The story of these timeless lovers happened in Northern Kerala along the banks of the River Iruvanji. Moideen and Kanchanamala are an eternal couple that fell in love with each other against all the odds during college.
Sixty nine-year-old Kanchana Kottangal has ignored the river for 27 years. It hasn't been easy. Mukkom, Kanchana's hometown in the north Kerala district of Kozhikode, thrives on the banks of the river Iruvanji. The wooden canoes that ply the Iruvanji connect Mukkom with the rest of the district, some even prospect the river for gold.
But these waters that flow westward to the Arabian Sea remind her of lost love. Society and family are not uncommon villains, but for Kanchana, it was the Iruvanji River that ensured she and the man she loved would never have a happy ending.
About sixty 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 prominent Muslim planter. 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 uniforms and joined college, they fell in love against the backdrop of the conspiring Iruvanji.
In the beginning it was just a friendship. Moideen used to lend Kanchana books , mainly novels and poems. There was an instance in which he gave her a collection of poems written by a Malayalam romantic poet. She found sentences expressing love and romance were underlined. When she asked her about those, he simply smiled. Soon she started getting poetic love letters with those along with the lended books. 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.
A year later, her mother found those letters while cleaning bookshelf. All hell broke loose once both families came to know about the affair . Despite the long-standing friendship between the two families, in the ultra-conservative Kerala of the 1950s, there was no question of the possibility of an inter-faith marriage. The families broke all links with each other. The life sentences of the two lovers began soon after. Kanchanamala was forced to discontinue her education and was kept at house arrest. Separated and traumatized, the lovers were never allowed to talk, let alone meet without being found out.
Moideen was thrown out of his home for refusing to marry a girl his family chose. 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. 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. On another occasion, his father stabbed him 22 times for giving a critical speech in public but Moideen survived again. 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.
Separated and chaperoned all the time, it was impossible for the two to talk, let alone meet without being found out. 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.
It was she who developed the language in her free time at home using the Malayalam alphabet. The vocabulary was created by misspelling common words. With the help of supportive servants at home and on the estate, She sent him basic concepts of the code language . It was a Herculean task to ensure that a letter would safely reach the other's hands. For 10 years, they hardly managed to even get a glimpse of each other. She saw him once while travelling in the village canoe. He spoke a few words to her. (The first time in 10 years)
At one point, they decided to elope. But concern for their families stopped them. Her was a joint family with too many members. Elders told her to avoid that path as the infamy would affect the marriage prospects of her unmarried sister. In his case, his father died and it became his responsibility to look after the rest of the family.
They survived this painful separation for about ten years when they finally decided to elope and get married.
But due to restrictions at home, Kanchanamala agreed to wait and convince her family to get her married to Moideen. Her confinement lasted for 25 years till they couldn't stay away from each other.
One day in an autumn season, a canoe full of passengers was coming to Mukkam through the Iravanjipuzha river. Moideen was the one among them. Due to heavy rain and wind, the canoe overturned. The passengers fell into the ferocious water.
Many were drowning in the river. Being a good swimmer, Moideen saved the lives of many passengers. But…the river which witnessed the love of Moideen and Kanchanamala took had cruel intentions. Moideen drowned when he was attempting to save a drowning person. Kanchana was romantically watching the rain showers of autumn through the windows, at the same time Moideen struggling to breathe while drowning in the river. The accident took the life of Moideen. At that time he was forty four and Kanchanamala was forty one years old.
One 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 in the whirls of the river. It took three days to fish out the body and identify it as the remains of Moideen.
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. 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. A fortnight after Moideen's death, Kanchana had an unexpected visitor: Moideen's mother. She told Kanchana that if she didn't wish to marry anyone else then Kanchana should live as her son's widow. Kanchana moved into Moideen's house with his mother.
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 work Moideen had begun.
Just before his death, Moideen had set up a village centre to empower destitute women. Kanchana now runs the institution and its library, which contains many of Moideen's books. Under the banner of BP Moideen Seva Mandir, the charitable organisation named after him, Kanchana also runs a homeless shelter, a family counselling centre and a blood donors' network. She also runs a centre that provides children swimming classes for free. A state-level award for bravery was also instituted in memory of Moideen.
Kanchanamala, now 80, still living in Mukkam as the widow of Moideen. She continues the social services started by Moideen in the village. She runs a charitable trust named BP Moideen Seva Mandir. She also runs a center which teaches swimming to children for free.
In the memory of her undying love the movie "ENNU ninte Moideen" has been made.
End