IF KAVERAMME COULD SPEAK… WHAT WOULD SHE TELL US?

Background and Introduction

A very happy Kaveri Changrandi to everyone who celebrates. It’s such a beautiful time of year in Kodagu when the river Goddess Kaveri renews herself and her promise never to leave the land. Our crops, fields and prosperity blessed in a renewed promise.

The river Kaveri, ancient and beautiful, wells up from a source high in the western hills of Kodagu, its presence is woven into the lives of the people. More than a river, in Kodava tradition the people are known as Kaverammera makka, the children of Kaveri. The river is anthropomorphised: Kaveramme is Mother goddess, life-giving and sacred.

The people regard themselves as custodians of the land for the goddess, holding the land in trust; at Kaveri Changrandi, they believe she manifests in every water body in the land—streams, wells and ponds— paying her people a visit to see if they have tended her lands well, and to bless the coming harvest. The fields are dotted with small posts (bottë) looped with special creepers and leaves to ward off field spirits that may steal the ripening crop. Offerings of curries of tender young vegetables grown in the fields and dosas, for the goddess and ancestors, are carried out to the fields before dawn by men. Taking three turns of the field, they invoke the goddess and leave the offerings on the botth posts.

When the waters bubble up in the sacred pond at Tale Kaveri the goddess is believed to manifest in all the water bodies of the land at the same moment. Vessels of sacred water are stored in ain manes and every home. In homes, worship is simple: a field vegetable such as a cucumber or brinjal, sometimes a coconut, signifying the fertility of the land, is placed on a bell-metal platter heaped with rice and decorated with flowers, jewellery, areca nut leaves, betel nuts and a lit lamp by the women of the house. Thanks are given to the goddess for the prosperity of the land. The rustic altar is later dismantled and fresh produce is immersed in flowing water. Although vegetarian meals on Changrandi are widespread, many villages retain the older practice of eating river crab, fish and wild greens. A sacred time of year, the goddess affirms her presence in the waters for ten days, a period known as pathalodi. Over these days, women return to their ancestral homes and ancestors, particularly women, and dead warriors are remembered, worshipped and honoured in the custom of karanang kodupu.

My Conversation

On this Changrandi day, I’ve decided to write quite a different article this year. Imagine if our Goddess stood before us – not as a river we worship, but as a Mother who has come to speak to us, to question us, what we have done to the place of her birth?

So – What would we say to each other?

Would we proudly tell her that we call her Kaveri “Thayi” or would we remain silent when she asks;

“if You consider me as your Mother and taken the custodianship of the land on my behalf, what have you done to my homeland?”.

I was born in Kodagu – among these hills, the forests, the countless springs from each hillside, streams and rain-fed valleys. And before I appeared as the powerful flowing river, I was only a small beginning water source – a relationship between rain, forest, soil and hills.

Your ancestors understood this sacred relationship. They knew that the forest was not merely timber and that a hill slide was not merely land for commercial exploitation. They respected the waterways – not merely as a channel of water. They knew that when nature was respected and preserved, water would take care of itself. But today, I look at my birth place and am shocked at what has happened.

My hills are being excavated ruthlessly, the trees of my forests are being massacred at will. The land is being exploited by being converted from gentle meaningful agricultural activity to concrete monstrosities. Natural spaces are shrinking, Streams diverted with mindless irrigation and over population – depriving other creatures of the forest of their share. And the very landscape that holds my water is increasingly being treated as a “resource waiting to be exploited”.

Then, when summer comes, you look at me and ask? “Kaveramme – why is there no water”? Perhaps the parched river should ask us the same question.

Where are my forests, my streams, my wetlands? Where is the soil that once absorbed the rain? You cannot keep destroying the springs – the source of water that is the making of a river and expect the river to flow endlessly.

You cannot destroy the root and complain that the tree is dying.

You bring people to Kodagu as your guests (tourists) because of its greenery and lush misty rolling hills – the verdant, forests, meandering streams for its glorious beauty. But what happens when the very “beauty” that attracts visitors is slowly replaced by concrete? What will tourists come to see then – concrete forest; memories of gurgling streams brought to life through visual images on websites? Paradise Lost – through irresponsible actions focused on commercial exploitation and unsatiated greed.

Kaveramme might ask us:

So, if this is the backdrop, what is all this worship and celebration about? Each year the grandeur and chaos at the theerthodbava gets louder and larger. 

So here is my understanding:

Worship is easy; but don’t we have to earn the right to go and ask Her for blessings and favours?

It is easy to light a lamp; but it is harder to fulfill our promise to protect the forest.

It is easy to offer flowers at the kundige at the source at TaleKaveri, but harder not to pollute Her streams with garbage and block the natural flow for our own greed.

We do not grow paddy on the precious wetlands painstakingly cleared and created by our ancestors, but want to celebrate Kailpodh, Changrandi and Puthari in a grand manner with “bought”rice. And fulfill our vows at Igguthappa with Tulebara undertaken with chemical laden bought rice from traders.

Kaveramme would never ask us for grand celebrations – her “ask” would be for something much simpler – “Protect the land that gives you prosperity”. We have not fulfilled our responsibilities but have no guilty conscience in seeking prosperity.

These words would definitely hurt.

But perhaps we need to hear them. Because there will come a time when our children may stand beside a silent stream and ask – “Is that where the water flowed “?

On this Changrandhi, perhaps we should listen to Kaveramme differently. Not merely as devotees but as her children with an inherited responsibility:

She nurtures our forests; which gives us the rain. Her source is in the hills, fed by the myriad tiny streams that we rarely notice. And in the ultimate analysis if she asked us – what have you done to my birth place/my land, would you have an answer?

May this Changrandhi not just be yet another celebration of Kaveramme’s birth, but a reminder that protecting her begins with nurturing the land that we are custodians and would make her proud as she surveyed the land that made our ancestors prosperous, our culture unique and our identity special.

Happy Changrandhi!

(With sincere thanks to Kaveri Ponnapa for the background introductory material from The Vanishing Kodavas)

The facts, views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Coffeeland News.

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