50 Fun Facts About Kerala

Which legendary king's annual homecoming, granted by Vishnu's Vamana avatar, does Kerala celebrate at Onam?

Mahabali granted the dwarf Vamana three steps of land, but Vamana grew vast, covered earth and heaven in two strides and took the third on Mahabali's head.

Kerala Piravi marks the 1956 redrawing of India's states on what basis?

Language: Andhra was carved out in 1953 after Potti Sreeramulu died on hunger strike for a state for Telugu speakers.

Which explorer died at Cochin on Christmas Eve 1524 and was first buried in the city's St Francis Church?

Vasco da Gama had come back to India as viceroy but caught malaria soon after landing, and his body was moved out of the church for reburial in 1539.

Which apostle, by tradition, landed on the Kerala coast in 52 AD and founded the state's Syrian Christian community?

Thomas is said to have landed on the Malabar Coast, and tradition holds he was martyred at Mylapore on India's east coast, where San Thome Basilica stands over his tomb.

Kerala was the first Indian state to run a government what, launched in 1967?

Lottery money also pays medical bills: income from Kerala's Karunya draw funds treatment for poor patients with cancer, haemophilia, kidney and heart disease.

Which fruit, also the national fruit of Bangladesh, is Kerala's official state fruit?

Jackfruit was declared Kerala's state fruit in 2018, and the government planned to sell Kerala jackfruit as a brand in markets around the world.

Which slogan is Kerala Tourism's tagline?

God's Own Country was a phrase New Zealand's national-anthem poet, Bracken, had published about his country in the 1890s, long before Kerala Tourism made it the state's tagline.

Which city, home to ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre and India's first IT park, Technopark, is Kerala's capital?

Thiruvananthapuram was shortened to Trivandrum by the British, and the city later took back its ancient name officially.

Which Kerala dance-drama paints its noble heroes' faces green in a style called pachcha and its worst villains red?

Kathakali plays traditionally ran all night by the light of one huge oil lamp, and modern performances often cut them to two to four hours.

Which shrine in Kerala's capital had its secret vaults opened and inventoried in 2011 on the Supreme Court's orders?

Padmanabhaswamy's inventory turned up gold coins and a jewelled golden throne, but Vault B stayed shut after temple astrologers warned that opening it would displease the deity.

Which Kerala martial art did the British ban in 1804, closing many of its training grounds?

Kalaripayattu survived the ban because a few gurus kept teaching it in secret, some in the interior villages of Malabar.

Which Marxist became Kerala's first chief minister in 1957, heading India's first elected communist government?

E. M. S. Namboodiripad's government lasted barely two years: after mass protests, the central government dismissed it in 1959.

Which author set her 1997 Booker Prize winner, The God of Small Things, in the Kerala village of Ayemenem?

Arundhati Roy was summoned to answer obscenity charges in a Kerala court over the novel's final chapter, a love scene between a Syrian Christian woman and an untouchable carpenter.

Which Kerala sprinter missed the 1984 Olympic 400 m hurdles bronze by one hundredth of a second?

P. T. Usha, the 'Payyoli Express', finished fourth in 55.42 seconds after a rival's false start seemed to break her rhythm at the restart.

Which actor played Georgekutty, a cable-TV operator who outwits the police, in the 2013 Malayalam hit Drishyam?

Mohanlal's Drishyam was remade in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi, and in China as Sheep Without a Shepherd.

Neelakurinji, the shrub whose mass blooms turn Kerala's high hills blue, flowers together about how often?

Every 12 years the shrubs flower together, seed and then die, so a hillside that turns blue must wait a dozen years to bloom again.

From which coastal village near Kerala's capital did India launch its first rocket, a Nike-Apache, in 1963?

Thumba sits almost on Earth's magnetic equator, and the local bishop handed the church over to the scientists.

Which peak in Eravikulam National Park, at 2,695 m, is the highest point in India south of the Himalayas?

Anamudi rises inside Eravikulam, which Kerala set aside as a sanctuary to protect the endangered Nilgiri tahr.

Which Kerala backwater town, laced with canals, is nicknamed the 'Venice of the East'?

Alappuzha owes its canals and port to Raja Kesavadas, Travancore's 18th-century dewan, remembered as the maker of modern Alleppey.

Which deity, son of Shiva and Vishnu's Mohini form, draws millions of pilgrims a year to Sabarimala?

Ayyappan's pilgrims prepare with weeks of austerity, living simply and staying celibate, then climb barefoot carrying offerings on their heads.

Which river is Kerala's longest?

The Periyar's great flood of 1341 is blamed for choking an old port's river mouth and opening a new one at Kochi, which grew into a trading hub.

What is the traditional feast served on a banana leaf as lunch at Onam called?

Sadya matters so much that a Malayalam proverb says one must have the Onam feast even if it means selling one's property.

Which Kerala hill station is the centre of the Kanan Devan tea estates?

Munnar's estates passed from Tata Tea in 2005 to a new company whose employees bought the majority stake.

Which city's Pooram, devised by Sakthan Thampuran in the 1790s, climaxes with rival elephant lines swapping parasols?

Thrissur's temples were turned away from the Arattupuzha Pooram after heavy rain made them late, so Sakthan Thampuran gave them a Pooram of their own.

Which former seat of the Zamorins became India's first UNESCO City of Literature in 2023?

Kozhikode, once called Calicut, gave its name to calico, the cotton cloth Europeans first bought at its port.

Kerala was created in 1956 by joining Travancore-Cochin with the Malabar district of which former state?

