Fast Forward Calicut: Halwa Bazar: Kozhikode Halwa is a famous delicacy among sweets. Calicut Halwa is very famous across the state. Towards the end of SM street is this cluster of shops that make up Halwa bazar. Accompanying halwa is banana chips. Chips are made in bakeries in the city and are available in plenty across shops.
- 1658 – The crown at Kochi became vacant again, and five princes from Tanur (Vettathunad) were adopted and were given the right to succeed. The mootha thavazhi (elder branch), ignored, appealed to the Samoothiri for help against the adoptees and the Portuguese. Samoothiri decided to help the mootha thavazhi. Aditya Varma, the Raja of Vadakkumkur, the Raja of Edappally and the chief of Palium rallied around the Samoothiri in support of the mootha thavazhi. The Raja of Poracaud supported the ruling Tanur adoptees. On the advice of the Palium chief, Veera Kerala Varma, the dispossessed prince of mootha thavazhi set sail to Colombo and sought help from the Dutch governor.
- 1661 – The Dutch now found a huge chance of getting a major say in the politics of Kerala and led the allies of the dispossessed prince, with the armies of Samoothiri, against the Portuguese and the ruling Kochi king (Tanur adopties). Samoothiri, finding new powerful allies, also had shifted his support to the Dutch from the Portuguese. The war resulted in the disastrous failure of the Portuguese and Kochi rulers. Their possession in Kerala fell into the hands of the Dutch. Three of the Tanur princes died in the war. But the ruling king escaped to Ernakulam where he was given refuge by the Raja of Poracaud. Over the fortress of Cochin, Pallippuram, Cannanore and Quilon, the flag of the Portuguese had given place to the flag of Holland. The mootha thavazhi prince now became Kochi Raja.
- 1683 – Mamankam festival. Account of Chaver attack at Mamankam of this year given by Logan – “Amid much din and firing of guns the Morituri, the Chaver Nayars, the elect of four Nayar houses in Waluvanad, step forth from the crowd and receive the last blessings and farewells of their friends and relatives. They have just partaken of the last meal they are to eat on earth at the house of the temple representative of their chieftain; they are decked with garlands and smeared with ashes. On this particular occasion it is one of the houses of Putumanna Panikkar who heads the fray. He is joined by seventeen of his friends – Nayar or Mappila or other arms-bearinng caste-men – for all who so wish may fall in with sword and target in support of the men who have elected to die.
- Armed with swords and targets alone they rush at the spearmen thronging the palisades; they wind and turn their bodies, as if they had no bones, casting them forward and backward, high and low, even to the astonishment of the beholders, as worthy Master Johnson describes them in a passage already quoted. But notwithstanding the suppleness of their limbs, notwithstanding their delight and skill and dexterity in weapons, the result is inevitable, and is prosaically recorded in the chronicle thus: The number of Chavers who came and died in the early morning the next day after the elephant began to be adorned with gold trappings – being Putumanna Kantur Menon and followers – was 18.
- At various times during the ten last days of the festival the same thing is repeated. Whenever the Zamorin takes his stand on the terrace, assumes the sword and shakes it, men rush forth from the crowd on the west temple gate only to be impaled on the spears of the guardsmen who relieve each other from day to day.”
