Come mid-July, the skies in Kerala turn grey, the temperature drops and the rain falls without respite. It is the start of Karkkadakam, the last month of the Malayalam calendar. With farming coming to a halt and people forced indoors, the time is traditionally used to rejuvenate the body and mind.
Many traditional customs are associated with this period, like reading the Ramayana daily and following a strict diet. But the one ritual that Asha Devi Varma, a former agriculture officer and a member of the Poonjar Royal family recalls with much nostalgia is the Karkkadaka kuli or the ceremonial bath. “It was a big affair in the olden days,” says Asha, discussing how women soaked themselves in herbal oils and scrubbed it off with a homemade paste of wild turmeric at the pond at her maternal grandmother’s home in Tiruvalla.
Asha has been making and retailing these traditional oils and scrubs for the past six years from her home in Tripunithura, lest the recipes and customs be lost forever. “Our grandmothers bore many children and aged healthy, because of the pampering they gave their bodies during this month. It rejuvenates the bones, skin, and hair,” she says, explaining why she has introduced a Karkkadakam Bathing Hamper (₹600) in contemporary packaging this year, which includes hair and body oils, shampoo and scrub.
