The document narrates the poignant love story of Kanthana and BP Moideen, who faced societal and familial opposition to their interfaith romance in 1950s Kerala. Despite being separated for decades due to strict family pressures, they maintained their bond through encoded letters until Moideen's tragic death in a canoe accident. Kanthana later dedicated her life to social service in his memory and presently oversees several charitable projects, all while grappling with her profound loss.

1. A Touchin' Love Story from
Kerala
As you Know
Kerala is God's own Country;
stories ought to be touching hence.

2. In the beginning it was just
friendship. He used to
lend me books, mainly
novels and poems. Once
he gave me a collection of
poems by a Malayalam
romantic poet, and I found
sentences expressing love
and romance were
underlined,”

3. Widow of a Bachelor
The heartbreaking story of a Hindu girl and a Muslim boy who fell in
love while crossing a mighty river, the war between their parents,
and a truce that came too late, as always.....

4. Kanchana the Golden Girl

5. Sixty nine-year-old Kanchana
Kottangal -the golden girl- has
ignored the river for 27 years

6. The Widow of a Bachelor
It hasn’t been easy.

7. Mukkom, Kanchana’s hometown in the north Kerala district
Kozhikode, is on the banks of the river Iruvanji. The wooden
canoes that ply across the Iruvanji river connect Mukkom with
the rest of the district,

8. Some even prospect the river for
gold. But these waters that flow
westward to the Arabian Sea
remind her of lost love.

9. Family and
Society may pose
as hurdles in love,
but for Kanchana,
it was the Iruvanji
River that decided
she and the man
she loved would
never live together
in this life.

10. About 55 years ago, Kanchana
and BP Moideen were among
the many teenagers from
Mukkom who travelled in a
canoe across the Iruvanji to
catch a bus that would take
them to school in Kozhikode, the
closest city.
She was the daughter of a Hindu
landlord, he the son of a

11. They were childhood friends, who studied in
the same school, grew up playing and
studying together. The two families went
back a long way. And as the two children
grew out of school and joined college, they
walked in love along the banks of inspiring

12. “In the beginning it was just friendship. He
used to lend me books, mainly novels and
poems. Once he gave me a collection of
poems by a Malayalam romantic poet, and I
found sentences expressing love and
romance were underlined”

13. He simply smiled when I asked about it.
But very soon I started getting poetic
love letters along with the books.

14. Kanchana had no cause to question
Moideen’s sincerity or how much he
cared about her, so it never crossed her
mind to turn him down either.

15. “It was about a year later that my mother
noticed a letter from Moideen while
cleaning my bookshelf. All problems
broke loose once both families came to
know about the affair,” she says.

16. Despite the long-standing friendship
between the two families, in the ultraconservative Kerala of the 1950s, there
was no question of the possibility of an
inter-faith marriage

17. The families broke all links with each
other. The life sentences of the two
lovers began soon after. Kanchana was
forced to discontinue her studies and,
she says, she was put under “house
arrest”

18. Moideen was thrown out of his home for
refusing to marry a girl his family chose.

19. Under pressure from community
leaders, his father cut him out of his will
and denied him a share in the family
property,
even tried to kill him.

20. “His father shot Moideen using a
country gun when he tried to forcibly
barge into the house.
But Moideen had a miraculous escape
even though he sustained multiple
serious injuries

21. On another occasion, his father stabbed
him 22 times for giving a critical speech
in public but Moideen survived again,’’
says Kanchana.

22. Remorseful after the second attack, his
father relented to giving him a share of
the family property, but never allowed
him to enter the parental home or meet
his mother.

23. “Moideen was a multi-faceted
personality. Apart from being a known
short story writer, he was a footballer,
swimmer, political activist and painter,”
says Kanchana.

24. But she never saw him do any of those
things.
Separated and chaperoned all the time,
it was impossible for the two to talk,
let alone meet without being found out.

25. Soon after their confinement, they
worked out a system of
communication. They wrote each other
letters in an encoded language, and
sent them through trusted servants
and farm hands.

26. “It was I who developed the
language in my free time at home
using the Malayalam alphabet

27. The vocabulary was created by
misspelling common words. With the
help of supportive servants at home and
on the estate, I sent him basic concepts
of the code language,” she says.

28. For 10 years, they hardly managed to
even get a glimpse of each other. “I saw
him once while travelling in the village
canoe. He spoke a few words to me.
(The first time in 10 years),’’

29. “It was a Herculean task to ensure that
a letter would safely reach the other’s
hands.

30. “Mine was a joint family with too many
members. Elders told me to avoid that
path as the infamy would affect the
marriage prospects
of my unmarried sister.

31. At one point, they decided to elope. But
concern for their families stopped them.

32. At one point, they decided to elope. But
concern for their families stopped them.

33. When his father died it became his
responsibility to look after the rest of
the family,’’ she says.

34. Eventually, her confinement lasted
exactly 25 years, till a time when it
became entirely unnecessary to keep
one apart from the other—when
Moideen died in the Iruvanji;
during the monsoon season of 1982,
she was 41 and he 44

35. On a rain-drenched evening, Kanchana,
like everyone else in Mukkom, heard
about the tragic canoe accident in which
the craft overturned in the river, and a
person who had saved several
passengers drowned.

36. It took three days to fish out the body
and identify it as the remains of
Moideen.

37. Kanchana didn’t get to see his body,
there was no one to accompany her to
his house, and the decomposed body
was buried in a hurry.

38. Following his death, she tried to commit
suicide six times. After the last attempt,
she was admitted to a local hospital,
where she again tried to end her life.

39. A fortnight after Moideen’s death,
Kanchana had an unexpected visitor

40. Moideen's Mother

41. She told Kanchana that if she didn’t wish
to marry anyone else then Kanchana
should live as her son’s widow.

42. Kanchana moved into Moideen’s house
with his mother

43. Before her death a few years later, his
mother willed all of Moideen’s properties
to Kanchana so she could continue
some of the social service projects

44. Just before his death, Moideen had set
up a village centre to help the destitute
women.

45. Kanchana now runs the institution and
its library, which contains many of
Moideen’s books

46. Kanchana runs a shelter for the
homeless , a family counselling centre
and a blood donors’ network.

47. She also runs a centre that provides
children swimming classes for free.

48. A state-level award for bravery was also
instituted in memory of Moideen.

49. “I am happy now because youngsters in
this region are able to swim across the
river even during heavy monsoon.

50. This is my biggest achievement and
tribute to Moideen.” But it isn’t easy to
flee from the reminders of the losses in
her life.

51. Kanchana’s office is in the village
bazaar, a stone’s throw away from the
mighty Iruvanji.

52. “In the last 27 years, neither have I used
a canoe nor gone to the spot from where
Moideen swam across the river to reach
the accident spot. I prefer to travel by
road,” says Kanchana.

53. This October, months after the monsoon
had receded, the Iruvanji still looked
ferocious. The operator of a canoe
gingerly manoeuvred his tiny craft with
four elderly villagers.

54. The four old gentlemen were on their
way back from the city after submitting a
memorandum to the district collector

55. They demanded that the
proposed bridge over the
Iruvanji be named BP
Moideen, Mukkom’s most
illustrious son.

56. So young girls, never fall into love;
it's sensual..emotional...and never
rational a decision.

57. THANK YOU
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