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Kallivayalils: From Cakes and Ale to dizzying Heights in Harvard and Oxford(Kurian Pampadi)

Kurian Pampadi Published on 04 February, 2023
 Kallivayalils: From Cakes and Ale to dizzying Heights in Harvard and Oxford(Kurian Pampadi)

Jacob C. Kallivayalil aka Jamu is modest and soft spoken but, if I may, I could call him a daredevil. Born to a plantation family in Kottayam District of Kerala, Jamu, graduated from Delhi's St Stephen's and got selected for the Indian Police Service. However, bowing to the wishes of his father Chacko A Kallivayalil, he abandoned his Civil Services dream to return home and join him in planting. 'I returned in 1976 and he passed away the following year as if he had the premonition of his death,' he told me.

Jacob Kallivayalil and Kiran with daughters Diya and Nitya
in Virginia; (on their wedding day in 1976.

Jamu returned not alone but in the company of his sweet heart Kiran, or Kini as she was known, from Chandigarh. He had met her at the Rao's IAS Study Circle in Delhi. 'While I was doing my history Masters in St Stephens, she was a student of an equally august institution, LSR or Lady Sree Ram College. Daughter of the Late Cdr (rtd) Ranjit Singh, she was doing her IAS training at Mussoorie when we decided to quit and eke out a living by toiling in the sun and rain. Cardinal Joseph Parekatil consecrated our wedding at Ernakulam's St Mary's Cathedral Basilica.

'I was the very first from the Kallivayalil family to study in St.Stephens,' reminiscences Jamu. 'I joined in 1967 and completed my masters in 1972. I was the college's hockey captain in 1971 and also played for the college football team
and received 'College Colours' in both hockey and football.
As Bruce Springsteen famously sang, 'Glory days'!''  


 Roman Holiday-Jamu, right, joins Nitya's father in law
Dr. Bapstita Polillo's 70th birthday bash.

Jamu played tennis at the Mundakayam Club and later, at Union Club, Kottayam of the small plantation town where he chose to live. He was not only a passionate player, but also an energetic organizer to serve as president of the Kerala Tennis Association for two terms. At 72, he is a reigning veteran champion and president of the KGS (Kerala Games & Water Sports Promotion Society)
which owns a swimming pool within the municipal precincts.

Tony and Sheela at their 300 year old tharavadu in
Vilakkumadam, Pala.

Jamu sent his daughters Diya and Nitya to the town's prestigious school Pallikkoodam run by Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy's mother Mary Roy and served as President of the society running the school for a long period. The couple
opened 'Book Worm,' the town's first public library with a difference where latest best- sellers were made available for the discerning readers. 

After her higher secondary in Lawrence School Lovedale, Diya got a scholarship to Mt Holyoke College in Massachusetts for her undergraduate studies. She did her
masters and PhD in the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign followed by post-doctoral fellowship at the Cambridge Health Alliance, Harvard University, where she
Continue(s) to work. She is an Associate Professor at the Harvard Medical School and the Director of Training at Cambridge Health Alliance. She is also a Co-author of two books in her field.

All in the family of Tomy and Sheela, baking new ideas.

Nitya while in her 10th got a scholarship to United World College (UWC) in Wales. After finishing her International Baccalaureate (IB) she joined Diya at Mt. Holyoke and did her masters in the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn),   followed by her PhD in Harvard. She also did her post-doctoral fellowships at MIT and Yale. She is now a professor at the University of Virginia where her husband Dr Simone Polillo, an Italian, is professor of sociology. She is a known astrophysicist honoured by the NASA as well as the White House as a great promising scientist. Nasa awarded her a
multi-million fellowship for research on the secrets of the universe.

