Our first article on Buchanan’s Journey published in the Deccan Herlad in 2005.

More than 200 years later we are now working on a project retracing Buchanan’s journey. It took Buchanan a year and few months to complete this task; we realized that ours would take even longer. On his journey from Madras to Seringapatnam (now Chennai to Srirangapatnam) via Bangalore, Buchanan had passed through a place called Satghadam. This article revisits Buchanan’s journey from Satghadam to Bangalore; it is an excerpt from our work thus far and barely 20 pages out of Buchanan’s tour de force of 1500 pages.

Satgudi is a small village. A narrow street which passes through it was lined with houses on both sides, people sitting in their verandahs, busy rolling beedis. To our right was a steep hill rising up to a height of about 1000 feet. Perched along the ridge of the hill was a fort wall. This was no doubt Satghadam or Elamulla Durga that Buchanan speaks off … the seven hill forts.

“The hills approaching here, a stone wall, with a gateway, marks the boundary of Satghadam. On the north this gate is commanded by a naked rocky hill, irregularly fortified by various walls and castles, after the country fashion. These are called Satghadam, the Decany pronunciation of Satghur, or the seven castles …”

We began our climb to the fort ruins at half past noon. As we reached the top of the hills, we saw a fort wall running across the granite rocks. Several more structures began to appear, including doorways, a few brick rooms, a horse stable, a stone room with an inscription on the roof mentioning 1905 June, and another with a half moon and circle. We noticed something else interesting in one of the doorways. A Ganesha carved on a stone pillar.

Human sacrifice

Buchanan says nothing about Satghadam’s history. Searching through the 1895 Manual of North Arcot District, we found some interesting information. The fort was possibly constructed by the Marathas, and later came to be occupied and modified by later Mohamedan rulers. The natural hollows in the rocks were ingeniously utilized as powder magazines. The District Manual narrates an interesting story about a Ganesha idol in the fort which bore an inscription, “Twist the neck and take the money”. This was supposed to refer to the sacrifice of a human victim, and no one was willing to earn wealth at such a price. Then one day, a bairagi, twisted the neck of the idol itself and found a bounty of gold coins, which he appropriated.

“The principal cultivation in it is that of dry grains, with some fruit gardens, for which it is celebrated.”
On our way down, we stopped at what seemed like a watch tower. From here we could see the fertile plain below that Buchanan speaks off. Buchanan had also noted the cultivation of a large variety of fruits below Satghadam. Today, some of the best custard apple in South India comes from this area. Pomegranate, banana and mango are also grown here.

“The Nabob (of Arcot) has here an extensive garden, which he lets to some Armenians at Madras. The fruit, especially the oranges, are reckoned the best in the Carnatic, and the choicest are sent to the Nabob, and other persons of distinction.”
Armenians here?
Buchanan had noted that some of the best oranges in the Carnatic were grown here by some Armenians. These fruit gardens belonged almost entirely to one family. But we found no cultivation of oranges. Buchanan made no mistake about the oranges at Satgudi. The District Manual confirmed this. Till 1895, oranges were still to be found here, though the trees were dying out. It adds that the grafts taken from Satgudi survive at Vellore, Ambur and some other places.

“I am gravely informed by my interpreter, a Brahman, that he has relations, who live by performing a variety of wonderful feats. Among others, they can make a mango stone, in the course of four hours, shoot out a small tree a foot high…”
No one was aware of this old mango trick! Buchanan explains in detail the way it was done; definitely worth a try.

“I went to Naiekan Eray, by the Pedda Naikana Durga Pass …the mountains of the Ghats have not quite so barren an aspect as those to the east; and contains many trees, some of which are fit for timber…”

“The country about Naiekan Eray rises into swells, like the land in many parts of England, and is overlooked by the high barren peaks of the Ghats, which close the view to the eastward. Among these peaks, the most remarkable is that occupied by Pedda Naiekana Durga, or the Great Chief’s castle…”

“Specimens of the following trees were brought to me, as being the most useful trees on the Ghats of this place. The names are in Telinga… Nara Vaypa, Yegu, Naro, Neruddy, Muddi, Topissi…”
The Pedda Nayakan Durga Pass cuts through the Eastern Ghats and is an important elephant corridor. That morning five elephants were spotted by the local people in the neighbourhood. Electric fences have been installed to direct the elephants through the forests and prevent them from straying into cultivated fields. Naiekaneri is now a Reserve Forest. The local people and forest officials were most helpful and confirmed that all the twenty species mentioned by Buchanan are still found here.

