Ayalore Gramam, Kerala

Ayalore

By

P.R.Ramachander

(This was written long time back.  Though there is a web site of Ayalur  , I could not access  it  and revise this)

This village was part of Kochi State. It had in the earlier days 120 Brahmin houses. Most of them belonged to the Vadamas and Brihatcharanam sub sect. Most of them had either Pallaseni Kavu or Chittalancheri Kavu as Adimai Kavus. The village also has considerable population of Tamil speaking Chettiars. The Siva temple was in the middle of the agraharam. About 100 years back one Mr. A.K.Samban built the drinking water system to the Gramam. He did this by providing Public taps. He also is supposed to have built the Cremation ground and Kula Purai for the village. The Krishnan temple, which was built by the Iyers about 100 years back, was built in the same compound as the Siva Temple. There is an interesting story of exchange of idols that is told even today. It seems the idols for the Nemmara Krishnan temple (Parthasarathy) and Ayalore Krishnan temple were made by the same Sculpture. But there was a mix up while delivering and the Parthasarathy reached Ayalore instead of Venna Krishnan and they decided to install it in their temple. The Pooja for the Krishnan temple is by Kerala Iyers. Navarathri is celebrated in this temple. The Lamp around the temple was lit by iyers from a particular street every day of the Navarathri and the streets also got the name from this practice. Onnam Vilakku Theru (First lamp street) and so on till Eighth Lamp Street. Though the Siva temple is under the management of the Devaswom, the major festival of the temple viz. Thiruvadirai is celebrated by the Kerala Iyers by running a huge chariot around the temple. It is interesting to note that this is a typical tamilian custom. In Kerala Sribali using elephants is more common. There was a custom of consecrating bulls to the Siva Temple earlier. These bulls used to majestically roam round the village. But this has now been discontinued. Chella Vadyar a famous pandit used to conduct Veda classes in his house earlier. The Village has a great planter who was perhaps the first of the Kerala Iyers of Chittoor district who established a rubber estate. His name was Hariharan. His estate is even now in tact. Some of the prominent persons of the village are/were Mr. A.K.Seshadrinathan who was the mayor of Ernakulam, Ayalore Krishnan the well known musician, Mr. P.V.Krishna Iyer who retired as Principal agricultural College, Dr. A.H.S.Sarma, who worked as Deputy Director of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural department, Mr. A.S.Narayanan who retired as the Chief Engineer of Electricity Board of Kerala etc.