Madayi - A Travelogue

Madayi is a small village in northern Malabar which has a very long and illustrious history. It has seen a lot - kings and aggressors, wars fought over its soil, arrival of other religions, evolution of art forms and finally the newest order called democracy. This place was used by the Kolathiri kings as their base for some period of time in the first century AD. The Madayi kavu (temple) and the Vadukunda temple are relics from those days. I am not a historian to put a date on the construction of these structures, but am quite sure that they would have gone through a series of destructions and renovations till date. Madayi is also famous for a 12th century mosque built by Malik Ibn Dinar, a preacher who came down from Arabia. The place bore the brunt of the attack by Tipu Sultan in the 18th century, and still has the remains of a fort built during that time. This area also has a coast line that forms a natural harbor; and the INS Zamorin Indian Naval Academy is coming up here.

So much about the place and its history, my interest in this place was because of the fact that the deity of Madayi kavu is the "para devatha" of Renju's family. We were supposed to go to the temple right after our marriage, but because of various reasons this never happened. Finally we decided to make the trip exactly two years after our marriage and on the Friday 2nd Feb, 2007 that we started on the trip. We took the Mangalore express out of Trivandrum and our destination was Payangadi, a town about 30 km north of Kannur.

We reached Payangadi early next morning and our host Balettan was present in the station to receive us. He took us to his house where we had a nice time with great food, thanks to Devi chechi. The morning was spent in small talk with the Valiachan and Balettan regarding the political and historical background of Kannur. Valiachan, a person who migrated to north Malabar from central Kerala, was of the opinion that the people in north Malabar were very simple and truthful folks compared to their southern counterparts. In spite of all that, this part of Malabar has been known for extreme violence between warring sects, now in the form of political parties. Killings are routine and as Valiachan put it - "The value of a man is only as much as that of a fowl here".

In the evening, we started on our temple visit spree in Madhavan chettan's Bajaj auto. We had decided to visit some more adjoining temples in addition to our main destination, the Madayi kavu. The first place we went to was Sree Raghavapuram Rama temple. Right in front of the temple is a superbly maintained temple tank, a beautiful sight. Even though the presiding deity of the temple is Ram, it is much more famous for his side-kick, Hanuman. People come here to pray to Hanuman, and it seems that Ram is quite okay with conceding the lead role to his ever loyal associate this once.

The next stop was the famous Vadukunda Siva temple on top of the Madayi para. This is an old structure and is currently under renovation. There is a beautiful lake nearby. Mythology has it that the Devi, after killing the demon Darikan, took a dip in this lake. It is said that this lake, situated on the top of a hill, never dries; even in the hottest summer. The proposed Ezhimala Naval Academy is close to this spot.

We moved on from here to our primary destination, the Madayi kavu. The reigning deity here is Durga, that too in her fiercest mood. She is present in the state she was after killing Darikan. The temple has a lot of peculiarities which make it stand out. One of the main offerings here is known as the aka pooja. The usual offering used for this is cooked meat. So unless you mention that you want to do a without pooja, you will get a prasadam of cooked chicken. And you (if you are a strict vegetarian) end up in a state described by the poet as - Nalpumaanude prasaadamallayo, thuppuvaanaruthirakkuvaan pani (This is an offering made to the lord. I can neither spit nor swallow!). All the pooja's of the temple are done by a different sect of people, who do not belong to the traditional Brahmin community as is standard in all other temples across the state.

The temple was not crowded and there was this big guy who was conducting a guided tour inside the temple. He was instructing people which way to go and what to do at each place. This was a refreshing change from the typical Kerala temples where you are always told to move fast along the line. With all these guys and the big drums beating in the background the temple takes on a horrifying atmosphere at night that is in tune with the mood of the reigning deity.

On the way back, we visited another temple - the Ramapuram Vishnu temple. It is amazing how many old temples are located nearby in this small village. The trip was a very satisfying not only because of the number of temples we visited, but also because of the past associated with those places. We were walking along the roads once used by the Kolathiri kings and the rocks on which we had stood had seen battles between the Samoothiri (Zamorin) and the Kolathiri armies.

We started early next morning back to Trivandrum on Parasuram Express with a set of iddlies packed for us for the road by our hosts. We had a whole day in the train before we reached home, but the memories as well as the iddlies lasted us till we reached home.