Places · Lost place
The Chunkam (Toll Gate)
Aranattukara's old toll posts, where travellers once paid duty on their loads; one of them still gives its name to the Chunkam junction.
Cochin Legislative Council (Kerala Legislative Assembly archive), 1939 · public domain · source
Anyone carrying goods into or out of old Aranattukara had to stop and pay. The place where they paid was the chunkam, or toll post.
Two toll posts
The book records two of them. The Kanjani toll, on the road in from the north-east, collected duty from people arriving from that side. The Lalur toll stood at the Thrissur municipal boundary on the Lalur road and collected from people coming from the south-west. The book names the last man in charge there as Chiramel Panjan Kuriya.
Nobody pays toll at Kanjani any more, but the name has stayed: the place on Kanjani Road is still called Chunkam, and the book uses it as the starting point when it lists Aranattukara’s market streets: Kizhakke Angadi, Valiyangadi, Padinjare Angadi and the rest.
Paying the toll
At the toll posts stood chumaduthangis, stone load-rests made of two upright slabs with a cross-slab at about a man’s height. Porters rested their bundles on them while the duty was worked out. The book adds that plenty of people tried to slip past without paying. Even elephants were charged, and mahouts are said to have dodged the toll by riding on the elephant’s back, or by stirring the animal up just as the collector came near.
In the records
A Cochin Legislative Council record from 1939 mentions a road “from the toll gate to Aranattukara Bazaar”.
If you know where the toll buildings or the stone load-rests stood, or have a photograph of one, please tell us.
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