Great chief’s castle
Remnants of the fort still stand on a hill about half a kilometer away from the road. The fort was a stronghold of the Palegar of Charagal. Colonel Oldham had camped at Pedda Nayakana Durga in 1791, from where he joined Lord Cornwallis at Venkatagiri. This was perhaps the last important event witnessed by this fort.

“Vencataghery was formerly the usual residence of the Pedda Naieka Polygar, and the ruins of his fort are still conspicuous. It is built on a rising ground…”
Buchanan’s next stop was Venkatagiri, where he saw the remains of a fort and palace. Today this town is called V Kote, Kote meaning fort. Surprisingly people here were completely unaware of any fort in the vicinity. After repeated enquiries, we were told that we could find a stupa nearby an old temple. This was definitely the old fort. It was on rising ground just as Buchanan says, with an old temple and a granite pillar. All but gone, even in people’s memory.

“In the morning I went to Baydamungulum; leaving on my right a hill crowned with a fortress, and a temple dedicated to Seitadevi…”

On our way out of V. Kote, we could find no Sitadevi temple or a fortress that Buchanan had seen. But we found a mantapa on a small hill to the north of the town. This hillock comes to the right when exiting V. Kote towards Betmangala. We were sure that this was the fortress that Buchanan mentions. The temple is not here anymore; perhaps the idol may have actually been shifted to another temple. People mentioned to us that there was a Sita temple some ten kilometers away.

“I went sixteen miles to Tayculum … the last two miles of our road lay between two immense piles of granite, gradually crumbling into fragments that roll down into the plain’.

“The soils here are impregnated with salt … The natives allege that if they walk on this saline earth, their bare feet become blistered.”

“Tayculum is strongly situated at the end of a small hill of granite, and has a triple wall, each line strengthened with various defences … On the outside of the hill is a temple of Siva, and within it one of Vishnu; both of which are ruinuous.”
Though the landscape seemed dry and arid at many places, there was no knowledge of saline soil in the area. The biggest problem faced now is the scarcity of water, forcing people to migrate to Bangalore. National Highway 4 or “Old Madras Road” from Chennai to Bangalore via Kolar is sometimes called “Tekal Bypass”. With it, development too seems to have bypassed this small village.

Tekal may not have changed much from what Buchanan may have seen. Imprisoned by barren rocky hills on both sides, Tekal’s surroundings is a picture of stark beauty. We located both, the Shiva and Vishnu temples, each situated on either side of the road. The Shiva temple was in ruins, but the Vishnu temple is in better condition and undergoing repair. The archaka family has been in charge of the temple for generations. They say it the temple was built by the Cholas, making it about a thousand years old. At one point of time, they say Tekal had 101 temples, 101 tanks and 101 orchards. Today only a few houses and two temples survive, barely.

“The mud here is excellent for making walls. It is a reddish ferruginuous clay intermixed with small fragments of quartz, and other materials of decayed granite; and a wall constructed of it will, with tolerable care, resist the rains for many years.”
As we drove towards Malur, Buchanan’s Waluru, we noticed several brick factories; SVB, MSB, VBS, CBI, LBW… Buchanan had pointed out that the mud in this region was extremely well suited for making walls, and could resist the rains for several years. We spoke to a worker at one of the factories and his comment was just the same. “Put the brick in water for a day and it won’t even crack”.

“Waluru is a town containing about five hundred houses, and by far the richest, and best built, that I have yet seen above the Ghats. Most of the houses… are in general clean, and, had they any windows, would be comfortable.”

“The town consists of a castle, of a fort or city, and of a Petta or a suburb. The castle is occupied by a Rajput and fifteen of his family… formerly Jaghirdars of this place…”

“At this place there is a weekly fair; and today one was kept, to which people flocked in great numbers from all the neighbouring country.”

