SUNAAD RAGHURAM writes: Madikeri has changed. Like most other places on this planet. The usual lament, do you yawn? Maybe. But I couldn’t help ruminate a bit.
Recalling the past as I had seen it since a decade-and-a-half. Not to speak of what I had heard from old-timers who either lived in Kodagu in the halcyon days of old or those, like my father-in-law, who originally belong to that once mystifying abode in the hills.
On our way back to Mysore from Udupi, T S Satyan and I chose to halt for the night in Madikeri as the long journey up the Sampaje Ghat through to Mysore on roads that necessarily do not qualify as stretches of well-mixed asphalt laid by qualified civil engineers who sincerely adhere to the engineering manual and their conscience in that order, would have been terribly arduous to my octogenarian friend with arthritic knees!
As my Bolero roared up the hill and reached the General Thimmiah Circle, my wrist watch showed 8 pm.
Our quest to find decent accommodation for the night began. Hotel after hotel said ‘no rooms please.’ It was exasperating to be left in the lurch, as it were. And a wee bit frustrating as well. Time ticked along and I kept making frantic phone calls to virtually every single piece of shack that remotely resembled an accommodation for the night!
We had a lot to do, Satyan and me.
Discuss the trip that had taken us to some truly fascinating places in Malnad, of which the 260-year-old mansion in verdant, remote Kasaravalli belonging to Ramaswamy to whom the celebrated film director Girish Kasaravalli is a cousin, was simply unforgettable.
Mull over the wondrous exotica that was the Hasta Shilpa Heritage Village in Manipal where centuries old traditional structures from the Mudhol Palace Durbar Hall to the Deccani Nawab Mahal to the Kunjur Chowkimane have been painstakingly restored and preserved, and where Satyan shot some truly exquisite pictures bent over his camera, his knees creaking with arthritis and his once sharp eyes straining to focus.
We also had to finalise our impending trip to Melkote where the grand rocks of remote ancientness and the remarkably imposing visage of the lap top sporting Sanskrit professor Lakshmi Tatachar awaited Satyan’s camera.
And more reasonably, we had to do true justice to the bottle of Black Dog that beckoned from the back seat of the Bolero, where it lay in luxurious abandon, its precious contents creating tiny ripples inside the handsome bottle as it swayed a bit through the circuitousness of the winding roads in the hills!
Finally, god smiled on us and we found a shelter, the smart Crystal Court Hotel. I must confess, mostly due to my felicity with the Kodava language which presumably impressed the receptionist, who took the bold decision to allot us a room which had already been booked but apparently forgotten by someone who hadn’t showed up at the appointed hour.
Today’s Madikeri is swamped by tens of hundreds of ‘tourists’. Cars bearing registration plates of places ranging from Bangalore to Calicut to even Mumbai roar around.
There is a never ending cackle from groups of men and women, boys and girls, in a range of garish clothing from jeans to short tops to fancy hats and goggles everywhere. Music systems blare out mostly indecipherable Hindi pop music in the bars. Shops are mostly festooned with packets and packets of ‘Lays’ chips in colours, green, red and orange.
‘Home stays’ are many. Far from homely and mostly cash driven only! But they still seem to come. The techies with their funny accents and fancy cars. North Indian couples, with the woman invariably wearing the most garish of jewelry amidst swathes of deep red henna. Raucous Hindi being spoken on the cell phones which don’t seem to leave them even on their ‘holiday’.
Ordering Dosa in English accents in the land of pandhi kari! Coke instead of coffee! Cutlets in place of Kadambuttu!
In the earlier days, the forests of Kodagu were magnificent and vast, the foliage was dense, and the air was crisp and pure. Lush, eye-soothing greenery pervaded whole areas right into the horizon. Small rivulets in the hills and the valleys shimmered like silver strings in the sunlight as they cascaded down the slopes; the trees bent low, heavy with their bounty of mouth-watering fruits; and a million flowers bloomed in such fantastic hues all around that they made the heart cry out in sheer ecstasy.
