Autobiography: KK Kochu, Dalit leader and founder of Communist Youth Front, remembers his childhood

My birth took place at Amma’s house near Thalayolapparambu on February 2, 1949. Amma’s name was Kunjipennu. The house named Kuzhiyamthadam was situated to the west of Puthenthode, which was one-and-a-half kilometres south of the small town of Thalayolapparambu. Most of the people who lived in that region were Pulayas. There were a few Ezhavas too. All the Pulayas and a small minority of the Ezhavas were landless kudikidappukar, or hut dwellers. The Nair and Christian landlords – though they did not have extensive holdings – resided in places close to the town.

On two sides of the Kuzhiyamthadam house were canals full of algae and water lilies. The third side had an embankment full of screwpine, Mastwood and Portia trees. On the fourth were gravelly paddy fields. During summer, the water in the canals and the fields turned salty and sour. Water drawn from any hole dug in the garden plot had the same taste. As a result, we had to walk some distance along the ridges to collect water from a pond that belonged to a house named Njaravelil. That pond was nature’s bounty. The gravel on the pond bed was spiky and uneven. But it was a marvel to look at. Vessels were dipped into the pond to collect water. It was the refuge of many families. When the water in it dried, everyone had to go farther, to a well near Vazhiyambalam, a kilometre away.

During the rains, water rose in the garden plots and the fields, crept up the front and back yards, and nudged the open veranda. It would be bitterly cold inside the house. Even after the waters receded, the front and back yards were covered in mire. One had to wade through knee-deep water in the paddy fields to reach the upland.

Amma’s house was constructed on land that had been levelled using the black clayey soil common to these parts. Woven coconut leaves were used to make the four walls of the house but there was a room in the middle made of palm leaves. We had no furniture like cots, tables or chairs. Earthen vessels were used for everything, even to serve food in. Such deprivation was not exclusive to Amma’s house. It was the same in every Pulaya household.

My Valyachan’s name was Karuppan, and Valyamma’s Ponnava. Amma’s brother was named Vava. Initially, Valyachan was a slave at a Nair household in Pothiyil, east of Thalayolapparambu. He quarrelled with that family for some reason and ran away from there, taking his wife along. At Thalayolapparambu, he became a slave at another Nair household named Kaniyampadikkal. By the time I was born, Valyachan was long dead but Valyamma lived to a ripe old age.

It was when she became pregnant with me at Madhuraveli that Amma went to Kuzhiyamthadam. The cause of this relocation was a fight with Chaachan, following his second wedding. She went to her home, taking Chechi – Pennamma – along with her and leaving her elder son, Kunjukunju, with Chaachan. Amma had a special place for me in her affections, one based on a superstition. My Chechi’s zodiac was Pooraadam. The astrologer who prepared her horoscope said that it indicated Ammakkaal, that is, she would be the cause of Amma’s death if she crawled and touched Amma’s feet. It seems my zodiac, Aayilyam, saved her from untimely death! Amma would repeat this story endlessly.

Amma’s ancestral temple was at Keezhoor. She was deeply devoted to Bhagavathy, the deity of that temple. The deity occupied her subconscious mind while Amma was on her deathbed. As she slipped from and into consciousness, Amma would see Bhagavathy, dressed in finery and covered in ornaments from head to toe, sitting close by, asking her to join her immediately. She wished to be united with her at the Keezhoor temple after her death.

My Ammavan’s wife was also named Pennamma. She was from Vadakkethuruthu, close to Chembu. By the time Amma went back to her house, Ammavan already had three children. As his feudal lord, who belonged to the Kaniyampadikkal house, did not have large land holdings, Ammavan worked on the fields and garden plots of other landlords as well. He also caught fish, from the fields during the rains and at other times from the canals, and took his catch to the market and sold it. His expertise at fishing earned him the moniker Varaal Vava (Mudfish Vava). Dark, tall and mild-mannered, Ammavan neither smoked nor drank alcohol. He never wore a shirt. Even when he travelled long distances, he wore only an undershirt and a thorthu over it. He studied only up to the third standard.

