Tipu Sultan, the appetizer before the beef Wellington

Take the Tippu Sultan road and jog inland a little bit when parallel to Tirur after Paravanna and you get to Niramaruthur. Tipu has quite a vampirish reputation here in Kerala.

WHAT IS THE CONNECTION?

There is an improbable connection her. Tipu Sultan was defeated in his last battle by none other than Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington at Srirangapatnam. The practice against Tipu must have come in useful in the milder climes of Waterloo 16 years later.

The Sultan was named after a saint Tipu Mastan Aulia and is rumored to be descended from the Arab Quraysh clan, the tribe of Mohammed himself. This seems to me to be an outright attempt to bask in reflected glory and reputation for Tipu was no saint nor prophet. Focusing just on his exploits or outrages in Kerala, opinion is divided as to whether he was a benevolent king or a religious fundamentalist tyrant. The neutral observers such as William Logan definitely assert that cruel military operations and Islamic atrocities of Tipu Sultan in Malabar were legion - forcible mass circumcision and conversion, large-scale killings, looting and destruction of hundreds of Hindu temples, and other barbarities. Nevertheless, he did build this road during the latter half of the 18th century and it has recently been rebuilt and once finished could rival the road to Hana as a tourist destination.