The
Ram Mohan Palace where the High Court of Kerala started functioning belonged to
the Royal family of Kochi. The aged ‘Vakils’,
lawyers, commuted to and from the Court in rickshaws. I felt sorry for these
rickshaw pullers whose daily means of
living was to transport these lawyers to and from the courts. The lawyers who
wore coats with stylish white ribbons tied on their neck. A few others wore
hats, and some of them even wore dhotis and coat, a turban crowned their
silvery manes; elegantly sat in these manually pulled rickshaws. I too had an
occasion to travel in it with ‘Appachan’
in town; watching them laboriously pull the rickshaw, I pondered why they did
not use a bullock or a horse to do the task instead of these half-emaciated
men!
The
Dutch East India Company left behind certain important monuments as the
vestiges of their occupation of the land of Kerala. ‘Appachan’ took us to the Bolgatty Palace, built in 1744 for the
commander of Dutch Malabar, is one of the oldest existing Dutch palaces outside
the Netherlands. The Palace built by
the Dutch, overlooking the sprawling golf course and the extensive Cochin
estuary, is a relic of the past.
The
Dutch were fond of having country houses on some of the picturesque island in
the backwaters. They used woods for construction purposes and they tried to
combine the European style with the traditional style of Kerala architecture.
At present it is placed under the immediate supervision of the Kerala State
Department of Tourism.
Excerpts from
MEMOIRS
An autobiography
by
Joseph J. Thayamkeril
Lawyer, Kochi, Kerala, India.
josephjthayamkeril.blogspot.com
josephjthayamkeril@google.com
josephjthayamkeril@gmail.com
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