Beef stories from Kerala

I HAD lived at Saharanpur for a year in 1960, where I was working for my master’s research at Company Bagh. Saharanpur has a large Muslim population. I was told that buffalo meat, popularly called “bada gosht”, was served at Muslim restaurants and came very cheap. One could get a thali containing two large roomali rotis and three buffalo meat dishes for Re 1 in those days. But no one had told me that beef was served in restaurants.

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Thirtythree years later, in 1994, I had an unexpected experience about beef at Trivandrum where I had gone on an assignment. It was my first visit to Kerala. After alighting from the aircraft, I sought the help of a tourism department guide at the airport to book a hotel. He said I could stay at Hotel Chaithram, a state tourism hotel located near the bus stand as well as the railway station. I went straight to the hotel and checked in. 

After settling down, I went to the restaurant. The menu card had listed items like beef chilly, beef fry and beef curry. I was surprised. It was, in fact, the first time that I had seen beef items on a menu card in an Indian restaurant. I thought since Trivandrum was getting visitors from all over the world and Chaithram was a government hotel, they were serving beef preparations.

I stayed at Trivandrum for four-five days and visited many places in the city.  I noted beef was being served in nearly all restaurants and also at food shacks on the Kovalam Beach.

I was told that everyone, including Hindus, ate beef in Kerala, particularly the southern part of the state.  I was shocked as Kerala Hindus appeared to me as devout, with bold white tilak on their foreheads, indicating that the  men and women prayed every day before setting out of their homes. Rituals were observed strictly there. One had to remove one’s shirt and wear a dhoti to enter the Padmanabhaswamy Temple. I could not enter the temple as I was not carrying a dhoti with me.   

My work took me to a few other places in south Kerala over many years. At other times in Trivandrum, I would stay in a hotel adjacent to the state Secretariat. Outside the building, two food vans used to sell beef chilly, priced at Rs 12 a plate. These vans were very popular with the secretariat employees, most of whom seemed to be Hindus, with tilak on their foreheads.

I have not visited Kerala in the past 10-12 years.  But I am told that beef is still served in the restaurants there, like before.