Teekoy is a southern
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
n village, situated in the eastern part of
Kottayam district
Kottayam (), is one of 14 districts in the Indian state of Kerala. Kottayam district comprises six municipal towns: Kottayam, Changanassery, Pala, Erattupetta, Ettumanoor, and Vaikom. It is the only district in Kerala that neither borders the A ...
in
Kerala
Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...
state.
Teekoy is located 18
km east of the town
Pala Pala may refer to:
Places
Chad
*Pala, Chad, the capital of the region of Mayo-Kebbi Ouest
Estonia
* Pala, Kose Parish, village in Kose Parish, Harju County
* Pala, Kuusalu Parish, village in Kuusalu Parish, Harju County
*Pala, Järva County, vi ...
, and is 44 km north-east of the district capital
Kottayam
Kottayam () is a municipal town in the Indian state of Kerala. Flanked by the Western Ghats on the east and the Vembanad Lake and paddy fields of Kuttanad on the west. It is the district headquarters of Kottayam district, located in south- ...
. It is between the towns of
Vagamon
Vagamon ( ml, വാഗമൺ) is an Indian hill station and a revenue village primarily located in Peerumedu taluk of Idukki district (majority area including Vagamon town), and also Meenachil taluk and Kanjirappally taluk of Kottayam ...
,
Poonjar
Poonjar is a small Indian town located on the eastern side of Kottayam district in Kerala state, India. Before the independence of India, Poonjar had been the part of Travancore princely state.Erattupetta, Teekoy, bharananganam, and vagamon are ...
, Erattupetta, and
Thalanadu. The village is situated about 165 km north of state capital
Thiruvananthapuram
Thiruvananthapuram (; ), also known by its former name Trivandrum (), is the capital of the Indian state of Kerala. It is the most populous city in Kerala with a population of 957,730 as of 2011. The encompassing urban agglomeration populati ...
.
Geography
Teekoy has features of both midland countryside and the
Malanad
Malnad (; Malēnādu) is a region in the state of Karnataka in India. Malenadu covers the western and eastern slopes of the Western Ghats or Sahyadri mountain range, and is roughly 100 kilometers in width.
Malnadis a region of Karnataka ...
hill area. Teekoy as a village is medium-sized but as a
panchayat
The Panchayat raj is a political system, originating from the Indian subcontinent, found mainly in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. It is the oldest system of local government in the Indian subcontinent, and historical men ...
is quite long. It covers many areas such as Aniyilappu, Mavadi, Vellikulam, Thalanad and Adukkom, stretching about 20 kilometres and reaching up to
Vagamon
Vagamon ( ml, വാഗമൺ) is an Indian hill station and a revenue village primarily located in Peerumedu taluk of Idukki district (majority area including Vagamon town), and also Meenachil taluk and Kanjirappally taluk of Kottayam ...
, at about three thousand feet above sea level. The place is known for its agriculture and landscape. It is full of hills and valleys in the middle of which flows the
Meenachil
Meenachil is the north-eastern region of Kottayam district in Kerala, south India. The name originates from Meenakshi, the Hindu Goddess. Pala is the main city in Meenachil. The arterial river of the district is also named Meenachil.
Geogra ...
river.
People
Large-scale settlement in Teekoy began more than 100 years ago. It resembles a tropical rainforest, and trees like
teak
Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters ( pan ...
and
jackfruit
The jackfruit (''Artocarpus heterophyllus''), also known as jack tree, is a species of tree in the fig, mulberry, and breadfruit family ( Moraceae). Its origin is in the region between the Western Ghats of southern India, all of Bangladesh, ...
are found in the
Western Ghats region growing alongside
coconut,
rubber
Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, an ...
,
arecanut, and other crops. The first large-scale rubber plantation in India was established in Teekoy. Most of the people are farmers and they cultivate rubber,
elachi,
ginger,
cardamom
Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genera ''Elettaria'' and ''Amomum'' in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. They are r ...
,
clove,
nutmeg
Nutmeg is the seed or ground spice of several species of the genus ''Myristica''. ''Myristica fragrans'' (fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg) is a dark-leaved evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fruit: nutmeg, from its seed, an ...
,
turmeric
Turmeric () is a flowering plant, ''Curcuma longa'' (), of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae, the rhizomes of which are used in cooking. The plant is a perennial, rhizomatous, herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast ...
,
pepper
Pepper or peppers may refer to:
Food and spice
* Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plant
** Black pepper
* ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae
** Bell pepper
** Chili ...
,
cashew and other spices. A considerable variety of
medicinal plants also grow in Teekoy which have been used in making the traditional home remedies.
A sizable proportion of the population is
Syrian Christians (
Syro-Malabar Catholic), but there is also a large minority of
Muslims and
Hindu
Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
s. There is a small colony of converted
Dalit
Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming ...
Christians among the community as well. There are also some third- and fourth-generation
Tamil people
The Tamil people, also known as Tamilar ( ta, தமிழர், Tamiḻar, translit-std=ISO, in the singular or ta, தமிழர்கள், Tamiḻarkaḷ, translit-std=ISO, label=none, in the plural), or simply Tamils (), are a Drav ...
, descendants of workers who came to work in the rubber plantations in Teekoy many decades ago. Before Independence in 1947, Teekoy had some
English people
The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language, a West Germanic language, and share a common history and culture. The English identity is of Anglo-Saxon origin, when they were known in ...
who had set up rubber plantation in the area. As a legacy of the colonial era, a cantilever bridge still connects the two banks of the Meenachil river two kilometres above Teekoy town.
Culture
Teekoy is a rural but modern village with predominantly hilly topography. It has a dominant village culture, with celebrating the annual festivals, feasts in
church
Church may refer to:
Religion
* Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities
* Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination
* Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship
* C ...
etc. Indian National Congress and Kerala Congress (M) are the main parties. Adv. Justine Jacob (Kerala Congress (M)) was the youngest President of Teekoy at his age of twenty-seven.
People at Teekoy are educated and self-employed or employed either in government, private or abroad. Educational institutions include St. Mary's High School, now more than six decades old.
Places of worship
* St Mary's Forane Church, Teekoy - under the
Syro-Malabar Diocese of Pala
* Teekoy Jama Masjid Mosque
* Sree Narayana Guru Mandhiram
* Sree Karuvela Muthu Swami Kovil
* St Thomas Syro-Malabar Church Mangalagiri
* St Joseph church
Climate
Teekoy's
climate
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorologi ...
has a heavy
rain season
The wet season (sometimes called the Rainy season) is the time of year when most of a region's average annual rainfall occurs. It is the time of year where the majority of a country's or region's annual precipitation occurs. Generally, the sea ...
and mild summer. Summer rains are not infrequent. With hills in the backdrop, it never gets very hot, and the climate tends towards windy and cool.
References
External links
{{Northern Travancore
Articles containing potentially dated statements from 2001
All articles containing potentially dated statements
Cities and towns in Kottayam district
Tourist attractions in Kottayam district
Villages in Kottayam district