Madras also received Travancore-Cochin's four Tamil-speaking southern taluks, now Kanyakumari district, which is why the old kingdom's southern tip lies in Tamil Nadu.

Which Kerala town's Cheraman Juma Masjid, dated by legend to 629 CE, is claimed as the first mosque in India?

Kodungallur's mosque is said to date from 629, but it has been rebuilt and modified many times, and some historians treat its founding story as legend.

Which Jew Town synagogue of 1568, floored with hand-painted Chinese tiles, is the Commonwealth's oldest still in use?

Paradesi's congregation dwindled as most Cochin Jews emigrated to Israel after 1948, yet its 400th anniversary in 1968 drew Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Mattancherry Palace in Kochi is called the Dutch Palace, but which power built it around 1545 for the king of Cochin?

Portuguese builders put up the palace for the king of Cochin, and it takes its Dutch name from the Dutch, who took over Mattancherry and renovated it.

Which Kerala district became India's first fully literate district in 1990?

Ernakulam got there through a total-literacy campaign in which the district administration, led by its collector, joined forces with volunteer groups.

Which Ezhava reformer consecrated a Shiva idol at Aruvippuram in 1888 and preached 'one caste, one religion, one god'?

Sree Narayana Guru's consecration broke the custom that only Brahmins could consecrate temple idols, and upper-caste Brahmins questioned his right to do it.

Which ruler of Kottayam in north Kerala fought the East India Company from the Wayanad forests until his death in 1805?

Pazhassi Raja's death at Mavila Thodu is disputed, and Sub-Collector Baber's report that he was killed is only the British version.

Which Palakkad rainforest, stronghold of the lion-tailed macaque, became a national park after protests stopped a dam?

Silent Valley's dam scheme was finally shelved in 1983, after Prime Minister Indira Gandhi stepped in.

Which Kerala rice-growing region, one of the few places on Earth farmed below sea level, is the state's 'rice bowl'?

Kuttanad's farmers grow rice on land reclaimed from the backwaters, and in 2013 the UN's FAO named this below-sea-level farming a world agricultural heritage system.

Which Kerala-born diplomat became India's first Dalit president in 1997 and the first sitting president to vote?

K. R. Narayanan also sent back the Gujral government's 1997 advice to impose President's rule in Uttar Pradesh, asking it to reconsider.

Which snake-boat race on Punnamada Lake began with an impromptu 1952 contest staged for a visiting dignitary?

Nehru Trophy honours Jawaharlal Nehru, who was so thrilled that he jumped into the winning Nadubhagam Chundan, then sent a silver snake-boat trophy from Delhi.

Which lake, India's longest, has Kochi's port islands at one end and Kumarakom on its shore?

Vembanad's Willingdon Island, home to Kochi's port, was built from mud dredged up while the lake was deepened for the modern port.

Which north Kerala ritual crowns its performer with a sacred headgear, the mudi, believed to mark a god entering him?

Theyyam performers dance themselves into a trance as they seek to become the gods they portray, and there are about 400 different theyyams.

Which Malayalam star won a National Film Award for Best Actor as B. R. Ambedkar in Jabbar Patel's English-Hindi biopic?

The Ambedkar role brought Mammootty the third of his National Film Awards for Best Actor, and it is rated among the finest performances of his career.

Which poet founded Kerala Kalamandalam, inaugurated in 1930, the academy that rescued the state's classical stage arts?

Vallathol's Kalamandalam went on to bring traditional arts such as Mohiniyattam back from near-extinction.

Which Ramu Kariat film was the first Malayalam feature to win the President's Gold Medal?

Chemmeen turns on a fishing-village myth that the sea goddess will take the husband of any fisherwoman who strays.

Which 16th-century poet, called the father of modern Malayalam, recomposed the Ramayana as the Adhyatma Ramayanam?

Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan's Adhyatma Ramayanam is still recited in Kerala homes through the whole Malayalam month of Karkkidakam.

Which Travancore maharaja issued the 1936 Temple Entry Proclamation opening the state's Hindu temples to all castes?

Chithira Thirunal's proclamation followed the Vaikom Satyagraha of 1924–25, when lower castes were barred even from walking on roads around temples.

Which Travancore king beat the Dutch at Colachel in 1741, then gave a captured Dutch officer command of his army?

Marthanda Varma's captive, Eustachius De Lannoy, went on to train the Travancore army on European lines.

Which Kerala district's arch dam, among Asia's tallest, spans a gorge between the Kuravan and Kurathi hills?

Idukki's arch dam was sited after Kolumban, an Adivasi chief, led an estate superintendent and his friend to the gorge on a 1922 hunting trip.

Which Wayanad rock shelter near Sultan Bathery holds petroglyphs dated to at least 6,000 BCE?

Despite the name, Edakkal Caves are not true caves but a rock shelter formed where a huge boulder wedged itself between two others.

Which Pathanamthitta village makes a GI-tagged mirror from a metal alloy rather than silvered glass?

Aranmula's mirror craft, in one telling, grew out of a crown of rare alloy that a king had made for the local temple's deity.

Which Pongala festival in Kerala's capital did Guinness record as the largest annual gathering of women?

Attukal's Pongala sees millions of women cook rice offerings for the goddess in earthen pots around the temple.

Which northernmost district of Kerala is nicknamed Sapta Bhasha Sangama Bhumi, the land of seven languages?

Kasaragod came into Kerala in 1956 as a taluk of South Canara, a district otherwise handed to Mysore State.

Which aircraft carrier, the first ever built in India, was constructed at Cochin Shipyard and commissioned in 2022?

INS Vikrant revives the name of India's first aircraft carrier, and on commissioning it was the largest warship ever built in India.