Michelle Sindha Thomas
GOD’S OWN COUNTRY | KOTTAYAM 1900-1977
I: L.C. ISAAC
Agreed, Kottayam is kind of a middle of nowhere place, but this saved us from the bloodshed and struggle experienced in other regions as India drove towards independence—it is, after all, our somewhere. At the turn of the 19th century, our ancestors were tucked away inland, out of colonial sight and mind, well-behaved armchair activists living in domestic Dravidian bliss.
In 1838, CMS College moved to its present campus on a beautiful elevation in Kottayam, forested with feathery casuarina trees, with views of the Western Ghat mountain range. Benjamin Bailey, the founding principal, also served as architect of the school and chapel, fusing Victorian Gothic style with local structural archetypes including outdoor breezeways, clay tile roofs, and carved stairways of dark precious wood. He went on to establish the first printing press in Kerala in 1846, publishing the world’s first English-Malayalam dictionary, the first Malayalam-English dictionary, soon followed by a translation of the Bible to Malayalam. In addition to Malayalam and English, the press responded to demand for publications in Tamil, Sanskrit, Syriac, and other Indian and foreign languages.
The college printing office grew to become CMS Press, a full-scale publishing house that put Kottayam on the map as a hub of the newspaper, magazine, and book publishing industry to this day, when over 80% of the books published in Kerala are from Kottayam, over thirty periodicals are published in Kottayam, along with the Mathrubhoomi, Deshabhimani, Madhyamam, and Deepika newspapers. The Malayalam Manorama, published in Kottayam, is one of the largest circulating daily papers in India. Kerala boasts 99% literacy; we of Kottayam, the quiet and shy of Aksharanagari—“The Land of Letters”—declare 100% literacy, our proudest claim to fame.
In the 1900s, Maharaja Sri Mulam Tirunal increased government spending on education in Kerala to 15 times the expenditure of previous years. He dramatically increased the public works allotment and, while the royal family’s spending remained conservative, he advocated for bold developments that raised the revenue of the state. He advanced the visionary, reformist agenda established by his forbears, his administration acquiring for the kingdom of Travancore the colonial title, “Model State of India.”
By 1901, Kottayam had just over 17,500 residents: a population of students and professors were drawn in by CMS College along with writers and others who contributed to the growing publishing industry, creating organizations for professional and political support such as the Malayali Social Union and the Literary Workers’ Cooperative Society. While still a small town, Kottayam was on the forefront of progressive movements and social reform initiatives, earning a reputation as a center for cultural life, intellectual discourse, and political agitation. One of the first demands for social justice, the Malayali Memorial, was a response to the government policy of appointing officers from other states to the most important administrative positions controlling trade and commerce in Kerala, even when well-qualified locals were available to serve. While 10,037 angry Malayalis signed the petition, even in rebellion they were mild-mannered, drafting out their requests at the Kottayam Public Library and presenting them to the maharajah in written form.
One such gentle rebel, our great-grandfather Lachumthara Chacko Isaac, found his place in Kottayam and put down roots for the rest of us. L.C. Isaac grew up in Kuttanad, a backwaters region where people traveled by boat, where his parents had a farm and paddy fields. He was a bright, inquisitive youth and when he came of age, his marriage was arranged to a girl from Alleppey, a relatively cosmopolitan port city of lagoons, canals, and bridges—“The Venice of the East.” Our great-grandmother Thresiamma was educated at an English-medium convent school run by foreign nuns; she complemented her husband, taking pride in both the secular and religious education of their children, reading the Bible to them in English every night.
After marriage, L.C. Isaac finished his degree in journalism and went to work as a field reporter for Deepika, the oldest circulating Malayalam-language daily, known for innovative journalism with a focus on advocacy and social progress. His principles aligned with the mission of the paper, as published in their first issue on January 3, 1927:
To represent the needs of the common man to the rulers
To protect and safeguard the inalienable rights of the people
To fight for Truth, Justice, and Freedom and to unite the separated brethren of Kerala
In service to these goals, Deepika often hired reporters with a background in law, and some even maintained a practice. The paper saw great potential in L.C. Isaac from his coverage of the capital of Trivandrum, and sent him to study law. At the time there were no law schools in Kerala, so he completed his studies at Madras University.
Upon his return, L.C. Isaac was celebrated as the first person from Kuttanad to earn a law degree. He first practiced at court in Alleppey—but he was a highly principled idealist and quickly became disillusioned with the nature of his profession. He found himself defending clients he knew in his heart were guilty and could not bear to go on protecting. Over time, he leaned his practice towards legal theory and civic engagement, continuing to work as a journalist and soon earning a position as an editor at Malabar Mail in Cochin. In 1935, he and Thresiamma moved their family—now including children Clara (a.k.a “Baby”), Janet, Philomena, and twins Lucy and Agnes—from Alleppey to Cochin. He began teaching, his reputation grew, and the family stayed in Cochin just long enough for the birth of their first son, James, when Deepika called L.C. Isaac to join them once again—this time, as chief editor.
