All That the Kaveri Washes Away
Photo: Andal Srivatsan
Personal Essay: ‘That air is now hardened, rancid, antediluvian. It permeates through the fabric of all communities today. It hovers, egomaniacally, over some of us who want nothing but love and harmony—both excruciatingly evasive.’
I have always loved the water, and yet feared drowning in it. There is nothing unconventional about this: Many fear drowning, and many others find sanctuary underwater. On the days I swim, I am under the surface while holding my breath to revel in the silence. Time stands still, and there is nothing aside from the bubbles that pirouette.
Many years ago in Havelock Island, I had donned a diving suit to go on a deep-sea dive while tethered to my instructor. He latched my suit onto his and pointed at his other world: a shy sea cucumber, starfish, clownfish, and corals. Muted sunlight hues created textures on the water scales. I veered my head towards the seabed, desperate to feel sand slip through my fingers. Amidst that, I had posed for the instructor’s camera. The aftermath of an enlightening experience is bottled despair. Back on the surface, I heard arguments, laughter, and the air that carried the stench of stale confab. The rickshaw ride back to my hotel was an ungrateful journey, with a lesser appreciation for the world fabricated for the insatiable homo sapiens.
Parts of my life emerge as bodies of water. Some days, I am pensive and enjoy the cascade of my overhead shower. My thought bubbles are memories of me water-skiing life-jacketed in a lake in Idaho, trekking up a small mountain in McLeod Ganj in search of crystal blue water, hiking with strangers up to the source of a nameless waterfall in Shimoga, going up and down another unspecifiable waterfall in Vattakanal, tasting the water of a running stream in Dharamshala. In all these souvenirs, I was the first to jump in, not to evade fear but to lay out a carpet for fearlessness. Although both were strikingly similar, the intents were different.
Two decades ago, I was an urban 10-year-old girl who, after having flown down from the Gulf, was submitting to the charming simplicities of small-town life for two weeks of her summer vacation. I remember waking up at 5:30 in the morning to bathe in the river Kaveri in the nook of my grandfather’s town off Trichy. In retrospect, the charm and simplicity had drifted under lofty ennui. The living room had one small television, a long, rectangular wooden swing, and a tiny alleyway that would lead into the backyard. The backyard was an L-shaped shed with threaded cloth hangers that extended to the open area—a picturesque toolkit for the quaint, primordial way of life. On the right was a water tank with a deep well beside it. In the middle was a revered tulsi plant, and on the left was a washing stone for clothes. The backyard broke into the outside bathroom, the only place that provided a hot water bath. The bath area was dingy. Water would boil over logs and fire. On some days during those stays, my family and cousins would gather for milk and filter coffee by the swing, before carrying a change of clothes and cotton towels to the river. The river was a short walk from my grandfather’s house in Kulithalai’s Agraharam.
There are many implications to belonging to a family from a town’s Agraharam. The houses here were stacked next to each other, familiar with each other. People would walk past our house, wave at us, come in for coffee, or drop off a bottle of season’s fresh mango pickle. The temples knew the people of the Agraharam, and in almost all cases, people of the Agraharam were only friends with others from the Agraharam. There is a sense of belonging among the Agraharams; and where they belonged was at the upper echelons of society’s caste system: the revered Brahmins of society, the first to be invited to temples’ prospective expansion projects and called on for possible investments in those projects.
In short, it was respectable. Almost kingly.
The purpose of a nostalgic emotion is to create a deep desire. In that desire, I am reaching out for something that has disappeared into dust. The halcyon is in the matrix. Memories are tainted because I infer them differently as I get on with time.
My awakening was on the trail that led up to Kaveri. A rock-strewn, muddy path curved downward to the river terrace. I would strip down to my long underwear and white vest to enter the water, shudder at first, and sink in as it embraced me. It was a change of pace for a bathtub-accustomed, hot-water-upon-request young girl, and it would be remiss not to state how joyous the experience was from a time when being a girl didn’t accompany itself with visible lady parts. Water would create an air pocket and lift my vest to the surface. My cousins and I would splash water towards each other and crouch into it to use the river sand as body scrub. Afar, women from the nearby villages would look at us and chuckle. Their petticoats were drawn high to above their breasts, and they would wash their sarees on the stones. I’d wave back at them to talk to them, and my mother would chastise me for fraternising with strangers. I would float for a while before being taken to a corner and surrounded by my female relatives, each holding up a towel to hide my bare body. I would change into fresh clothes while my mother patiently towel-dried my hair.
I would trot back home, made to change into pavadai chattai—a long silk skirt with golden zari at the bottom rims and a shirt-style blouse. Flowers of jasmine braided into my thick, plaited hair. My father would mix kungumam with water on the palm of his hand and run a tiny copper stick dipped in red across my forehead. Little glass bangles would jingle on my wrist. The ensemble was a true reflection of the inherent pride of the Agraharam: symbols of Brahminical statements that were vessels of pride. As we walked hand-in-hand to the temple, my family would stop and greet people en route and talk about the pleasures of life outside the country, while also yearning for the comfort of the country.
The purpose of a nostalgic emotion is to create a deep desire. In that desire, I am reaching out for something that has disappeared into dust. The halcyon is in the matrix. Memories are tainted because I infer them differently as I get on with time. From when we used to river bathe until a few years ago, the Kaveri had withdrawn. It dried out, bit by bit, with each passing year. We would stumble upon its tributaries and find them barren. The Kulithalai home stands how it did decades ago, barring the increasing amount of chipped paint, dust, old furniture, and rickety beds. It stands stationed in that Agraharam, basking in its joy and pride, chanting slokas, paying respect to my dead grandparents long after their legacy. The heritage and heirlooms of the yesteryears belong to that one street, and its people who have mixed in with the soil, and have let their ideologies mix with the air.
That air is now hardened, rancid, antediluvian. It permeates through the fabric of all communities today. It hovers, egomaniacally, over some of us who want nothing but love and harmony—both excruciatingly evasive. A glimpse of them makes privilege undervalue itself. At home, my Gods adore the scent of jasmine agarbatti and lemongrass incense cones. Their ears pique at the brass bell that wakes them up in the morning. Outside my door, the kolam is an alluring criss-cross, telling stories of symmetry and togetherness through lines, curves, dots, flowers, and art.
Art: vivid, pastel, or simply inconsequential, like the ripples on my bucket of water, which bears the same scent, and looks wildly similar to ripples on the Kaveri from decades ago. The same Kaveri by the Agraharam.
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Andal Srivatsan is a writer and poet based out of India, and the editor of Pena Lit Mag. Her work has been published in various places: TBLM, AThinSliceofAnxiety, The Sunflower Collective, Tarshi’s InPlainspeak, MeanPepperVine, Literary Yard. She can be found on Instagram @andalsrivatsan, where she frequently writes book reviews and poetry.
