Kayamkulam Kochunni: The Robin Hood of Kerala worshipped in a temple

Each evening, a boy from a poor Muslim family climbed a tree at the edge of a kalari in Travancore and watched. Below him, a travelling master known only as the Thangal was teaching martial arts to other people’s sons. The Thangal had refused to take the boy on, reasoning that a thief’s son would only misuse the skill. The boy picked it up anyway, move by move, until his talent could no longer be hidden and the master relented. His name was Kochunni, and Kerala would come to call him its Robin Hood.

A Grocer’s Boy From Kayamkulam

Kochunni was born around 1818 near Kottukulangara, in Karthikappally taluk, and spent his early years in Evoor. After his father died, the family slid into poverty, and a local Brahmin found the boy work in a grocery shop. Folklore, chiefly Kottarathil Sankunni’s 'Aithihyamala', says he stayed for about a decade and earned a name for reliability, once steering a laden cargo boat home from the Alappuzha market through a storm.

The tale of his turn to crime begins on the Kayamkulam backwaters. When his employer fell overboard, Kochunni pulled him out and glimpsed gold on the lake bed. He reported it to wealthy landlords, who promised him a reward to bring it up. Once he had, their men beat him and accused him of theft. In the harshest telling, his hand was plunged into boiling oil, and he was hung upside down for four days.

Why Did The Poor Protect Him

Kochunni’s gang went after landlords and moneylenders, the men he blamed for his humiliation, and the stories say he passed their wealth to families in need. His closest ally was Ithikkara Pakki, a fisherman’s son from near Kollam, so quick and slippery in the water that people nicknamed him “the bird”. Kochunni himself was famous for disguise, moving through towns as a pilgrim or a labourer to study the households he meant to rob.

His legend has a darker edge, though. Betrayed by a woman close to him, he escaped and killed her along with her assistant. He later killed a confidant and a policeman during another failed attempt to trap him.

How Did Travancore Finally Catch Him

Officials eventually lured him to Vazhappally, where his food was drugged. He was arrested, then leapt into the Kayamkulam backwaters while being taken away and vanished into the hills of Pathanamthitta and Punalur. The state’s own records credit the warrior Arattupuzha Velayudha Panicker, sent by Diwan T. Madhava Rao, with finally bringing him in.

Travancore’s archives confirm that a man of his description was convicted of dacoity and died in custody around 1859, aged about 41. He was buried at the Pettah Juma Masjid in Thiruvananthapuram. A competing tradition insists he escaped, worked for decades as a farmhand for the Thoppil family, and died of tuberculosis at 77.

Whichever ending is true, his devotees settled the question their own way. At the Edappara Maladevar Nada temple near Kozhencherry, a priest performs puja daily at Kochunni’s shrine, and worshippers leave betel leaves, tobacco and country liquor for the outlaw who once watched from a tree.

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