Namma Ooruda: Belonging in Tulunadu’s Interfaith Web

My grandmother would tell me the story of Siri every time we’d visit our ancestral temple in Kabathar. It was a story embroidered into her breath, one that bloomed with each retelling. She spoke of Siri, the woman who left her husband, lost her grandfather, and saw her home turn to ash. Alone and adrift, she wandered in search of food and shelter. It was a Byardi—a Muslim woman from the Mangalore-Udupi region—who gave her food when no one else did. For that simple act of kindness, Siri blessed her with the beauty of her little finger, and that, my grandmother said, is why the Muslim women of this region are so breathtakingly beautiful. Another caste that denied Siri food was cursed, and to this day, the story goes, they eat one meal less.

This is the kind of Tulunadu I know—where myth meets memory, and where faiths, though distinct, are interwoven like threads in a sacred cloth.

Kapu Mariamma Temple in the heart of Kapu holds another story. The famed Marigudi Temple’s jewellery was given by none other than Tipu Sultan—a Muslim king adorning a Hindu goddess in offerings.

Tulunadu’s interfaith roots run deep, not without tension, but rich in shared history. Communal riots, sadly, have become more frequent in recent decades, spurred less by personal animosity and more by political ambition. Yet, on the ground, there remains a quiet, enduring respect. A lived dependency. A trust built in tea shops, under banyan trees, in shared markets, in the stories whispered to children.

The Beary community—or Byaari, as pronounced in Tulu—is believed to descend from Arab traders. The word itself comes from “bere” or “bera,” meaning trade. According to Professor Ichlangodu of Mangalore University, the Bearys were merchants who struck kinship with the Chowta, Ajila, and Alupa dynasties. The Bunts, who later embraced Jainism, Shaivism, and Vaishnavism, continued trade relations with the Bearys across faith lines.

Byaardi women were often skilled in herbal healing. There was Podimma, a legend in her own right. Some remember her; some don’t. But many Bunt families, when left helpless by modern medicine, turned to her for herbal cures—for themselves, and even for their cows. She lived until 2007, a century of healing behind her.

These Muslim women ran cottage industries—tailoring, medicine, midwifery, packed lunches. They may not have "worked" in the conventional sense, but they were central to the economy of the home and the community. Women from the Beary community, like their Bunt and Catholic peers, saw work as a part of life, not a rebellion against tradition. It was only when married outside Tulunadu, or moved with husbands to the Middle East, that restrictions on working women began to appear.

Beary's today run construction companies, conglomerates, and educational institutions. They are known to be generous, and at the same time astute businessmen. Since colonisation and the Land Reforms Act, Beary's continue to maintain friendly relations in trade with Bunts and other communities of this region.

Like Podimma, there were Sisters at the convents—quiet revolutionaries in starched habits—who changed the lives of the girls who walked through the gates of their haloed institutions. A nun from St. Agnes, perhaps, still lingers in the memories of former Agnesians, remembered like a refrain from a hymn.

Tulunadu also bears the imprints of Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch colonialism. Mangalore Catholics carry this legacy in surnames—D’Souza, Pinto, Coelho—and in neighbourhoods that echo Iberian geography: Valencia, Vas Lane. Catholic women, lovingly called Bayyamma, were friends to Bunts. Many taught in schools or nursed in hospitals. Catholic boys played cricket in the same grounds. Even today, Bunts place their children in Catholic institutions like St. Agnes, St. Aloysius, St. Anne’s, and St. Cecily’s.

Languages flowed as freely as affection. Bearys spoke Tulu with ease, as if it were a second skin. Christians mostly spoke Konkani but understood Tulu too. Even in linguistic shorthand, there was friendliness: "Namma ooruda Byaari"—our town’s Muslim. "Namma ooruda Krissan daaye"—our town’s Christian man. Belonging wasn’t just about shared faith. It was about shared geography, shared jokes, shared market stalls.

The Mangalorean Catholics, Beary's, and Bunts, migrated in droves to the Middle East between the 1970s till now for better trade and work opportunities. Catholics who bordered the Karwar area and were born before 1974 were still considered a part of Portuguese Goa. Portugal had its last revolution - the Carnation Revolution (Revolução dos Cravos) in 1974 after which a treaty was signed to incorporate Portuguese India, into India after the decolonisation of Portuguese territories. Many Catholics and even other community members born in this area were eligible for Portuguese citizenship if they were born before 1961. Catholics who still felt that they didn't belong to India, migrated during this time. This did not affect Mangalorean or Udupi district Catholics as much.

The friendliness stretched into language, into memory. When Bunts outside Tulunadu met someone from these communities, they'd smile and say with affection, “Namma ooruda ye.” That phrase—our town’s—carried the weight of belonging, a local kinship that transcended difference.

