KOZHIKODE: The new generation may not know Kaliyan, while the older generation is too busy to catch up with him. As the times have changed, Kaliyan has faded into oblivion, so have his powers. The Save Green Agriculturalists Welfare and Cooperative Society has been on a mission to revive the age-old agricultural practices and rituals of the region for the last few years, and this year, it was Kaliyan’s chance to be resurrected.
Kaliyan is a little imp who is responsible for the fertility of all fruit-bearing plants. Just a few decades ago, it was a practice in certain parts of Malabar to invoke Kaliyan before the onset of the month of Karkkidakam. It is mostly children of the household who, despite the heavy rain, would make arrangements for the ritual.
They would make models of agricultural equipment and bullocks used for ploughing, using banana stems. Rural produce and delicacies, besides colourful rice, are offered to Kaliyam on a plantain leaf, while children carrying torches would run around trees shouting ‘Kaliya Kaliya Kooi’.
The invocation is a request to Kaliyan to bless the tree and to ensure that the produce is better in the forthcoming year. Invocation of Kaliyan is just another ritual that precedes Karkkidakam, like throwing out Jeshta Bhagavathi (evil goddess) and welcoming Sree Bhagavathi (goddess of prosperity). The ritual is forgotten these days. Throwing out Jeshta included a thorough clean-up of the house and premises as the people of yore believed that dirt was equivalent to evil.
On Monday, a group of people assembled at Muthalakkulam in the city under the aegis of the Save Green Society to invoke Kaliyan. The ritual was conducted below a jackfruit tree on the roadside, and the participants, including Assistant Registrar of Cooperatives P.K. Suresh, corporation councillors Nambidi Narayanan, P. Kishenchand, and society vice president P.P. Mukundan, shouted for Kaliyan in an attempt to revive the ritual. “The ritual is important in the present scenario where lack of cleanliness has become a curse and diseases are on the rise,” said society president M.P. Rejul Kumar. “Invoking Kaliyan was a code word of our ancestors to ensure cleanliness of the surroundings and thus ward off diseases. At a time when we are on a sanitation mission across the State, such rituals do hold a meaning,” he added.