Somewhere in the long distance, atop a hillock with an ambling road going up the slope, a house with a slanting, tiled roof, spewed wisps of white smoke from a chimney that joined the cotton-soft clouds, stitching fleeting patterns of art.
Wild rabbits pranced around in joyous celebration and multi-coloured birds streaked across the cobalt sky leaving behind vivid trails. Kodagu was indeed paradise.
Satyan remarked that Madikeri, in the good old days, was known as the Scotland of the East.
I could barely muffle a giggle.
Bangalore has changed…Mysore is changing, and so how can Madikeri be left behind…bane of globalisation!!!
COORG OF YORE IS NO MORE
by M K Vidyaranya
Kodagu (Coorg) was still a state when I first visited that place way back in early 1950’s and it had its own Government, Chief Minister and the entire area was non-polluted.
It was during early 1950’s during summer holidays every year I and my brother Vasantha Madhav used to visit Kodagu along with our parents to meet our paternal aunt who was married off to a relative who was an agriculturist cum priest at the Ramalingeswara temple on the banks of river Cauvery in Ramaswamy Kanive nestled between two hills near Koodige in north Coorg.
Our weekly or fortnightly stays at Kanive is such a memorable one that it is unforgettable in our lives.
When we landed at Kanive around noon,after an arduous journey of five hours from Mandya, my home town in a bus, we were taken aback at the almost ‘midnight at noon’ atmosphere that prevailed on the entire route from Kushalnagar to Kanive with its evergreen forests and the canopy of which covered almost all places. Rays of sunlight were struggling to pierce through the canopy. Such was the thickness of the greenery.
It was a treat to the eyes to see trees such as jack fruit, mango, amla, etc., grown on each side of the narrow roads and no one was plucking them for business. There used to be hundreds of Honey combs seen clinging to tree branches. Any one who wants for his personal use could have plucked it. I along with my cousin Rangaswamy used to climb the tree and pluck the fruits even as we see wild elephants foraging the green leaves from the trees few hundred meters away .It was a sight to see the deers, antlers playing around with peacocks dancing in the background and chatter of birds. With the gentle sound of Cauvery water flowing quietly winding amidsts hundreds of rocks it was a virtual heaven on earth.
My cousin, Rangaswamy’s father who owned 25 acres of land had herd of 25 cows, buffaloes. Since it was summer holidays, Rangaswamy and his sisters used to take the cows and buffaloes for grazing inside the thick forests and we used to accompany them enjoying the cool climate of the evergreen forests despite it was hot summer. While it had become routine for them to wear the normal dress, we used sweaters and covered our head wish caps to ward off the cold.
Carrying ‘ootada butthi’ (lunch ) to forest we enjoyed playing around even as the animals fed for themselves with sumptuous green grass and the fruits from trees fallen on the ground as there were lot of monkeys playing around.
Before sitting for lunch, Rangaswamy used to burst crackers to scare away monkeys from their farm where thousands of mangoes were getting ready from harvest.
Even as the crackers were burst, varieties of birds including sparrows, crows, wood cutters, humming birds and the peacocks used to flay away from the trees filling the sky. The rampaging monkeys,shell shocked at the cracker burst fled from the spot and return after two or three days.
As we sit for lunch on rocks on the big rocks midsts the Cauvery river after crossing the knee deep waters, we used to see hundreds of fish of different varieties feeding themselves by clearing our legs which we have kept inside the water. It was a feast to the eyes to see big fishes rushing to grab the remnants of food which we used to through inside the river and clean the aluminum lunch box as the use of stainless steel utensils had not become popular yet. There was no plastic and no one knew what plastic sheet or box.
Back to the mango farm, we see that some two cows were missing from the herd of 20 and Rangaswamy calls me to accompany deep into the forest and asks his sister and my brother to drive away the remaining animals home as the sun was setting fast.
