Author: nikoadmin

 

Christmas the festival of universal love is celebrated with full of happiness and joy in Kerala. Kerala’s beautiful churches, cathedrals and homes were tastefully decked up with cribs and stars twinkling on Christmas trees. Carol groups have been busy visiting houses singing traditional Christmas songs with Santa Claus. Trays loaded with homemade plum cakes and sweets were send to friends and relatives. Get into the spirit of Christmas everyone attend the midnight, morning or evening mass with friends and relatives.After the midnight mass it is a tradition that the families then cut the plum cake and drink home-made wine. Well what better way to make merry than with traditional Christmas delicacies prepared at home like Appam, Stew, Vattayappam, Achappam, Pidikozhi, Diamond biscuits and much more. Also being the month of sharing, people visit old age homes and orphanages to give the inmates a joyous and memorable time. This is the time for shopping festival, Muziris Biennale, Cochin Carnival, Indira Gandhi boat-race etc., which will further make Christmas celebration more colorful and enjoyable. Kerala will serve you during Christmas with the best weather and celebration. Kerala and the spirit of the lovely place during Christmas is exhilarating.

I like to call the people of Kerala like this ♡

This video is a curtain-raiser of a new TV channel that will start from today. I would want to introduce the everyday life and people of Kerala well.

Kerala is my second home and my daily life in Kerala is really nice. People are bright and warm ☺
Even in the times of floods, we had seen that everyone was compassionate and positive. I am touched by their spirit.

Even though this TV commercial is done well, you can very well watch the ordinary Kerala in here.

Author: Mami san, Niko Hotels, Kochi

Let me introduce “The Plum Mix Ceremony”, one of the seasonal fancy ceremonies in Kerala.

It is said that Simon, on e of the twelve Apostles of Jesus, arrived in 54 AD Kerala and he propagated Christianity. There is a good number of Christians in Kerala, which is around 20% of the population in Kerala.

I do not know for what reason but somehow I have a habit of making plum cakes for presents at Christmas. Recently in the middle of December, this has also become a business attraction, where plum cakes are arranged in various packages in hotels, restaurants and bakeries. You can see well packed and designed plum cakes around the town. It is now customary that we exchange seasonal greetings and go to relatives and business partners presenting them with plum cakes.

And around October two months ago, a ceremony is held to soak plum into plum cake. This year, I was invited to this ceremony of CGHEarth, the largest hotel group in Kerala. I was happy that the guests also invited me to join the plum mixing where they pour liquor on plum.

The venue was recuperated by the smell of wine and rum and was wrapped in people’s laughter and fun aura.

Now, in the next 2 months, it is the season, where plums will be used as a soft-drink and will appear as plum cakes by December. I’m looking forward to seeing it again this time.

The Nehru Trophy Boat Race is conducted on the Punnamada lake in Alappuzha, in the Indian state of Kerala. This event is conducted on the second Saturday of August every year. The Punnamada is part of the Kerala backwaters. For the people of Kerala, the Boat Race is an event for celebration, marking the beginning of the monsoon season. Unfortunately, this year (in August 2018), Kerala witnessed a once in 100 years of flood and natural calamities caused by torrential rains. The Boat Race event was hence conducted 3 months behind schedule, on the 10th of November, 2018.

IT is such a fantastic sight to see many long and thin boats lined up for the action. Each boat has as many as 100 oarsmen to compete enthusiastically to come out victorious. In recent years, women’s groups are also participating. It really makes us all happy to see women advance to such levels, when this sport was once regarded as an men-only sports.

 

In August, 2018, the location where the race is conducted, was damaged by the flood waters. After the water levels had receded, the deposits were lying around causing bad smell. The general water transport was also avoided for a while, but Kerala has recovered from that flood by now.

People’s kind and compassionate mind, the speed at which things were done, the vitality etc., is the reason for the quick recovery of Kerala, back to normalcy.

Climate wise, Kerala state enters the pleasant season since October. Looking at the vitality and power of the boat race tells us that the the tourism industry that was a bit sluggish earlier, will now tide over the difficult times and come up stronger.