Crops like tapioca, banana or ginger were not cultivated in the place where Ammavan lived. Paddy was the most important crop here. Coconut farming was done on a small scale only because the place was always water-logged and the islands in between were very small. But since the land-holding Nair and Christian families occupied small garden plots, coconut farming wasn’t too widespread either. Backwardness in the farming sector affected Dalit lives the most. With the opportunity for work on the fields limited, and for a short period each year, fishing, for some residents, was not a subsidiary occupation but the main one. In such circumstances, women bore the brunt of life’s burdens.

Besides helping in the paddy fields if they could, they cut grass, bundles of which they would take to the market for selling. Men did this very rarely. A few women would take small boats on rent and cut grass all day long. After a light breakfast, they did this hard labour without food or water for the rest of the day. Exposed to the sun as they went about their work, their bodies turned black and sunburnt. Amma and Ammayi never trudged long distances. Early in the evening, they went to the water-logged fields and the sides of canals to cut as much grass as they could. They returned home with their bundles, took a bath, and changed into a fresh set of mundu20 and blouse before heading for the market. Long lines of women proceeding to the market in the evenings with their headloads of grass used to be a common sight. I once wrote an article entitled ‘Grass Sellers of Thalayolapparambu’ in my column titled “How do we live?” in the SEEDIAN magazine.

Another occupation of the womenfolk was weaving mats. Like in spinning coir, in weaving mats, Ezhava women were also involved. Women wove not only different types of baskets but also puttil, small containers for holding paan, purses that could be accommodated in the waist flap of their mundus, and so on. Amma was an expert at weaving mats. The work was labour-intensive. Leaves of screwpine were cut from shrubs growing on the sides of ridges and canals, their thorns removed, all the leaves arranged in a tight circle, and left to dry. Later, water was sprinkled to make them pliable before they were woven into mats. Amma made mats of different sizes – for lying on, for drying grains, for threshing and so on. These were sold either in the market on Sundays or in the premises of temples, churches and mosques during festivals. The money she made in this manner was used to buy clothes, vessels and other things.

The market and the Puthenthode canal were an indispensable part of the daily life not only of the Pulayas but all the people of Thalayolapparambu. The market was established by Velu Thampi Dalawa (1765-1809), the prime minister of Travancore from 1802 to 1809. The merchants belonged to the Nair, Christian and Muslim communities. Provisions, textile items and vessels were sold in two buildings that had tiled roofs. The road leading to the market was lined on both sides by small structures that housed tea shops and other stores. These shop owners were the ones who procured grains. The business was run by women too. While the provisions shops sold rice, salt, kerosene, chilly, coconut oil and similar things, in the evenings, other items like coconut pieces, tamarind, dried fish, amaranthus, colocasia, elephant yam and mango too would be available at prices ranging from a quarter ana to one ana. The advantage of such businesses was that each family could manage to live on the smallest income.

The lives of women who sold grass, including that of Amma, were utterly miserable. They had to forgo their lunch in order to reach the market by evening and wait beside their grass bundles for buyers, cattle-raisers in the neighbourhood. The sale took place only after intense bargaining. Sometimes the women had to wait till late in the night, and at other times, be content with the meagre price offered. The bundles of grass that could not be sold had to be carried back home.

Even a good price was a mere pittance, but it was all they had to buy foodstuff for the night. If tapioca was brought home to be cooked for the next day’s breakfast, children, totally famished by then, would eat a good chunk of it raw. Another item was jackfruit, cut into small pieces. Each child would get only one or two bulbs of the fruit, either raw or ripe. During the harvest season, rice grains were boiled, dry-heated on a pan, de-husked and then cooked to make gruel. As a result, food was invariably served late, by which time the small children would generally be fast asleep. They had to be woken up in order to be fed. The rice was typically eaten along with fish curry, red in colour, spiced with chilly and Malabar tamarind crushed on a stone mortar. There were no other ingredients. On days when fish was not available, either Chinese senna, uprooted from the ridges close to the canal, or dried fish was crushed along with chilly to make chammanti, and that served as a side dish. Never once did we have more than one curry.

Excerpted with permission from Dalithan: An Autobiography, KK Kochu, translated from the Malayalam by Radhika P Menon, Speaking Tiger Books.