While I hardly relate to our relatives on the Thomas side, even the most eccentric ones somehow still mild, mannerly, conservative, I am ever fascinated by this great-grandfather born at the turn of the 20th century, a boy from the countryside who raised his own children with priorities and values that were so modern in the world of that moment, let alone in the context of his Kerala Catholic community. When I have any sort of scholarly or artistic achievement, Papa won’t say too much, because he doesn’t want me to get a big head, but he smiles softly and says, your great-grandfather would have been proud of you. Papa knew him only as an old man and once told me to ask our grandmother what he was like. Babyammachi was hard to approach, and I put off the topic until it was too late. So, before we lost her, I begged our grand-aunt Lucy—so distant she was more of an acquaintance than an aunty—to tell me more about him. When she got sick, my desperation intensified and I called her in Chicago at all hours, on weekdays at 8am California time she would say, “No, I’m going to the doctor, now is not a good time.” I called her on Sunday at 7am California time and she said, “No, I’m going to church, now is not a good time.” After many weeks of persistence she asked me to list my questions so she could prepare for the conversation. She noted the questions and hung up. A few weeks later, she finally called me and shared what she could remember. Aunty Lucy and Babyammachi are still as foreign to my spirit as ever, but L.C. Isaac has come alive—mild, mannerly, maintained, but also intellectually energetic, inspiring, an ideal.
The family moved again and settled near Deepika headquarters in Kottayam. L.C. Isaac took this opportunity to quit law and fully remove himself from situations that troubled his conscience. Even though he shifted his focus to writing and editing, he became renowned as a principled legal professional, serving as an advisor to individuals, families, and businesses. He and his family were showered with appreciation; Aunty Lucy told me, “When we were young, we didn’t make cake and all at home. In those days it was not very easy and it was something very expensive. We were eager for Christmas; my father was a legal advisor for many companies, and they wanted to reward him around Christmastime. We had a famous bakery in Kottayam, and they made excellent fruitcake and all. On Christmas Eve, we would go to church for midnight mass, knowing that when we went back home there would be lots of cake waiting for us. So we would all sit through the mass, excited to go back and have cake.” I guess that’s why we have always taken fruitcake when we visited her.
Our great-grandfather became so admired as a mentor that writers were always visiting to discuss ideas with him; publishers would send manuscripts and request his input, asking him to read works in advance of publication to write the forward or a review for the paper. Aunty Lucy said, “We used to have a room filled with books we could read anytime. Our house was like a big library. Any new magazine, any new book written, the publishers would all send that to our house. We used to get all the newspapers, all the books, not only that, all the English newspapers, foreign magazines, we got all of it. That is how I got interested,” she said, giving me the first key to understanding why she broke from the comfort of tradition and the rest of us now have lives in the United States: “The foreign magazines interested me, with all those photos of far-off places and good food. That is how I got interested in living abroad, those magazines attracted me, all the good things.” Our stoic grand-aunt was once little Lucy in the library, studying exotic lands in glossy magazines and saying, “I want to go somewhere like that.” Lucy studied chemistry and physics, preparing for a career in medicine. She was accepted to the University of Rome medical school. Her parents encouraged her, but neither pushed nor pulled her, supporting her sensitively: “I felt nervous to go to Rome. My father told me, ‘I don’t want you to go now,’ only because he sensed I was nervous and gave me an excuse to decline.” My general ambivalence towards Aunty Lucy replaced with something like outrage when I realized she could have pioneered our way to fabulous dolce vita Rome instead of Chicago. She shrugged it off, “My close friend went to Italy and became a doctor. I meet her sometimes.”
Interestingly, our sour Babyammachi was the first child who was musically inclined. Her father arranged for a Carnatic music teacher to visit the house and teach the children. Baby and Agnes took quickly to their lessons and every night, during prayer time, they would lead the family in song; Baby became so enthusiastic about the harmonium that even when the family went out of town for holidays they would lug it along for her to play. When the youngest, Johnny, came along many years later, they arranged for the same teacher. Johnny became passionate about music and his parents encouraged him to hold rehearsals with his friends at their house, which was full of life, good company and artistic productivity. James loved photography and built a darkroom at home to develop his work. Another teacher was arranged to instruct the girls in classical dance, and Philomena excelled at bharat natayam.
