I was born in a village called Kodumb, in the state of Kerala, India. It was a small village, perhaps consisted of about fifty families then. There was a temple, a church, and a mosque. Everywhere we go, we had to walk at least 3-4 miles, even if we have to catch a bus. The buses used to be crowded as most of the people travelled by bus. Private cars were mainly for the rich city folks. Sometimes we were packed in the bus like sardines in a can. The village was set in the low lands surrounded by green undulating hills. Behind our house was a forest of teak and sandalwood trees, which later the government replaced with eucalyptus. My mother said that in her childhood, there were tigers. Once one of the workers killed and brought one down from the forest. This was during the time when she was a child. There were incidents when they grabbed a cow or goat while they graced on the hills. With all that said, as my memory recalls, it was a peaceful, placid world. An old maternal uncle (who was known as "Kunju maama") who was my great-grandmother's uncle started the family in Kodumb. At the same time, another cousin/sister of his also settled down in that village not too far from him. This house is called Kizhussery Kalam. The complete roots of these people are not known. But a grandson of one of these cousin/sisters married my paternal grandmother. Hence, there is an inter-twinning relationship between my maternal and paternal family. According to my mother, our family, the Kizhussery Family, originated from a town called Aaloor, close to Thrithaala. They moved to this village, Kodumb, for reasons unknown. I don't know what year that took place. Apparently, the original family had a small temple in their compound in Aaloor. It is now called the Kizhussery Umbalum (temple). Since there isn't anybody living in that house, a neighbor kept the lamb burning in that temple. I heard that now it has all become a ruin. It would be interesting to go and visit that place. My mother told me that it is not accessible easily since weeds and other greenery has consumed it. Aaloor, which was about 25 to 30 miles away, was considered too far to travel in those days. A few miles from Aaloor was a place called Thrithala, which had a small Devi temple called Chammnikavu. The Devi of this temple is the Kizhussery Family's dharma God. Dharma means righteousness. Each family those days had a dharma God to whom worship has to be done for the blessings of the family. My mother said that it was indeed a big event visiting that temple. Since cars and other transportations were not available then, they would hire a bullock-cart (a carriage driven by bulls), to go to that temple. It would take a whole day to get there. Once the family settled down in Kodumb, they used to visit the temple once every 10 or 12 years, since the transportation was very difficult. Upon the coming of more convenient transportation, they used to visit this temple once a year. My great-grandmother's uncle, Kunju maama, one day was upset for some silly reason and he left my great-grandmother's house and joined his sister/cousin in Kizhussery Kalam. That time, all his property was divided into two. The bigger portion was taken with him and given to his sister/ cousins in Kizhussery Kalam. My great grandmother got the lesser part. My great grandfather then added on to the house, in which I was born. We used to have several buildings in the same compound. This was due to the growing family of my great grandparents. My great grandfather was also from the same village. I don't know how they got married. My mother does not know how that happened. Once again, small family temples were built for worship in the family compound. Inside the house, there was a room dedicated for the Gods. Outside the house there were small temples dedicated for the snake Gods since there were lot of snakes around there. Probably the fear of snakes triggered the need for worshiping the snake Gods. Anyway, that was how we started our family, with all the rituals and worships done daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly. My great-grandmother had nine children-two boys and seven girls. Two girls died very young. My eldest grand-uncle also died before I was born. My great-grandmother also died before I was born. Although my grandmother had only two children (my mother and my uncle), the rest of my grandmother's siblings had anywhere from 3 to 9 children each. Her eldest brother had eight children but none of them survived beyond 12 or 13 years of age. From the remaining six siblings, there proliferated a rather large family. My grand-mother's eldest sister had nine children and couple of these children had nine children each and some had seven and five. Thus, the family just multiplied to a rather large number. Some of my grandmother's sisters lived together even after they got married-a joint-family system. Thus, I got a chance to play with some of these cousins while growing up. My paternal grandfather was the grandson of my maternal great-grandmother's cousin (as I had mentioned earlier). My paternal grandmother was from a family called Kunnath in another village called Chittanda. Chittanda is a few miles away from my maternal family home. Although I decided to keep all names off of this book, I thought it is worthy to mention certain ancestral names here since it will all be forgotten later on. My father's lineage: My father had five brothers and three sisters. His parents are Parukutty Amma/Ammukutty Amma of Kunnath house (family name) and Shankara Menon/Appukutta Menon of Kizhussery house (family name). So, my paternal grandfather is my mother's maternal uncle. It is okay to marry your cousin, as long as your cousin does not belong to the same family (family name). My paternal great-grandfather was Narayanan Nair of Machad Palissery house and my paternal great-grandmother was Ichhikutty/Lakshmikutty Amma, who was adopted into the Palissery house since they did not have any girl-child in that branch of the family. When they had children, the house/family name was changed to 'Kunnath' since they were the children born to a lady adopted from Kunnath family. It was my father's maternal grandfather who originally build my father's house, over 100 years ago. In our family group, the girls sustained the family name; not the boys. My father had seven uncles: Kuttan Nair Unni/Koppan Nair Kunjunni Nair Krishnankutty Nair Raman Nair Sankaran/Appukuttan Nair. One aunty: Unnimaya/Ammalu Amma My father liked my mother very much and therefore insisted that he wanted to marry her. Thus, they got married while still very young; my father was 19 and my mother was 16 then. My father had eight siblings-five brothers and three sisters. His aunt had nine children. Thus, my father also had several cousins who, in turn, had several children of their own. Between my father's and mother's family, we have a rather large family who all got settled eventually in different parts of India. A lot of them are in Mumbai and Trichur; some are in New Delhi and Madras. There are several scattered throughout Kerala. I could go on further to say how big my maternal grandfather's family is. They too proliferated into a large group. Thus, my mother's and father's cousins and their offspring are spread all over India. I don't know more than half of them other than what I heard from my mother. A few of them are here in America and Canada. We had a joint-family system. This means all siblings and their spouses and children of the parents lived in the same house. So, I got the chance to play with all my cousins. We had the influence of grandparents and great grandparents along with uncles and aunts. It was considered an embarrassment to have your child live in separate home. The house was constructed with earthen clay-like stones and wood. There were no concrete or anything synthetic. The windows did not have screens. Our home had five bedrooms and a small prayer room with a long inner hall downstairs and upstairs in front of the bedrooms, a dining room, a walk-in pantry, a kitchen, a storage room, a bathroom (only to take a bath, no toilet), and a room next to the kitchen from where we drew water from the well. This is where we washed our smaller dishes; the larger pots were taken to the pond in the yard to clean. There was a room to churn the milk for the day and store it. On the outskirts of the house there were verandas on all sides. The rice grinder and the stone on which we grind the spices were all in the south veranda, next to the kitchen. The rice and beans pounder (a mill, so to speak) were in the west veranda. There was also a room on the north, mainly for storage. When we had the goats, we used to keep them in a section of this room. The main house had three stories. The third story was an attic. It was used for storing stuff for future use or drying stuff during the rainy season. Several bats lived up here also; so, we mainly kept the door to this attic closed. Nobody cared too much about the bats, although we, as children, were afraid of them. Sometimes when someone went up there during the night, some bats would fly down from there. They will fly...
