Fort Kochi Mattanchery Trip – Part II – The Police Museum
Read the first part Here.

Continuing from our Mattanchery trip, we visited the Police Museum where they had displayed some really interesting stuff.

We entered through the left side where they had displayed mannequins with various police uniforms starting from the Travancore Kings’ era until now. I was surprised to see the drastic change. Women police, at one point of time had skirts. Also, they had displayed the different types of caps used.
The exhibits placed at the central building had some really amazing artifacts, few of which I have given below:

1. Coins

 

 
 
2. Palm leaf manuscript – They also had placed the Ezhuthani or the stylus, that was used to write on these palm leaves. Beautiful as it may seem, I cannot imagine writing without ink and having to etch the words into leaves.

 
3. Ash Pot – Initially, I thought this was used as a cigarette ash tray. But when I got home, Amma told me that in earlier days, they used to hang this in the illam. Since brush and toothpaste didn’t exist in those days, they kept tooth powder in these pots. Also, these were indeed used as Ash pots. But, to keep the holy ash (Vibhuti/Bhasmam). The pots were hung on the threshold so that, after bath or while leaving the house, people applied the ash on their foreheads or body.
About the book below the ash pot, I vaguely remember that it has the testaments written in Hebrew. I am not sure of it though.

 
4. Miscellaneous Artifacts 

 
 

 

 
 

 

They had also displayed different types of swords and the pistols used in those days.
Though I am not so fond of history and though I haven’t still got the link of events, all those places and the stories they told intrigued me. If I had a chance, I would live a day in that era and return, just to know what they did without all the technology, what were the traditions then and the reasons for the same.
If you visit Kochi, make sure to go to Fort Kochi. It is indeed a chest of stories. 🙂