Payyanur and its oldest Vegetarian Restaurant
Payyanur Pavithra Mothiram This week we visited Payyanur in Cannanore district that is famous as a cultural centre. An unfulfilled promise is a burden to the common folk especially when it is to the deity that a family worships. So, it took me and my wife Sindhu close to fifteen long years to keep a date with one such offering and to take the burden out of our minds. While I have definite views of my own regarding the concept of God and spirituality, I am not averse to following some rituals that were mostly followed by my parents in good faith for the welfare of all, including all life forms of this Universe. Sindhu, my wife traces her family origins to the Colastry (Kolathiri) dynasty – as the Europeans called it- of North Kerala. The Kolathiri Rajas, whose antecedences are to the Mooshikavamsa were very powerful after the imperial Kulasekharas of Mahodayapuram were weakened by the 12 th century CE. In 1498, the Rajah of Kolathunadu had hosted Vasco de Gama aft