When I called Jamu to tell him about my project on the Kallivayalils, he said: 'I am in Rome now, for a holiday along with my daughters. Long after the days when Kiran and myself flew to Massachusetts and Virginia to be with daughters. You know Kiran passed away a few years back. 
Nitya and her husband Simone Polillo have come to celebrate
the 70 th birthday of Simone's father Dr. Battisto.' So I waited till he returned from his Roman Holiday. We were together at the IAS Slog Centre launched by Alphons Kannanthanam when he was the District Collector in Kottayam. Jamu was the
convenor and I was one among a bevy of teachers.

Abraham Kallivayalil (along with parents George and
Sindhu) doing FRCS at Radcliffe Hos, Oxford

It is well established that the Kallivalayil family represents a wide and wild variety of interests, skills and passions. For example, Tomy and Sheela bake exquisite fruit cakes in their 300-year old tharavadu set in the sylvan surroundings in the
village of Vilakkumadam, 10 km from Pala. Their estate with a Spanish hacienda-style building in the middle is hemmed by manicured green meadows and multi coloured bougainvillea topped by 500 flowering nutmeg trees at the very entrance.
The cakes remind one of Somerset Maugham's Cakes and Ale and his inspiration Shakespeare who in his Twelfth Night said 'Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no  more cakes and ale?' There is ale in Sheela's cakes as the dry fruits used in it are soaked in premium rum for six months.
That is why the cakes at their best are a little sour and sweet.

The Tomys have been selling, mostly online, 2000 cakes during Christmas and New Year for the last 15 years. Sheela who inherited her passion in cooking and baking from her mother in her home Anathanam in Kanjirapally. Her mother in law was another mentor. Both Aleyammas have passed away.

Ex Minister KM Mani offers tribute to KA Abraham who
celebrated his 90th with wife and children.

Sheela avails the help of some 15 women from her village during the busy season. 'Tastes best when served with warm custard, hot rum sauce or vanilla ice cream,' reiterates her advisory. Tomy who is equally interested in tourism has Naamah, a nature resort at Panchalimedu, in Idukki district. It is run by the CGH Earth Group.

Their five children engaged in wide variety of fields far and wide come together during every Christmas to support their mother's new experiments in baking. Elizabeth is a graphic artist in Dubai, Mary Ann running a school in Kochi, George in constriction also in Kochi, Treasa used to be with Goldman Sachs in London, and Michael with a masters from Boston works for Apple in Ireland.

Michael Kallivayalil and wife Mariam poses for the writer
on his 90th; Abraham J, prez and Jolly, sec, of family assn.

From their front yard, one can have the panoramic view of the a Nelpura (storage for paddy) some 300 metres away. Built of raw laterite blocks it is a three-storey structure that has braved the ravages of time. During harvest men from far and wide
would come and stay in the upper storey of the Nelpura. They will lit a kalvilakku, a lamp carved out of granite, on tip of the structure earning the village its name Vilakumadam.

 
Well, as I said earlier, there are all kinds of passions that run through the Kallivayalil fabric, Michael A Kallivayalil who passed away in 2021 at 98 was the titan of a rubber planter. He bought the remains of the 1200-acre estate from Joseph
John Murphy of Ireland who decided to quit when India attained independence from the British. Michael established Glenrock Rubbers, India's first block rubber factory and built a school near to it in memory of Murphy. He was also a philanthropist upon whose largess the Kanjirapally Catholic diocese built Marian College with an attached business school and an organic tea factory with the help of the European
Union.

Kallivayalil get together at Kondooparampil, Brothers rtd
from Civil Services--Thomas Abr, Ittyavira Abr

Michael was one of the seven children to the legendary planter Kondooparampil KC Abraham (Pappan) and he himself had five children a few of whom are settled in the
United States. Vimala married to Parvez Muhammed, a former Unilever administrator in Saudi Arabia, live in Andovar, MA. Their son Tariq is a human rights activist in
Washington. Vimala's sister Anna Geetha Varghese is a resident of Texas.

