. A small natural spring called chola is there in the valley of the Thannikunnu hills. We will discuss about Parappuram kunnu later.

At last it happened!

Thank god! It was the expected moment for many years. Yes. The Nila flowed in full swing, touching both banks. It collected energy from the continuous rain of five days
I am proud to say that I spent a whole day to enjoy the wild beauty of the river. At 7.30am I crossed the Kuttippuram Bridge. The river was flowing like laughter. At 100pm at Thrithala I could see another face of the river from the new Velliyamkalu Causeway cum Bridge. When I reached Thrithala town, there were a number of people who were enjoying the ‘new’ old face of their river. Almost a meter height of the Pump house of The Pavarotty Area Water Supply Project (the biggest drinking water project in the river) was under water. The water irrigation pump houses at and Ayyapan Kadavu and Velliyamkallu were under water. Today the Nila overflowed the Pattambi Bridge after a long period of 25 years. What happened to the river!
Hundreds of people were there at both ends of the bridge to enjoy the scene.
Akkare (the other bank of river) lands were under water. I could see Pallippuram, Perassannur, Kodumunda and many other villages were in red water. Fishing had been there.
The Thootha too was in a wild power. It empowered the flow of the Nila in the part under Kudallur.
Any way I am very happy today to see Nila as a river.