L.C. Isaac further took an interest in herbominerals and started a medical store. The business did so well that he was able to create work for his nephews, bringing them to Kottayam and introducing them to the potential for financial advancement beyond the limited opportunities of their ancestral village. The studious of his young relatives followed his steps and took positions at Deepika. He was the patriarch of the extended family, respected and beloved. “My father understood the value of education,” Aunty Lucy told me, “he didn’t build big buildings with his money, he helped others. You should feel proud of him.” While he retained the family property in Kuttunad, he rented the house in Kottayam and never invested in real estate or land; I wonder if he was influenced by a certain growing political ideology of the time, while good Catholic Aunty Lucy said simply, “He wasn’t materialistic at all.” He wanted his daughters, sons, and relatives to be well educated, self-sufficient, to support themselves. He took them along for his public engagements and trained them for public speaking, encouraging them to enter local speech competitions. Can you believe Babyammachi once gave prize-winning speeches!?
By the 1930s, the population of Kottayam was over 25,000, comprised of landlords and farmers, writers and members of the publishing industry, employees and affiliates of CMS college which, by 1938, began to admit female students. Ever in tune, L.C. Isaac and Thresiamma founded Vanitharamam, a magazine for women. Deepika newspaper printed the publication, full of articles and fiction by professional writers with occasional contributions from their daughters. “When you visit me, I’ll show you the magazine,” Aunty Lucy said, “You will see articles with photos of Indira Gandhi and all that. And cartoons.” She shares my love for graphic design and waxes rhapsodic about the ads: “You should see all the English advertisements. It is very cute and you will see the advertisements of some stores in Kottayam. St Mary’s Hostel, CMS College. Catholic Bank of India. Ads, pictures, there are lots of ads for gold and ornaments places. When you come you can see that.”
I have consumed too much material about India from a Western lens, too many histories and movies and books, and I am confused by this intellectual, all-Indian India she describes, the 1930s magazine with English ads directed to Malayali women, with no mention whatsoever of Englishmen. I asked her about the nature of the colonial, pre-Independence era in Kottayam, or what she understood of it as a child in the 30s and 40s: “We didn’t have that many British people in Kottayam. At CMS college, there were some, but we didn’t have daily contact with them. There was a school across our house in Kottayam, and there were some English people there, but there was no conflict. It was very peaceful in those days. The convent was nice and we children were taught very well.” I am relieved to hear one Indian story in which colonizers are background noise, irrelevant to the immediate events.
Decades later, L.C. Isaac is still cherished in Kottayam; historians mention him as one of the great writers of Kerala. Just lately, Uncle James received a note of thanks and a collection of letters between his father and a local official that details how he helped one professor N.P. Paul surmount obstacles and raise the funds to open a tutorial college. L.C. Isaac was open-minded, supporting Lucy when she eventually decided to move to the US in the 1960s, an unmarried, ambitious young woman seeking adventure in a country admitting Asians for the first time since the Barred Zone Immigration Act of 1917. He must have understood her drive; his brothers had been content to stay in Kuttanad while he wanted to explore and experience more. While he was a religious man and honored tradition, he made liberal accommodations for personal choice. When James had finished his studies and began working, L.C. Isaac had a conversation with him: “Son, now you’re on your own. There are a lot of marriage proposals coming. I would like to know if you have already selected someone—if you are in love with someone, please let us know.” Before L.C. Isaac responded to any of the proposals on behalf of his son, he wanted to make sure he wouldn’t impede an existing love affair.
L.C. Isaac died on May 3, 1968. He had wanted tea from the teashop that morning, and little Papa was sent off to fetch it. Papa returned with the tea; his grandfather drank it and went to sleep. Later, Papa was walking past his grandfather’s room, saw him nearly fall from his bed, and realized something was wrong. He ran to his grandmother: “Ammachi, come soon! Appachin is falling off the bed!”
L.C. Isaac created a cocoon for those in his care, characterized by a purity and righteousness manifest in his legacy: There are writers and educators among us, nuns, ministers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, psychologists, musicians, artists, accountants, a college principal. For me, however, one persistent image looms over it all: Babyammachi burying her nose in the newspaper, an ostrich with her head in the sand, ignoring her sons (especially Papa because he had abandoned Catholicism and chosen Mama), and later her grandchildren (especially you and me, because we were the fruits of betrayal). Did the newspaper connect her to a simpler time? Did the scent of ink on newsprint comfort her? Did a fixation on current events prevent rumination on the past, did current events, to be consumed at any cost, keep her in the present? Did she avoid engaging with us because we reminded her of those who were gone? Papa and I refuse to stay long in situations after we have become disillusioned, we cannot bear to stay in positions that grate our sense of authenticity and personal moral code—we can be very black and white and maybe perpetually naive in that way—we pick up, even at great personal risk, move on, change direction, and repeat and repeat.