|
With Kerala enjoying a period of unparalleled economic prosperity, shopping has a major profile across the state. Gigantic hoardings tower over intersections, advertising the latst line in brocaded silk saries, sexily sequined tops, heavy gold jewellery and other expensive accoutrements for Malayali Weddings. In the cities, brightly lit a/c malls host international chain stores and brands. The old bazaars are packed with more traditional treasures, from the elegant bell-metal lamps you see at the entrance to most Kerala homes to the resplendently gilded, cotton-fringed nettippattom used to adorn festival elephants. As with most things in Kerala, prices are low by Western standards and affording this shopping bonanza will probably be less of a problem than getting all the stuff you buy home at the end of your trip.
Where to shop
The backstreets of Fort Cochin and Mattancherry, in the city of Kochi, are traditionally where most visitors to Kerala do their souvenir shopping. After Independent, departing Jewish and British families offloaded many of their heirlooms into antiques warehouses here, from where they were sold to visitors on cruise-liner stopovers or to wealthy Indians looking for ethnic art to decorate their penthouse apartments in uptown Mumbai. A couple of large emporia – notably Alberts Arts, Heritage Arts, Neroth John Chandy & Co and the Lawrence Art Gallery - in the area retain some genuine pieces from this era (including, in one instance, an entire snake boat), but for the most part, the approaches to the Pardesi Synagogue and ground floors of the Fort's old Dutch mansions have been taken over by Kashmiri vendors selling generic Indian handicrafts made in the distant north - at exorbitant prices. The same range of carpets, Himalayan curios, Hindu icons and mirror-inlaid Rajasthani wall-hangings crops up in the boutiques around the entrances to luxury resorts across the state, and along the beachfronts in Kovalam and Varkala. The stuff they stock is often eye-catching, but to buy any of it for a reasonable price you will have to allow for at least half an hour of hard bargaining.
Elsewhere, markets such as Chalai Bazaar and Connemara Market in Thiruvananthapuram and the main streets in central Kollam and Alappuzha, where local people do most of their shopping, offer more authentically Kerala items at more authentically Kerala prices. Often overlooked, another great source of souvenirs is the busy modern centre of Ernakulam, whose MG Road is lined with trendy fashion stores, silk emporia and malls, with merchandise at more or less fixed prices. In most sizeable towns, the Kerala government also operates a chain of handicraft and cottage industries, promoting local wood and metalwork.
Bargaining
You will be expected to haggle over the price of almost all goods, with the exception of food, household items and cigarettes. Bargaining is very much a matter of personal style, but should always be light hearted, never acrimonious. There are no hard and fast rules – it is really a question of how much something is worth to you. It is a good plan, however, to have an idea of how much you want, or ought, to pay. Green tourists are easily spotted, so try and look as if you know what you are up to, even on your first day, or put off purchases till later.
Do not take too much notice of initial prices. Some guidebooks suggest paying a third of the opening price, but it is a flexible guideline depending on the shop, the goods and the shopkeeper's impression of you. You may not be able to get the seller much below the first quote; on the other hand, you may end up paying as little as a tenth of it. If you bid too low, you may be hustled out of the shop for offering an insulting price, but this is all part of the game, and you'll no doubt be welcomed as an old friend if you return the next day.
Do not start haggling for something if you know you do not want it, and never let any figure pass your lips that you are not prepared to pay. It is like bidding at an auction. Having mentioned a price, you are obliged to pay it. If the seller asks you how much you would pay for something, and you don not want it, say so.
What to buy
Kerala is a paradise for souvenir shopping, as well as a great place to pick up clothes, jewellery and other items. Things not to bring home include ivory or anything else made from a rare or protected species, including snakeskin and turtle products. When it comes to antiques (more than 75 years old), if they really are genuine - and, frankly, that is unlikely - you will need a licence to export them, which is virtually impossible to get.
No household in Kerala is considered complete without its coconut oil lamp, or Nilavilakku. You will also see these distinctive brass coloured columns, which rise from cylindrical bases to wick saucers topped by spikes or bird-like figures, at kathakali recitals and in the foyers of most smart hotels. Other kinds hang from chains or shine from niches in the walls of temples. They are made from an alloy of copper and tin known as bell-metal (because it gives a sonorous chime when struck) - as against brass, which is a blend of copper and zinc.
The same mix of metal is used to make traditional Kerala cooking and puja utensils too, including shallow bowls called uruli and water carriers with spouts known in Malayalam as kindi. Inferior, brass-coated steel versions are sold in bazaars across the state, but for the real thing you should travel to the village of Nadavaramba, near Thrissur in central Kerala, where ail family of traditional artisans maintains one of the last remaining bell-metal workshops in the region.
Another dying craft is the manufacture of metal mirrors, or valkannadi - a Kerala speciality nowadays confined to the village of Aranmula, in the south of the state. To make them, an alloy of copper, silver, brass, white lead and bronze is cast in wax - the so-called "lost wax" technique - before being laboriously finished by hand. Few places, however, sell them: enthusiasts travel to Aranmula to buy them direct from the workshops.
These traditional alloys may be on the decline, but the popularity of gold has never been stronger in Kerala - largely due to the deluge of Gulf dollars pouring into the state, which poorer Malayali families tend to put into jewellery rather than a savings account. Gold emporia are often the largest and most glittering shops in Kerala cities.