Byaardi, Buntedi, Bayyamma, Birwedi, Marakaldi, Konkandi, Braandi—across communities, it was the women who truly ran the economy through friendship. Through shared gossip in verandas, through working side by side, and through lending a hand when someone fell ill or had no help. They carried not just vessels but stories, not just groceries but secrets. In the inner lanes of Tulunadu, there are countless stories of women who say they found more help from a woman of another community than from their own. Each of these communities holds rich, layered histories of their own. But what is deeply admirable is how so many of these women—strong, agentic, protective—carried the pulse of the region’s resilience. They did what needed to be done. They ensured the children were fed, the rituals completed, the debts paid, the gossip kept alive. They were the real custodians of Tulunadu.

From a sociological and institutional theory perspective, these women formed what could be called informal institutions of care and cooperation—networks of trust and obligation that existed outside of formal governance but were no less powerful in shaping everyday life. They functioned as social safety nets, dispute mediators, informal credit systems, and interfaith ambassadors. Their friendships, though intimate and local, had system-wide economic effects, enabling continuity, resilience, and adaptation in the face of change. Where formal institutions were absent or fragile, these women sustained the moral and economic order through routine acts of solidarity.

My research showed that attitudes of traditionally patrilineal communities towards daughters were far more respectful and allowed for a lot more agency when they cohabited with communities that were matrilineal. The important thing to note here is that I refer to "-lineal" and not "-archal."

This referred to property, rights, and belongingness to family passed down through the mother's line rather than the father's. I observed that this may have been due to foundational effects like going to school together, playing together, and wanting the same things as their peers in formative years. Also on the parents' perspective, they traded and dealt with people who respected daughters and prayed for them more than sons and did not see them as a burden. Female foeticide continues to be a problem in the state of Karnataka but the data for Udupi and Mangalore have not been studied in this particular article. It is also important to note that only Catholics and the Beary community were studied under Muslim and Christian denominations. Protestants and Urdu-speaking Muslims, or immigrant Moplahs from Kerala were not considered.

Tulunadu’s caste matrix is just as layered. Billavas, GSBs, Nayakas, Odaaris, Ranadaggulu, Sthanika Brahmins, Mogaveeras, Kodagu Gowdas, Shivalli Brahmins, Jain Bunts—each caste with its own relationship to trade, ritual, and village politics. Many names themselves trace occupations: Maddellas washed clothes; Marakalas fished; Ranadaggulus were the children of Kapumari and a cobbler; Bunts were feudal lords and warriors. They were further split—Jain Bunts, Parivar Bunts, Nadava Bunts—depending on house: Aramane (palace), Beedu (feudal home), Guthu (administrative house), or Okkel (branch homes). These hierarchies mattered, but so did shared survival.

Despite all this diversity—faith, caste, trade, ritual—what links them is striking. All of these communities value hard work. All care deeply about quality, reputation, and integrity. Most do not marry across castes or religions, but they form friendships and forge partnerships. And even that is changing. Today, there’s joy when someone says, “At least they married a Mangalorean.”

It’s difficult to unpack the complexity of this small region. One highway that connects Mangalore to Udupi alone has a church, a mosque, and a temple on either side. The man who sells flowers outside one may well be a Byaari. The garlands themselves may come from Bayyamma’s garden. This is a land where faiths are layered like monsoon clouds—distinct, yet part of the same weather.

What’s fascinating from a sociological standpoint is how proximity to matriarchal communities—like the Bunts, Mogaveeras, and Billavas—may have influenced neighbouring groups. Among the Bearys and Bayyammas, one notices a stronger presence of working women, a sense of agency, and mutual respect in domestic arrangements. These patterns are less visible in similar religious groups outside Tulunadu, suggesting that co-existence within matrilineal cultures might reshape gender roles subtly but significantly.

Tulunadu is not utopia. But it is uniquely interwoven. Here, caste and religion are not flat categories—they are textured, nuanced, negotiated daily. Here, Siri’s curse and blessing still live in memory. Here, Podimma’s medicine lingers in old cupboards. Here, a temple wears a Sultan’s gift. And here, a Muslim, a Christian, and a Bunt may not pray together—but they know they belong to the same town.

Tulunadu holds many gods and many names. But perhaps its greatest devotion is to the soil that remembers every footstep, every handshake, every shared meal.

Disclaimer: The study didn't emphasise on communal riots as much as it was focused on attitudes and behaviour towards work and women.

Disclaimer 2: The other communities were aligned with Vaishnavism, Shaivism, or Jainism.

Disclaimer 3: There is little evidence of Judaism other than in old traders that migrated more toward Bombay and Kochi. The Sephardic Jews of Goa either remained or migrated elsewhere because of Portugal's sentiment towards Jews at the time.

P.S. I forgot to add the economy of food. Because biryani, kuswar, and kori rotti were life

Edit: Thank you to Pradeep Shetty - Madella has been corrected to Maddella - and Porbu is also a term used for Mangalorean Christians