All About ‘The King Cobra and the Snake Charmer and other Short Stories’

This book is a collection of 30 short stories. These short stories narrate the lives of the villagers of Kerala. Releasing by the Spring of 2012.

India is a bundle of several cultures and traditions. Being a State of it, Kerala too is not different.

I am trying to reveal the facts connected with the lives of Kerala, especially of Cherthala and Vayalar, two places in Alleppey district. As I had been appointed as a teacher I happened to stay in Kasaragod district for a long period from 1968 to 1986. It made me to understand the world of seven languages and several lifestyles. When I wrote short stories and novels I was unable to exclude the place and the people who live there. In between I wish to say that I am in the creation of a novel basing the wonderful land of Kasaragod. In this collection five stories are from the glittering moments of my past experiences of that district, where I had lived a long period.

The other stories are of my birth place Cherthala and Vayalar village where I reside with my family now. Artist Vasudeva Menon has tried his level best for giving elegance to each story by his efficient strokes. I should give thanks to him for his sincere work.

As everyone knows Kerala, my native state is a land of rivers and lakes. In the west there is the Arabian Sea.

Years ago the inhabitants of Alleppey district did the works connected with coconut. Making copra was a flourished business. Many people made coir, using rotten coconut husk. And there was a port in Alleppey, which was used for exporting coir and the materials made by using coir.

The making of coir materials in big scale has stopped. Instead people sitting at their homes began to make coir using metal wheels known as raats. The people can get coconut fibre from some authorities. The coconut fibre is supplied to each house. Mainly ladies do the work of making coir. Through it they can get a weekly income.

In my first novel, ‘The Azure of Solicitude’ I have tried to narrate the lifestyle of the people who live by doing coir making works and copra making. In the past a number of oil mills worked on the shore of Lake Vembanad, extracting oil by crushing copra using high powered oil presses. The oil mills worked day and night. As I had been an inhabitant of the shore of Lake Vembanad, the horrible sounds, which rose from the oil mills, had not irritated me. An outsider who had come in that place must have felt those sounds as intolerable. If you go by the shore nowadays you cannot see any oil mill. Like ghosts some residues stand in the lake sides. No sounds or the thronging of copra workers. In my childhood I had walked beside the oil mills hearing the sounds and breathing the sweet smell of coconut oil cakes. All have changed totally.

When the oil mills were in action, some people used to take their copra to a nearby mill for making it oil and oil cake. They could sell the stuffs for a pretty amount. It was more profitable than selling copra.

If you try to understand about the situation of Kasaragod you get an idea of beedi-making as a house hold work of the ladies of the place. You might not have heard of ‘Beedi’. The poor people use to smoke beedies in their leisure times when rich men smoke cigarettes. Despite a small district, its cultural heredity is wonderful. Its populace has several sources for watering their Areca Groves and cashew plantations. Years ago cock fighting was a hobby of several people.

Nobody had cared the cruelty, which contained in it. Their aim was to pass leisure time joyfully. It was widely conducted in the immediate neighbourhood states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. There were cockfighting conductors for controlling it successfully. They were not only experts in controlling cockfighting, but also able to make the injured birds active. They could stitch the wounds of the cocks skillfully. The birds would become able to fight again.

The fighting cocks are not the common kind. They belong to Asseeel Race. And there are fourteen divisions in the race.

Years ago the wide and uncontrolled cockfighting was banned by the Authorities. It was permitted for conducting once in a year connected with festivals and such occasions.

I can understand that it has become very rare these days. I am not narrating the superficial pictures of lives. I wish to say that my effort is a trial for manifesting the original mental color of each person. I believe that no man can work freely as he is in the cage of his culture and tradition.