In the resorts, silver tends to be more popular with visitors, though it varies in qualily. Run mostly by Kashmiri vendors, boutiques stock a bewildering array of earrings, necklaces, pendants and bracelets, often encrusted with semi-precious stones such as turquoise, amber, labradorite, carnelian and lapis lazuli. They are sold by weight, regardless of how much work has gone into them or how large the stones are, though expect to have to haggle hard over the final price.
Last, but by no means least, the ultimate metalwork souvenir from Kerala has to be a nettippattom - the gloriously golden caparisons draped over the foreheads of elephants during religious festivals. You will find them on sale at up-drawer bell-metal shops in bazaars around the state. They are made in the village of Thiruvankulam, between Ernakulam and Thrissur in central Kerala.
Woodwork and Stone Carving
Deep-red rosewood, inlaid with lighter-coloured teaks or shell to create geometric patterns, is used for carving elephants and heavy furniture, samples of which are to be found at most state-run emporia. Rosewood and teak are also used to make Kerala
jewellery caskets, or nettur petti, which traditionally contained a woman's dowry goods and are embellished with ornate brass joints, clasps and corner pieces. Metal trunks have largely superseded them, but Kerala cabinet-makers still turn out reproductions for the tourist market.
Sandalwood, sourced in managed forests deep in the Western Ghat mountains, is an exquisite, but increasingly rare material that Kerala carvers use to fashion figurines of Hindu deities - particularly the elephant-headed Ganesh (or Ganapati).
In the resorts you will also see numerous figures sculpted from soapstone. These will have come from the village of Mamallapuram, just south of Chennal in Tamil Nadu, renowned as India's stone-carving capital. Pieces range from larger-than-life-size icons or temples to pocket-size gods. Whatever their size, though, the figures are always precisely carved according to measurements meticulously set out in ancient canonical texts, which explains why little innovation has taken place over the centuries. The only recent developments in Mamallapuram's output in recent decades has been in the design of chillums (pipes), and small pendants, bought wholesale for export to the summer festival hippy market back in Europe.
Textiles and Clothing
Homespun, handloom-woven, hand-printed cloth is called khadi, and is sold allover Kerala in government shops called Khadi Gramodyog. Methods of dyeing and printing this and other textiles vary from the tie-dyeing (bandhim) of Rajasthan to block printing and screen printing of calico (from Kozhikode), cotton and silk.
Saris for everyday use are normally made of cotton, although silk is used more frequently in Kerala than in the rest of India. It takes years of practice to carry wearing one off properly, but they are usually a good buy, provided you are sure the textile is genuine. The classic Kerala sari - a kasavu - is made of light, raw, unbleached cotton with a border woven on handlooms from golden thread. Modern versions sometimes add colour to the edging, or layer cotton and gold thread over one another to create a shimmering effect. Also available in the same traditional fabrics are shorter, narrower mundu - Kerala sarongs, worn by both men and women to weddings, festivals, naming ceremonies and other important events.
On top of this, with tailoring so cheap in Kerala, you can choose the fabric you want and have it made into whatever you fancy. Kovalam and Varkala are packed with tiny hole-in-the-wall tailors holding shelves full of cheap cotton designed for the tourist market, though don't expect the garments to last all that long - the dye is particularly prone to leaching. Most tailors will also copy a piece of clothing you already have.
Carpets and Rugs
Kerala is less renowned for its carpets than the north, although the Tasara Creative Weaving Centre, near Kozhikode (Calicut) is a little-visited spot with a lively handloom and weaving industry. For everyday domestic use, rag rugs, made from recycled clothing, are good buys. Available just about everywhere, they cost little enough in Europe and North America, but in Kerala are fantastically cheap; many visitors buy large ones and post them home by surface mail.
Keralan Mural Paintings
Mural painting is a traditional Keralan art developed between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, and is still widely studied and practised. Rendered in rich, earthy reds, greens and yellows, mythological scenes - showing Vishnu reclining on the bed of serpents, or Krishna sporting with the gopi girls - are the most popular subject matter, and look superb when framed. Demand for large pieces to adorn the walls of temples and palaces having fallen off, mural artists these days turn out smaller works on paper for the tourist market. You can usually watch one or two at work in shops around Kovalam and Varkala. Prices vary according to the size and detail of the painting.
Books and Music
CDs and audio cassettes of Malayalam, Hindustani classical, Carnatic, Bhangra, filmi and Western music are available in most major towns and cities for a fraction of what you'd pay back home. Sargam and Music World, both in Ernakulam, are Kerala's best-stocked CDstores.
Books are also excellent buys, whether by Indian writers or authors from the rest of the English-speaking world. Once again, they are usually much cheaper than at home, if not always so well printed or bound.
Worth looking out for in tourist areas and bookshops around Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam are a series of DVDs showcasing traditional Keralan arts such as kudiyattam, kathakali, mohiniyattam and Ottamthullal. The series, published by Invls, captures some of the state's greatest performers in action.
Bamboo flutes are incredibly cheap, while other musical instruments such as tabla, sitar and sarod are sold in music shops in the larger cities. The quality is crucial; there's no point going home with a sitar that is virtually untuneable, even if it does look nice. A good place to start looking is Manuel Industries in Ernakulam. For traditional Keralan drums ask around the bazaar in Thripunitra, very neear to Ernakulam.
|
