Talk:Aluva

message: I’m always going on about Delhi on my blog - justifiable, it is the nation’s capital and it is where I primarily live, work and play. But for a change today, I’m going to dedicate a whole post to my hometown - little old Aluva (or Alwaye), tucked away in the heart of Kerala. 
I’m a city girl. I’d far rather honeymoon in New York than the Bahamas. Nothing thrills me like a walk through a bustling shopping district and a stopover at a busy café. I don’t much care for scenic mountain roads or monsoon-wet forests. But as I sit here in my library (far, far from Delhi) looking out the window at the rain pasting down the narrow roads of my hometown, I am deliriously content. I love Alwaye because it is the perfect midway between sleepy town and modern city. Geographically, it’s only half an hour’s drive from Kochi, arguably the most modern city in Kerala. This proximity has a huge effect on Alwaye: while its development is always retarded by the prospect of just having to hop over to Kochi for anything you need, its population is also subtly altered by the rapid modernization of the city next door. 
A lot of people consider Alwaye a retirement town, and some others, an academic centre. It’s also associated with a nearby governmental fertilizer company that has defined it as an industrial hub for very long. But moving through the half-crowded roads in the town centre, you can be led to believe the retirement myth is more correct. I don’t know if it’s because my parents also retired here and all their friends are senior citizens, but most of the people I know here are old-world professionals and academics. Young people are scarce and itinerant, the NRI or studious scions of retired families, like me. But I really like the few young people who live here - there are plenty of grand old colleges and schools here and some students commute daily to Kochi as well. So young Aluvaites have a polite sophistication and exposure unseen in other parts of the state, thanks to the Kochi-effect. Even the most financially middling are not oblivious to the glamour of M.G. Road. While this is a very blonde thing to say, it can’t be argued with - non-resident mallu young un’s like me are most wary of the lascivious gaze of Malayalee men once we return for our holidays in our jeans and sleeveless kurtas. But in Alwaye, you might be left feeling distinctly unnoticeable. Nobody really cares; they’ve seen it all.
Of course the best feature of Alwaye, hands down, is the Periyar river on whose bank the town is built. A regular tour feature for all my friends who stopover here is a walk down to the ancient Siva Temple at what is called the Manappuram - a low sandy plain on the river bank that hosts a rather grand annul Sivratri fair. The temple is an all-metal, open affair that is famous for getting submerged in the flooding river during monsoons. The plain about it is a pleasant, open grassy space where lovey-dovey couples, devotees, washerwomen, cows, loafers and stupid tourists like me mill about the wide steps that lead into the river. You can get wet, talk and eavesdrop on conversations upstream that get carried down by the wind… or just laugh at the effect of a visual-aural gap between what you see on the opposite shore and when you hear it happen. And the Siva Temple isn’t the only temple in Alwaye, FYI, so there is quite an elephantine/bell-clanging atmosphere to the town.
Oh yes, and last but not the least, I have to mention the liquor aspect. The next northward town after Alwaye is Angamali, notorious for sporting the world’s highest per capita intake of alcohol, I kid you not. And the AA atmosphere isn’t confined to Aluva but spreads like a cancer all through the Angamali-Kochi area. Hit the road post 6pm and you’ll know what I’m talking about - pedestrians are almost uniformly male and unable to walk in a straight line. If this was Delhi the sexual harassment would be, as a consequence, at an all-time high, but thankfully the happy drunks are non-interfering. They just have a lot of money in hand after a hard day’s work and like to hit the local Beverage Corporation with their buddies. You’d be amazed at how nonchalant they are about it in these parts - the shaky old man who came to pull down our coconuts the other day claims he drinks ‘only’ a quarter everyday, what’s so wrong with that? His hands were shivering with withdrawal.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 210.18.91.51 (talk) 14:56, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  A very interesting blog that I read on Alwaye  

message: QUOTE:  home to the summer residency of the Travancore royal family - the Alwaye Palace -[2] END of QUOTE
How can this be true, when Alwaye is north of Cochin. Travanocore Kingdom was south of Cochin. 
Second: QUOTE:  Sree Narayana Guru, one of India's greatest social reformers END of QUOTE
Sree Narayana Guru was a great social reformer of Travancore kingdom. How can he be mentioned as a social reformer of 'India', which was a nation formed in 1947? As it is Travanocore Kingdom did not bother to join India, and had to be threatened to join it.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.214.31.19 (talk) 11:36, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slight exaggerations?  

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thread_title:  External links modified