[The famous events of interdining organized by the eminent anti-caste reformer from Kochi, Sahodaran K Ayappan caused paroxysms of rage to lash the caste-elite dominated town of Thrissur from 1917. Kochattil Kalyanikkutty Amma, who participated in one such event in the mid-1920s, gives a first-person account of it, and the consequences she had to face afterwards, in her autobiography Pathikayum Vazhiyorathe Manideepangalum. Below is a translation.]
Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay visited Thrissur almost a year and half after I entered government service. She was welcomed at Sri Ayyakkutty Judge’s home at Koorkkanchery. His daughter had studied with me in school and college – Parvathi – who later married Sahodaran Ayyappan. First my father and then my younger sister were their family doctors and therefore our friendship grew stronger.
The memory of Kamaladevi from three years back and of Harindanath’s poetry-reading was still fresh I my mind and so I was very excited when I went to Parvathi’s house for the function that Kamaladevi was chairing.
There were many people from outside Thrissur there, and some of these were my relatives. One of them was from Miss Onshot, a member of the Brahmavidya Sangham and a native of Denmark had arrived in Thrissur some months back to teach locals a mode of exercise known as ‘theorhythm’
After the meeting, we posed for a group photo, and only after that did those who were not locals realize that a feast had been prepared for us. Those who were not avarna left the place one by one offering all sorts of excuses.
The food was served by a portly middle-aged Pulaya woman dressed spotlessly. Among those who were seated for the meal, there were just two non-avarnas – Devaki was my student in high school, and myself.
Two days later, our group photo appeared in the Sahodaran. The images of Devaki and myself were specially marked and our names and castes and our participation in the inter-caste diner were mentioned. We also saw another photo in the same magazine. It was of a young man with a bandaged wound or heavy bruise on his head standing next to a police officer and some others. The injured youth’s name was mentioned to be C Kuttan Nair. Being incapable of predicting the future, I did not pay much attention to this photograph.
The very next day, sharp criticism of my participation in the inter-caste dinner appeared in the Sudarshanam. Kunnath Janardana Menon, the editor, wrote thus: “… this inter-caste dining befits not the daughter of a respectable Nair family; it suits a slut better …’ It was my mother who got to know of this first. She spoke with me, troubled. ‘I do not think what you did is wrong,’ she told me. ‘Among those who now blame you, surely there are many who inter-dine with other castes in secret. But it hurts me to see such things written about you. Couldn’t you wait till someone else did it first?’
I have always found it very hard to hurt my mother. But what I felt like saying then was ‘Shouldn’t someone or the other take the initiative? Let it be me, Amme! Please don’t feel sad about this.’ That response made my mother laugh. ‘Alright, never mind! You don’t worry about this,’ she said, and ended things there.
But would it end there? My father, the head of household, remained to be faced. I was standing on the balcony of the second floor of my house, and saw someone stride into Acchan’s dispensary brandishing an open newspaper. These buildings were next to each other, and I could see quite clearly what went on in the veranda of the dispensary. The moment he stepped into the veranda, the man shouted to my father, “Hey Krishna Menon!” When my father came out, he asked, “Did you read this paper?” My father knew about the matter; my mother had told him about it in detail the night before. But he pretended not to know and said, “No, tell me.”
The man began to read. I could catch most of it. It was that word of honour, ‘slut’, which fell on my ears most clearly. The reading got over. He awaited my father’s response. Acchan said: “My daughter, she has anyway committed a great crime, hasn’t she? You may cast her out of the jati for it. I and my daughter will settle down here, in this dispensary. And that ends the matter.’ The man left without another word.
The real vaitharani, that impassable river of the netherworlds of death … that was still to come. I spent most hours of the day in school each week. I never sat in the Teachers’ Room during free time. I taught and sat in the Science classroom or the Science lab. A few young teachers could come and sit there with me in their free hours. I had good friends among them.
Most of the teachers who occupied the Teachers’ Room were middle-aged. Much discussion about the goings-on in the world happened there. The discussion about my participation in inter-caste dining grew very intense. Not surprising – this happened six decades back, and conservatives could be expected only to react thus. For some days, their thoughts and chat were all about my future. If I could sit down with an avarna man and dine, some of them reasoned with impeccable logic, I could also marry such a man and this would be after an elopement.
But they were mistaken in this matter. Two years after this prediction, I married someone of my own caste and without eloping with him first, quite publicly, with the full consent of my parents. But in the eyes of my critics, my bridegroom was a terrible wrongdoer. I had only joined in an inter-caste meal. But he? He had, along with the Ezhava leader TK Madhavan, led the Ezhavas to the temple of Thiruvarppu, in an effort to break the caste-barrier there against avarna people. He had been attacked by the Nair employees of the temple with a railing from a broken wood-fence and his head was wounded. Seeing this, the Ezhava protestors who were some distance behind, tried to advance in anger. T K, who realized that this might jeopardise Gandhiji’s path of ahimsa, flung himself on the ground in front of them. It was a photo of Mr Kuttan Nair who stood with his head bandaged and of the policeman who had wiped the blood off his face that I had seen in the Sahodaran magazine.
I have not met T K Madhavan, but my husband always spoke of him very highly.
It is known that all protests, no matter what may have provoked them, die down in time. After my presence in the inter-caste meal, I began to be invited to meetings organized by Ezhavas in places close to Thrissur on the occasion of Sreenarayana Guru Swamikal’s birthday. Also, we know that efforts like the Guruvayoor Satyagraha helped to diminish the opposition to avarna temple entry.
Swatantryavaadini 