Origins
The name "Madhavan" is a popular one in the Malayalam community. It always causes some positive comment when we mention it or when we sign in at a hotel.
People are always interested in finding out about my background, and I always feel an extra welcome when they find that my origins are in these parts.
For those who don't know...
All four of my grandparents came from what is now Kerala state. At least one, my father's mother, came from further east, from a village close to Tamil Nadu. But another, my mother's father, came from a village quite close to Cochin. We thought the village was called Kattivelliparambu. But it has either been split or there were two villages all the time -- Kattiparambu and Kattivelli. The two are side by side on a road that was brightly decorated, below, for New Year celebrations when we visited.
Our family know very little of our grandparents‘ lives. So there was no house or
temple or church that we could have identified as having been lived in or used by my grandfather.
They all went to Fiji under a work-transport project called the Indenture System which was started in 1836, the year after slavery ended in the “British Empire“.
After their periods of indenture they stayed on in Fiji, married and had families.