Ground Report | A Kerala ward fully hidden inside border villages of Tamil Nadu

There are quite a few wards in Kerala that have a portion of their land spilling over into another state, wards that straddle two worlds. But there is none like Ayinkamam ward, in Kerala's southernmost panchayat Parassala, that is fully devoured by Tamil Nadu, with not a drop left out.

This would perhaps give the impression of Ayinkamam as a severed piece of Kerala, a lost island, within a sea of Tamil Nadu. Fact is, Ayinkamam is not as compact, as well-defined. Its geography is a bit more complicated.

True, it is a small slice broken off from the lowest tip of Kerala. But before dropping this slice to the other side, imagine the broken part being crushed and then the pieces being randomly scattered across the border into Tamil Nadu. That could possibly give a vague idea of Ayinkamam's disorienting existence inside Tamil Nadu.

Two states, one road

Since the ward can be found only in pieces, it is hard for a first-time visitor like this Onmanorama correspondent to make sense of Ayinkamam. 

After crossing the border into Tamil Nadu's Kaliyikkavila, one has to move at least 500 metres through the bustling border town before reaching Ayinkamam, Kerala. This is along the highway to Kanyakumari. 

But what one gets is half Ayinkamam. The Kerala ward is only on the right side of the highway. Bang opposite, on the left side, is Kaliyikkavila's PPM junction. 

Here, inside Tamil Nadu territory, Kerala and Tamil Nadu stare at each other across a road.

“Officially, this side of the road is Kerala,” said Sarun, a wayside lottery vendor, sounding as though not many are convinced about this. “But we are still made to feel like outsiders here. We are constantly reminded that the road is Tamil Nadu's,” he said.

After another 500 metres along the highway, things become normal. It is Tamil Nadu on both sides. And then after 200 metres, at a junction called Padanthalumoodu, Ayinkamam again. This time, only for a small stretch on the right that could fit in some three shops.

These are perhaps the only traces of Kerala (Ayinkamam) in Kaliyikkavila town. 

Rustic Tamil Nadu's big surprise

Most of Ayinkamam is hidden in the rustic, pastoral backyard of Kaliyikkavila. To reach these pieces of Ayinkamam one has to take the easy-to-miss untended narrow roads that branch away from the highway.

These days it would be relatively easy to spot the byroads as posters of Ayinkamam ward candidates crowd their sides.

These branch roads weave through Tamil Nadu countryside. Villages like Padanthalamoodu, Edaicode, Kalkulam, Thailammoodu and Thettiode pass by. On either side of the potholed roads are large plots of cultivated land; mostly tapioca and banana. 

The houses are far away, set behind these expansive farmlands, so there is no one to ask for direction. But along the way, all of a sudden, like a long-forgotten friend in the most unlikely of places, Ayinkamam would make an appearance.

At Kalkulam, there was a small shop selling bananas at the roadside, the lone shop in the area. We asked for Ayinkamam. The man running the shop pointed diagonally to a temple with a high freshly painted perimeter wall. Sreekantan Sastha Temple, Ayinkamam; the name board over the gateway was in Malayalam. “That's Ayinkamam, and where I stand is Kalkulam, Kanyakumari district,” the shop owner, Sundararajan, said.

The temple and the areas along the road running behind it were Ayinkamam, Sundararajan said. But the pond in front of the temple was not. It was in Kalkulam, Kanyakumari.

Sacred groves, temples, and BJP

The road behind the temple moved through greener areas. There were only a few scattered houses, seemingly wealthier ones, and were half-hidden behind the swaying trees. Here, instead of tapioca farms, there were rubber trees.

There was no one in sight and the place was eerily silent, the wind howling through the place adding to the abandoned feel. There were signs of the local body polls. Comrade N I Panchami (CPM), G Mahilakumari (Congress) and Susheela (BJP) were seen smiling from posters stuck on trees and electric posts. 

Almost every hundred metres there was a temple. And, here and there, small lamp-lit wayside sacred groves around huge grandmother trees. Behind one of them is a large standstill pond filled with dry lotus leaves. The ward is now held by the BJP, one of the only two wards the BJP holds in the CPM-ruled 23-member Parassala Panchayat. 

However, Suresh Ayinkamam's victory was by a narrow margin of 15 votes. Traditionally, Ayinkamam is a Congress citadel. 

The ward, with 2,264 registered voters, is predominantly Hindu with a decisive Muslim and a not-so-insignificant Christian population. Most of the inhabitants are either daily wage construction workers or small-time farmers. Less than two per cent hold government jobs.

Multiple Kerala-Tamil Nadu borders

After about a kilometre and a half along this supposedly Kerala road we reached a newly-painted small wayside shop selling drinks and provisions. Shankara Stores, it was written in Tamil.

The owner, Janardhanan, said his shop was in Kanyakumari. He pointed to the unused overgrown plot right next to his shop, where two cows were grazing and said it was Kerala. “Tamil Nadu ends right at the edge of my shop,” he said.

Right in front of him, across the narrow road, is a large expanse of tapioca cultivation. “That is Tamil Nadu,” Janardhanan said. But the rubber trees found left to the tapioca farm, the area we had just passed, was Kerala. And the two or three houses found right to the tapioca farm was Kerala.

By now, we also realised that the nearly two-kilometre stretch we had just covered had both Kerala and Tamil Nadu areas. “Along the way didn't you see a huge tree with a silk cloth tied around it and vermicelli all over its bark. That was in Tamil Nadu,” Janardhanan said.

He said there was a time when people here used to vote in both Kerala and Tamil Nadu elections. “Who was to say from which state we were. Moreover, we had ration cards of both states,” Janardhanan said. “Now, after Aadhar, this is no longer possible,” he said.

Ayinkamam's spiritual abode

The only thing certain about Ayinkamam is what many people in the area, even Muslims Onmanorama talked to, called its “spiritual centre” -- Ambadi Sreekrishnaswamy Temple. The temple is found at a height and is said to be a mythical era natural cave formed of three large rocks. 

Lore has it that the Pandavas and their wife Draupadi had hidden inside this cave during their exile.

“The ground before the temple is where all the parties begin their election campaign, including the CPM,” said Ismail, who runs a bike workshop on the Kerala side near Kaliyikkavila town. “Even Shashi Tharoor had begun all his Lok Sabha campaigns after praying here,” he said. 

They want their politicians to pay deference to their Lord but would spurn them if they attempt to desecrate the area around the temple with election graffiti.

When Onmanorama reached the temple, a group of animated men were seen standing under a coconut tree on the edge of the ground that lay beneath the steps of the temple. On the tree were two posters of Congress candidate G Mahilakumari, one under the other. “If these posters were not taken out by evening today, she is not going to win,” said Rarichan, a livestock farmer. 

Historic oversight

It was lack of application during the time of linguistic reorganisation of states in 1953 that sealed Ayinkamam's fate. Then, Travancore had eight taluks: Nedumangad, Chrayankil, Neyyattinkara, Attingal, Vilavancode, Agastheeswaram, Kalkulam, and Thovalai. 

The last four, considering the dominance of Tamil speakers in these areas, were given to Tamil Nadu. Ayinkamam was then in Neyyattinkara taluk but was geographically inside Vilavancode. It was fine when all these taluks were in Travancore.

But at the time of reorganisation, no one gave a thought to what would happen to Ayinkamam after the division.

Fear of the Lord

As we were leaving Ayinkamam, we saw two men rushing towards Ambadi temple. We were told they were Congress workers hurrying to tear down the Congress posters from the coconut tree before the temple.