Prema Jayakumar a professional banker who lives in Ernakulam is a descendant of Kalpully Karunakara Menon who worked closely with Thomas Hervey Baber to finally track and annihilate the Pazhassi Rajah. She was introduced to me by Nicholas Balmer an Englishman who is grand nephew of Thomas Hervey Baber the sub-collector at Telicherry during these times. I caught up with this madam for few moments in her palatial estate in Ernakulam and also came to know her daughter-in-law is from our family connections. She is adept at translating many Malayalam works into English language.Kalpully Karunakara Menon hails from Ramanatukkara near Kozhikode.
Nicholas Balmer
On my tryst here I took a short trip on the Ernakulam Metro from Maharaja station to Cochin University. The Ernakulam metro system works on 750 volt DC like the Bangalore Metro but has only three coaches and the platform is half the size of any Bangalore Metro platform. It is efficient and clean and I was told must be having some 25 stations over a 40km length. The novel system here is they give paper tickets which is very easy to operate and handle. The metro makes a deafening noise like a house vacuum cleaner when it arrives into the platform and is not silent like the Bangalore Metro
