Itinerant diaries — Thrissur
A travel to thrissur my home town cannot be called a “travel”, but I realise there are nook and crannies there where I haven’t experienced it fully or sometimes at all.
In the recent visit, I revisited two places where I might have gone a couple of times, but those places are still worth a number of visits.
Sakhthan tampuran market, which is the main market of the town. Named after the famous Cochin King, who is revered for the infrastructure transformation he brought into the town and for setting up the process for the festivities of Thrissur pooram, the annual fest which is one of the elaborate temple festivals in Kerala. This festival we thrissurkarans and karis boast as our tomorrow land. A separate blog for that is essential.
The market spreads on both sides of the main road, which leads to the main bus stand, and this place boasts of beautiful skyb walking roundabout now. One side is vegetables and grocery markets and the other side of the fish market and meat market.
Growing up years, I might have accompanied my father on a couple of visits, but hadn’t noticed much of it. Our dad used to visit this place every week for our weekly purchases and used to bring the freshest fish ever from there. It was fascinating to see people haggling with the shopkeepers who were wholesalers of each item. A store was filled with only bananas hanging in big bunches. Other was selling only coir and then only arecanut. So this market caters to wholesale buyers majorly, but we can also walk in and have our small purchases. The way vegetables are arranged in these stores is so aesthetic and must have been time-consuming. I, on this walk, picked up some of the rare vegetables like small jack fruit, kandari( birds eye variety), chilly, and Chinese potatoes. Was fascinated to talk to those vendors who talked in that slang, which is a bit sing-song for us Thrissurkarans(karis).
Most facintinating was the fish market, may be because my liking for it. The heaps of makkerals, silver fish, and sardines were very fresh. I even found sardines with blush on, felt like it. That kind of freshness is never evident in frozen items, which we all have access to. The big fishes like sharks, sear fish, and pompherts were stacked to show off their girth. And so were the still live ones like snake head(bral), which were kept in water, where they were slithering and showing their vigour by jumping around. And that did catch my attention, and they are one of the most delicious pond fish. Did buy some, these vendors does the additional service of cleaning it for you. That process as well is fascinating, these aproned men are armoured with curved big sharp knife and is skilled to slither of the skin without much wastage and slice the fish to the preffered thickness to fry or to make curry.
Overall, it was a fascinating experience for me, but a male dominated space where I didn’t find it intimidating as you would find on kerala roads, but the vendors were fascinated by my camera laden look. They willingly posed for some photos, or some were shy as well or not corporting.
Now let’s go another spot where this raw smell would be replaced by the smell of sandal wood paste and ghee. The centre of thrissur as it can be called Vadakunathan temple. It is actually temple complex with 100 plus dieties installed in small and big temple enclosures. There are spots in here where energetically they say if you are here, you are in Kashi, one of the holy places in North, which Hindus consider as the place of salvation. There is a Nandi — bull which is venerated as Shivas vehicle, which is believed to give you unlimited clothes supply if you leave a thread from your then clothes. I now know where my cloth hoarding comes from, for sure, while growing up, I have offered a thread. The main diety, as called Vadakunthan or Shiva, is a heap of clarified butter instead of a rock structure, which had been on offer to the diety for time memorial. This abhisekham or offering happens every day early in the morning hours, and it has never been cleared. The dimly lit sanctum boasts of this highly venerated heap and its power, as the beliefs immense. There are small structures for Shivas concert Parvathy, Rama, Krishna, Ayyappa, Sankaraacharya, and many, many more. I am more fascinated by the Kootambalam — a theatre complex where still cultural fests are conducted. There is a famous Elanghi maram( Spanish cherry tree), where one of the famous elangi thara melam happens during the afternoon of Pooram festival. This is where a huge set of percussion practitioners entertain the audience for a couple of hours with their prowess. The temple complex has 4 entrances, which are fascinating by its architecture and beauty. The complex is filled with beautiful old trees and bushes, which makes it a green paradise. I always find some time to spend quality time in this complex to imbibe that spirit.
I know there are many more spots in the thrissur that are fascinating, but these would remain most visited because each time I go, I discover something new in both these places. A delight to all the senses, be it the fishy smell at the market or the wafting smell of sandalwood at vadakunthan, would bring me back many more times.
