MANNU- SOIL
A few days back I saw Malayalam success filmDRISHYAM in TV Channel- Acted by Mohanlal as GEORGE KUTTI, the hero of thefilm. I was attracted to the talk of Mohanlal whiledigging for some house hold work- On those days we might see at least 10earthworms by digging 1 foot area. Now if we dig 10 feet area we may not see evenone earth worm. Earth worms make the earth fertile by nature. Got absorbed tothe film I thought I may write about MANNU. Now I am making about soil/ mannu Sincerely, Gopala Krishnan 13-7-21 1 Pasima RasiMannu In middle school class we I have studied a chapterabout the different type of soils. Asure question was there about some type of soil in the examination. Now too I recollect about PASIMA RASI MANNU as thebest soil. Being only in middle school, it was a wonder otherthan the one seeing around the compound any other type of soil was there? 2 Sandy soil Gradually thinking went to the SANDY SOIL near therivers where the sugar canes grows well. 3 Clay land The soil in the paddy fields called KANDAM where thefeet would go deep if placed and difficult to take out without other’s help. The soil is called clay soil. 4. Wet land Large water areas we had to be very cautious – Looseclay may pull us inside. It is called CHATHUPPU NIILAM (wetland). These areasare fenced and kept so that one would not get trapped where dwelling is there. In Kerala after removing the natural brick(vettukal), the chiselled waste are placed where firmness is required. In course of time, it would be as if aspreading of vettukal (Natural brick. There is a saying- If a person is asked whether youwant certain land or certain quantity of gold- ONE WILL OPT FOR LAND. The land would give incourse of time, multiples of money to the value of gold. 5 Kandam andPuayidam Two types of land are classified in Kerala either asKANDAM or as PURAYIDAM. Purayidam is theplace where wetness is not there, slightly high from watery areas and harder soiland fit to construct house- Hence the name PURA IDAM. Kandam is for cultivation of paddy. The areas around Alleppy are classified asOruppoo nilam - Kuttanad. The areas around Trivandrum and Nagerkovil areas arecalled Iruppoo nilam - Nanchilnadu. Oruppoo meant once year cultivation of paddy andIruppoo meant two times cultivation of paddy. Nanchilnaduand Kuttanadu were at one time the granary of Kerala. Now too one can get the paddy breeze while onetravel from Thukaley to Nagerkovil in the Trivandrum route. Either side so muchof paddy fields are there. By constructingthe Trivandrum – Kanyakumari railway line a lot of paddy field are were lost. 6 Legendsabout soil A few legends relating to Mannu comes to me. Some ofthem are told in brief. 1) Duringincarnation of Lord Vishnu as VAMANA- The famous legend of boy Upendra asking for 3 feetland for sitting and performing penance and king Mahabali asking the boy to askanything more. The legend of Mahabali and ULAKALANDA PERUMAL. Temples for Vamana are there at Trikkakkara nearErnakulam in Kerala and in Kanchipuram (Ulakalanda Perumal) in Tamilnadu 2) DuringTHRETHAYUGA king Janaka was ploughing land for yagya. Suddenly an infant girl childappeared in the soil- She was called SITA. During 2nd Agni pariksha, Sita asked her mother earth to takeher back. Where Sita was standing earth gave way and Sita went deep in to earthto her mother. 3) DuringDWAPARAAYUGA- Both Sree Rama and Parasurama incarnations were together for a period.Karna was taught Archery by Parasurama. After killing Kshathrya kings and all lands obtainedwere given to sage kasyapa by Parasurama. He requested VARUNA to give some land to him from Sagara. Sagara pleased and requested sage to throw his axe.From Kanya kumari to Gokarnam Sea was withdrawn and in the land Parasurama startedPenance. He brought Brahmins from North India and theysettled in the land in SIXTY FOUR MANAS. Formation of Keralam and beginning of KeralaBrahmins- the Nampoothiries. Earlier the lands were owned by them. 7 Researchcentre Now many researches in land- There is a soilresearch centre at Trivandrum near KESAVADASA PURAM. Soil is tested for suitability before constructionof the government buildings. I recollect an incident while in my service atPudukkottai. In the main road we found a place for Telephone exchange. Soiltesting done and it was disqualified for Telecom building. As if waiting fortelecom disqualification in another six months the biggest nationalised bank constructedtheir building. 8 Roofcultivation Where land is less, many adopting light cultivationwhere root need not go deep from the plant like paddy and vegetables in theroof top. 9 Plants andtrees in hills Even in the top of hills small plants creep from thelittle soil appear here and there. Similarly the big trees. Hills forms different shapes by its own.Some in animal forms and some in human forms. Nature’s provision. 10 Darkorange loose soil Some areas soil has different structure. Dark orangecolour in places like Manavalakurichhi near Nagerkovil. There soil has not muchgrip as in other places. Still cultivation is going on in some places. There is a place called Eathamozhi near Nagerkovil. One cannot holdthe coconut grown there in a hand after removing husk. So big in size. 11 Mud walls Earlier days we had walls for houses constructedwith mud. They were not huts. Big houses. Now also compound separation walls inmany places are constructed with mud. Our neighbouring country China has its great wall made of mud. 12 Nager kovil In Nagerkovil the sandy mud beneath the idol isgiven as Prasadam in the Nagaraja temple. For Vinayaka chathurthi we make clay idols. Earlierthe idols were painted. Now it is simply dried in many places. Writer- R. GopalaKrishnan dated 13-07-2021. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to thatha_patty+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1959534515.737334.1626159811716%40mail.yahoo.com.
