Kerala's traditional crafts are not tourist products. They are, or were, industries employing hundreds of thousands of people, and several of them shaped the state's economy and politics. COIR — THE BIGGEST കയർ coir, the fibre from the husk of the coconut. Husks are soaked — traditionally in backwater mud for months, a process called retting — which rots away the soft tissue and leaves the fibre. Then beaten, cleaned, spun and woven. ചകിരി the fibre · ചകിരിച്ചോറ് the leftover pith, now itself a product sold as a growing medium കയർ പിരിക്കുക to spin coir · തഴപ്പായ and കയർ പായ mats The centre is Alappuzha and the backwater belt, a major industrial port for a century. Walk through parts of the town and you walk through the remains of an export industry — warehouses, factory buildings, the canals that carried the goods. And it matters politically: coir was the site of some of Kerala's earliest and most significant labour organisation, among communities at the bottom of the caste order, feeding directly into the state's twentieth-century politics. When you buy a coir mat you are handling the product of an industry that helped make Kerala what it is. HANDLOOM കൈത്തറി handloom. Kerala's signature textile is unmistakable: unbleached off-white cotton with a border of gold thread. കസവ് the gold-thread border — the defining element മുണ്ട് the lower garment · സെറ്റ് മുണ്ട് the two-piece set · കസവ് സാരി the gold-bordered saree ഓണക്കോടി the new clothes given at Onam തറി the loom · നെയ്യുക to weave · നൂൽ thread Centres: Balaramapuram, Chendamangalam, Kuthampully and Kannur — several with geographical indication protection, tying the name legally to the place and the process. Practically: ask ഇത് കൈത്തറിയാണോ? Is this handloom? The answer matters, the price difference is real, and buying the real thing is one of the more direct ways a visitor can be useful. BELL METAL AND BRASS ഓട് bell metal, an alloy of copper and tin · ചെമ്പ് copper · ഓട്ടുപാത്രം bell-metal vessels ഉരുളി the wide shallow cooking vessel, the classic Kerala form നിലവിളക്ക് the standing lamp · കിണ്ടി the spouted water vessel ആരൻമുള കണ്ണാടി the Aranmula mirror — made not of glass but of polished metal alloy, produced only in one village by a small number of families, to a closely held composition. Because the reflecting surface is the FRONT face of the metal, there is no secondary reflection: it is a front-surface mirror, optically superior, and genuinely remarkable rather than merely quaint. It carries geographical indication protection. The casting centre is Mannar in Alappuzha district. BOATS കെട്ടുവള്ളം the tied boat — anjili planks stitched together with coir rope and sealed, without nails, to make the rice barges of the backwaters, now converted into houseboats. ചുണ്ടൻ വള്ളം the snake boat — racing craft over a hundred feet long. Quizzes below. Dr. Reshmi R Nair — SpeakMalayalam.