Coming to the United Kingdom, Dr. Abraham George Kallivayalil is doing his masters leading to FRCS at the Oxford's Radcliffe Hospital. Son of George Kallivayalil,
Delhi Resident Editor of Deepika, the first Malayalam daily, Abraham graduated from St Johns Medical College, Bengaluru. George's wife Sindhu is a teacher in Vasant Kunj. Their second son Jacob George, a product of St Stephens, is a
top executive of the Union government's Invest India organisation.

Genetic link of East and West-Tony Thomas with Anie in
Tvm and Tariq Pervez in Washington

We walked through the thick of rubber trees on the left and  right of the village road in Vilakkumadam. Many of the houses on both sides were built on land parcelled out free of cost by his late father Avirachan, or KA Abraham, an MA LLB from the Aligarh Muslim University where he had gone in the company of a dozen or so young Christians from Kerala immediately after India's Independence.

The third house had Darshana Sudarshan, the lead actress of Malayalam films such as the 2018 flick 'Solomante Theneechakal'. 'She used to deliver milk to us,' said George.'Director Lal Jose himself called me to say that Darshana had
claimed that I was her Muthalali (landlord).'

The 300-year old paddy storage Nellara at Vilakkumadam

Among my other friends from Kallivayalil are George's eldest sister Geetha Paul who retired from the Civil Services-P and T Accounts and Finance Service and her younger brother Dr. Roy Kallivayalil, professor of psychiatry at Pushpagiri
Medical College, Tiruvalla. Babu Abraham is another brother. He is a Chartered Accountant in Kochi and a leading stock and share consultant with offices across the country.

Pleasantly surprised I zeroed into to two members of the Kallivayalil family genetically linked but living 15,000 km apart in Trivandrum and Washington respectively. Dr. Tony
Thomas, Associate Professor at the Digital University of Kerala in Trivandrum is a PhD in maths from IIT Kanpur. The other is Tariq, son of Pevez S. Mohammed and Vimala Kallivayalil, living in Andovar, Massachusetts. I knew Tariq as an avid human rights activist in Washington. Ihave also read his blogs some of which describes his visits to Kodaikkanal International School where he studied and Wimbledon where his father Pervez, a former official of  Unilever, took him to witness the championship in 2019. Pervez himself played tennis and so did his wife's sister Geetha Varghese living in Spring, Texas and of course their father the legendary Michael A Kallivayalil.

Jamu reminds me of two brothers from Vilakkumadam, who deserve special mention: Thomas A. Kallivayalil and Ittyavirah A. Kallivayalil. Both of them passed the Civil
Service exams in 1975 and 1976. Thomas (Thommachan) joined the Indian Defence Accounts Service (IDAS) while Itty joined the IPS (J & K Cadre) a year later. They both left service, to come back and become planters. 'In hindsight, I
wonder if they were better off collecting their pensions?' asks Jamu.

When I shared the headline of this tribute to Jamu, shot came the reply: 'Why Cakes and Ale? We Kallivayalil's were more rural and rustic than that. More 'kallu and kappa'
(toddy and tapioca)'. 'The fact that our present generation has moved onward and out of our agricultural back ground, is both gratifying and sad. That there seems no future for farming, is a story for another day!'
 
Thank you Jamu. You said it! But you should drive the 20 km stretch from Kottayam to Pala and from there to Paika on the world class State Highway to Sabarimala pilgrim centre. We will find more pizza huts than a toddy shop for a pot of kallu
and a plate of hot and spicy fish curry!

 

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Dr.Kanamsankar Pillai 2023-02-17 02:20:45
Michael Kallivayal and Com P.Govinda Pillai were students of Rev Fr.Henry Heras who studiyed the Harappan Civilization in details and found that Mohonjodaro Civilization was a "Vellala Civilization"
Kallivayalil promoter 2023-12-29 13:26:34
Abraham is working as a junior doctor in Oxford He only got GMC registration in 2022 Not every Tom dick and harry can do FRCS without completing specialty Who knows what all false information has been pasted here
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