When we go inside the thick forest, there was no sign of the cows and Rangaswamy was worried since two days back, the pug marks of the tiger was seen behind the mango groove. We continue the search in the pre-dusk light for more than half an hour visiting the noon and corners of the forest covered with thick bushes. Suddenly Rangaswamy hears the sound of ‘gotta’ (two wooden pieces tied around the neck of animals to remote sense them in the dark) we rush there to see the cows happily grazing the green grass. Then
Ranga Swamy heaves a sigh of relief as the cows were safe and nothing tragic had happened despite the tigers wandering nearby few days back.
We drive the cows home safely and milch them after some time..
A weekly shanty was to be held at Kanive regularly. Setty, a merchant used to land in our house the evening before the shanty. Wearing a Peta, Setty was traveling like a Raja on the horse back carrying his groceries for selling them at Shanty. It was a routine. My aunt used to cook two seru’s (there was no kilograms then) of horse gram for Setty’s horse which was to be fed to the horse. The horse gram was being cooked in an earthen pot right from 12 noon
to 6 PM in low fire and during the six hours it used to brew a thick decoction of horse gram. It would then be filtered. While the boiled horse gram is fed to the horse, the decoction, after adding ‘voggarane’ ( cumin seeds, asafoetida, curry leaves fried in ghee), salt and a little jaggery would be used as rasam.’Eating it with rice would be so tongue-tickling that one would eat double the quantity of rice than he regularly consumes.
The Setty used to give us ‘nimbehuli peppermint’ (toffee made of sugar and lemon) even as we looked after his businesss while he was taking lunch.
Farm fresh vegetable plucked from the farm right across were used in the preparation of ‘palyas’ (curries) and it was so tasty as the chemical fertilizers were not used as they were yet to be introduced in the market.It was the best time which I never forget.
The big village house with a large cow shed, three rooms,kitchen build by using the old type of tiles was leaking at places and there was no electricity supply. We used to light kerosene lamps and the dinner would be like a candle light dinner, which is a fashion now in five star hotels.
A Sadhu, who was observing ‘Moun Vrat’ was living on top of the hillock next to our house. He used to give us fruits whenever we went there.
One of the days during our fortnight stay , we used to visit Hebbale and Kudige towns nearby to spend some time.
But today, the time has changed. During a recent visit to Kanive, I saw a sea change not only in the nature and environment but also the standard of living of the people. I was happy to see Satellite Television, tractors, crop cutting machines,solar systems, gobar gas stoves and the DVD’s motor cycles and cars occupying the place where ploughs, sickles, lanterns, granaries and fuel wood used to be stacked.
Though there is regular Shanty, Setty is dead and gone, no horse gram rasam, elephants are not sighted as frequently as they were, news houses have come up, forests have disappeared, you can see cultivated land every where. The whole topography has changed as an aqua duct has been built to carry Harangi waters across the Cauvery river.
Plastic which was unknown has made its appearance every where like the parthenium plants.
The Coorg of the yore is no more. Let’s make efforts to preserve at least the remains of it. #
Vidyaranya-aavre…….beauttiful imagery…
Hi Chetan
Thanks for the compliments.
nice post and also a nice comment by vidyaranya.
As I’m returning to India after a period of 10 months, reading such articles gives me more reason to be happy.
Referring to the post: Madikeri being called as Scotland of the East. Having visited both the places, I can say – why not!
– quilt is the traditional dress at both places
– people have a distinctive accent. i.e. scottish people speaking english and coorgies speaking kannada
– people at both places are well known for enjoying their beverages
– scenic places.
….
m.k vidyaranya, a beautiful picture!
@ chetan, u are right.
Hey anup, nice one
I heard Coorgis serve Scotch whiskey and Chilly Pork ..is that a delicacy?
Anoop Awarey
Kilt is the traditional dress in Scotland
Quilt may be the choice of blanket ‘kambli’ in Coorg
People in both countries enjoy ‘spirits’.
DG Avarey
Coorgnalli, IMFL whiskey with chilly pork sigutthey. Thumbha chennagiruthhey.
