82 chapter
of Christianity. Th ese neighborhoods today maintain a relation to the Arabian
Sea as well as to the city of Trivandrum: Beemapalli with its marketplace of
imported goods fl own over from the Persian Gulf and the Christian com-
munities with their reliance on fi shing, which provides the city with its much-
loved fried fi sh and fi sh curry.
A number of churches and other Christian institutions are located in
the neighborhood of Vettucaud and nearby Veli, the most famous being the
Catholic Madre de Deus Church. Popularly known simply as “Vettucaud
church,” this place of worship serves as a refuge where the ill and affl icted
seek relief from their problems. As a Catholic church, Vettucaud developed
out of a second wave of Christianity that came to Kerala along with European
colonialism. Christianity fi rst reached the area in the fi rst century, and these
original Christians and their descendants are known as “Syrian Christians”
as their faith developed through contact with the Persian church and Syrian
immigrants who introduced a Syriac liturgy to the Kerala church. A second
wave of Christianity arrived in the sixteenth century with the Portuguese who
used coercion and violence to try to convert Syrian Christians to Catholicism.
Kerala Christians today adhere to either the Syrian Christian or Catholic faith,
and Pentecostalism is growing in popularity in the state.
Dr. V. George Mathew, a University of Kerala psychology professor who
comes from a Malayali Christian family and was raised in Trivandrum, recalled
for me what he knew of the history of Vettucaud church. He explained that
churches in the Vettucaud area were fi rst established by the Portuguese about
200 years ago, and for many years, exorcisms were performed at Vettucaud
church, although the Portuguese tried unsuccessfully to stop this practice,
which they saw as heretical. Although Dr. George Mathew recalls seeing pos-
sessed people at Vettucaud when he was much younger, around 40 to 50 years
ago, cases of spirit possession have become increasingly rare at Vettucaud in
the last few decades. Today, a number of people with chronic illness problems
visit the church or reside in a shed on the church grounds and seek relief from
their troubles mainly through prayer or by undergoing counseling with the
priest of the church or a nun in the nearby Mystical Rose Convent.
In addition to whatever benefi ts they may obtain from prayer, people with
mental affl ictions at Vettucaud, just like those at Beemapalli and Chottanikkara,
fi nd some relief or appear better able to live with their problems in the aes-
thetically engaging environment of the church. Like Beemapalli, Vettucaud
church provides a refuge of calm and even a stretch of open space in an other-
wise busy and crowded city. As a testament to the spatial and visual environ-
ment of places like Beemapalli and Vettucaudpalli, my assistants and I looked
forward to visiting the religious healing sites. We found them an enjoyable,