ABSTRACT
Episodes here are pages from the social history of the Malayalis. Nayar and Nambootiri families saw gradual decay through lavish ceremonial events hosted at the slightest of excuses like the birth of a child, birthdays, and death anniversaries of elders, religious festivals, and patronage of temple festivals. Border disputes with neighbours and legal battles on claims to ownership of plots of land were other lanes that eroded wealth. And as hard cash was scarce at that time, small plots of land were often sold, and the buyers were from ‘lower’ groups of people who worked hard, saved well, and wanted to have a house in their own plot of land – a dream of every Malayali. Kunjan who inherited the honorific ‘yajaman’ (Lord) slipped into bad days that saw him carrying head-loads of earth for a road contractor! The family of Kurup, whose ancestor wielded a sword that once crushed a group of tenants who revolted against a Nambootiri feudal family, is now surviving on parcels of ritual food sent from a temple through a right earned from the feudal family whose ancestor had requested the massacre.