A nice description of Coorg as it existed in the 50s. MKV awarey, neevu viwarisuva huraliya saarannu ‘Huralikattu’ antharey. Bahala chennagi bardidheera.
Well written Sirs.
Visiting Coorg has always excited me since the first time some 25 years ago. The last few years have been very bad as too many buildings have come up. The view of Madikeri town from a high altitude while we enter from Mysore says it all.
Most of my trips used to be a 1-day or 2-days trip. A friend’s estate that we always visited had a running stream throughout the year. Our walk inside the estate would fetch us so many jackfruits and oranges which we carried back to Mysore and distribute amongst friends. After driving down from Margod, the memory of sipping hot coffee sitting on the cane chairs of East End is still fresh. The pale yellow or green Ujwala urea ad boards have made way for bright white-red Airtel boards. Lot more changes. But the people are still warm and nice.
The locals are feeling uncomfortable as lot of outsiders have settled there. Recently, Kodaginalli IT Fair conduct maadidhru. So we can imagine what is going to happen. The day Big Bazaar makes an entry will mark the beginning of the end of…..Nodona….en en aaguthe antha
Arun,
Nimmanthavaru alli hogi coffee kudi beku; Alli iruvaru yakkuttohogbeku alwa
?:)
Progress agodhu valleyadu; yelru uddharawagali bidi swamy!
Abhivruddhi olleyadhu..adre kramavaagi aadhalli thumbanae chennagiruthe.
Big Bazaarge bari Metro citynavre hogbeku annodhu sari alla .
Walmart nanthaha retailers namma talukige bandhare olleydhe.Udhyogavakasha siguthadhe .
The reason why some people resent development in our villages and towns is…. When they visit these places in 2 to 5 years .They want to escape the cities and its urbanity and would be shocked to find the same urbanism in the villages . They want to see the calm serenity and enjoy country side like they have been doing for past 50 years .
This could be a pleasant treat to your eyes for a day that u might stay in that place or drive past that village . but think from the villager perspective he certainly would want to see development in his village . He would also wish for all the modernity and comforts .
Guys dont be hypocrites and dont see only from your angle .
If you are so pissed off with the Urban living ..go and stay in caves
Doddi avre – iga namma sutthha nadithaa irodu nevu development anth helidhre adu nimma way of ‘development’. What could be enjoyed for 10 years will be exhausted in 1 year. When Bangalore could not withstand this onslaught, there is no way places like Mysore or Coorg would.
DG – Kramavaagi nammalli yaava kelsaanu aagolla. Big bazaar metro citynalli illa andhroo thondare illa. I don’t know if you have visited any of these stores in Bangalore. Pls do so when you come to India next. They have thrown the residential life out of gear wherever they have entered. Banashankari is a classic example.
What stops us from having an urban lifestyle in a far off countryside? Coorg people have been earning more money than people in cities. Not too long ago (sometime during mid1900s), Virajpet was one of the top three tax-paying towns in India. Were they not giving employment to more people in the estates than Walmarts or anyother? Were they not enjoying their lifestyle deep inside? They have been doing it for ages and will do it much better than what people in Bangalore do it. I am not saying there should not be a Walmart or a BBzr in a remote town. But they are not any indicators of development either.
And at this rate if you keep chasing ‘development’, even the caves will not be spared. :-)
Arun awarey
Nanagey thilida prakara eega kodaginalli Tamilru matthu Malayaligalu sikka patte serkombittu, alli iro Kodavarella oor bittu bare A kadey hogtha iddharey.
Estatae ‘aalugaligey’ kewala bidigasu sigtha itthu; Swalpa progress bandrey allina samanya janakko awakashagalu siguthhey. Neevu BSK I II III stages ketto hoyithu antha parithapa padthidira; Kodagalli papa jana hegey badhukodo antha yochney madtha yiddarey!
Aaadru namalli kramavada belavanigey illa; adhu namma ‘Indian’ growthna ondu ‘vishista’ roopa.