The village city centre..The Angadi..!

The national high way is a small constriction at the Angaadi entry area when it enters from the south passing the 'Sathram' a place for all the poor on the right. The sathram had been far back during the time of the Maharajas who were very kind to their subjects. They also made several Stone blocks on head high pedestals for helping the head load carriers to unload their heavy loads which they carried on their heads in olden days, so that they could rest a while and then proceed on their long walks. Those were the times of old. The 'athani's are long gone. The sathram was there upto thirty years back which is now gone. No body knows of the disappearance of such things. They just disappear in time. The entry is constricted by the old buildings with tile roofs on both sides and the little box shops attached to them. The drivers of buses and hig vehicles have to be careful not to take away the tiles from the little box shop. The drivers were experts, so such incidents were rare and the vehicles were always careful in road crossings.

Once it passed the central lamp post, the buses stopped on the left to help passengers to alight and to enter. On the same side was a large grocery shop which had a huge verandah which allowed everybody to wait there while they awaited their buses. This was the old style when the shop owners considered their customers as well as those who passed the place greatly and honourably. (Not any , now no shop owners considers the passers by, the whole area volume is considered and kept for the shop with glass coverings or such other new kind of trappings and people other than those exactly came to individual shops are kept out by all means).

On one side was a cobbler who polished the foot wear and made leather chappals and shoes in his spare time. He also did assorted other works as mending old foot wear and ladies bags. Gents in those days never carried any bags. Only elderly, only some of them, carried a leather purse which was local made. He made that too, with a long leather binding tag.

The cobbler sat with his cobblers box full of instruments and his twine and pins, nails and top pins, leather and other attachments for various items he made or repaired. He sat near the dirty waste canal and suffered the stench. Luckily he was unaware of the stench or he had no other go. I never asked him. No body else, I knew, did. Every body thought it is his way of finding his livelyhood and all liked him to be there as it was very convenient to find him just before getting into the bus or when one is in the angaadi (the market, as it was known then) (The word shopping complex etc. were unhead of in those days).

Once in a while I got my leather footwear polished by him and it was a real jolly thing to see him doing it. First rubbing out the dust with his sharp brush. Then applying polish and some kind of while cream on the leather portions. Applying another sharp brush on the cream and polish. Once that was over he applied another smooth brush and then put the two chappals at my feet and looked at me for his little charge for polishing it. It was fifty paise in those days. Several such polishings and a few pairs of chappals or shoes which he made and sold made his day. That was his simple way of living.

Slowly the ready made shoes and chappals started coming in the large town of Trichur nearby and the shops displaying them always attracted the young to it which made the old people ruminate sadly that the 'The old cobbler's time is about to end, he, now, will have to find some other job'.

This proved true before long, and now the village cobbler is gone. The grocery shop gave place to many to use its verandah transformed into a 'super market' and lost the verandah. The bus stop itself moved a furlong further due to extreme traffic congestion. It is now after the cuppola. The cuppola itself has its own history. As the chief diety of the local church is venerated here. He is angel, St. Raphael, the protector and co-traveller of passengers who called on him.

The shoe shops of the Trichur Town, which is the big city grew in style and fashion! And that was the end of an era...!