Waluru to Malur

Malur seems to have lost its looks, at least that which Buchanan had seen. Today it is but another typical small town with iron rods jutting out from unfinished concrete structures. We passed through Malur on a Thursday. It was the also the day of the week that Buchanan had seen the weekly fair at Malur. This tradition continues even now but the market was a rather sad sight with just a few vendors selling vegetables. The façade of the marketplace, now in ruins, seemed to indicate that it could have been an important place many years ago.

We had one more thing to check at Malur; the Rajput families that Buchanan spoke of. There are quite a few Rajput families still living here, perhaps 25. We were directed to one Rajaram Singh who knew that his roots were from Rajasthan but nothing more.

“In this neighbourhood are many kitchen gardens, which are very well cultivated … the gardens are on sloping ground, watered from wells by the Yatam, or, as the English say, by the Pacota…”

“In the morning I traveled from Catcolli to Bangalore, through a very naked country, of which about six tenths appear to be arable. The remainder is covered with low bushes, and much of it seems capable of being brought into cultivation.”
... Catcolli to Kadgodi
Our next stop was Kadgodi. There was nothing to write home about from this small town which seems to await Bangalore’s arrival. En route to Kadgodi we noticed an old well, dry and abandoned. We were told it was attached to a local temple long ago. Buchanan had seen several wells in this area that watered kitchen gardens. Today we still find many vegetables being cultivated here to serve the Bangalore market. We met a farmer who has built a nylon netted sheltered nursery for cabbage, tomato and cauliflowers.

Rural India is changing … its landscapes may soon be covered with sheets of plastic. The road from Kadgodi to Bangalore is no longer “naked”. Almost immediately after Kadgodi is Whitefield, now a suburb of Bangalore. It is now one of the most sought after residential areas, apart from being a major industrial and software hub.

It is more than 200 years since Buchanan made his journey, a period which covers our entire colonial and post-colonial history. Even as the sun sets on our past, the shadows linger on. The question is, for how much longer?

Boats of Beypore

On December 24, 1800, Buchanan reached Vay-pura, which he mentions was also called Baypour in his maps.  He describes Baypour as most beautiful, especially the north side of the river where it enters the sea. He noticed the building of ships of war but the biggest industry at that time was timber.  The native collector informed him that in 1798, almost 10,000 teak trees were brought down the river.  The timber is cut on the Ghats, and conveyed by elephants to the part of the river which in the rainy season has water sufficient to float it.  This teak was suitable for ship-building.  There was something else noted by Buchanan which we found very interesting:

“At Vay-pura some private gentlemen, with the view of supplying the dock yard at Bomaby with Teak plank, have erected a saw mill … the power intended to have turned this mill was the wind; which appears to me to be far too precarious a moving power for such heavy machinery”.

Buchanan had inspired us to visit Beypore; our first visit was in December 2006.  We were lucky to find that traditional ship-building was still carried out in Beypore, although the demand now comes mainly from the Gulf and Europe.  Throughout 2007 we recorded the process of ship-building having decided to make a documentary film on the subject. Unfortunately, we were unable to do that.  But we still have not given up our plans and are now actively contemplating an ethnographical film on people’s lives and boats in Beypore.  Just last week, we (re)visited Beypore and set the ball rolling … 

Documentary Film Festival Screenings

A Looming Past has been selected for screening at ...

DOKUBAZAAR - Ljubljana Independent Documentary Film Festival 2010
FORUMDOC.BH.2010 - 14e Documentary & Ethnographic Film Festival, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

A Looming Past

Over the last few years we have been infatuated with a plan to retrace Francis Buchanan’s Journey of 1800-01 through parts of southern India.  Although we have put our plan into action, it has not quite worked out the way we had imagined.  Every time we set out to cover a stretch along Buchanan’s route, we were invariably drawn into a detour; a detour not so much a diversion in route, but more a diversion of purpose.  One such detour related to iron smelting in Tumkur and Chitradurga districts and another a historical inquiry on India and the Great Divergence debate using wage and price data sourced entirely from Buchanan’s Journey.  Each detour lasted several months but in the beginning of summer this year, we were finally back on the road, continuing our journey from Hiriyur along the Hiriyur-Srirangapatnam highway.

We stopped at Yelladakere for a cup of tea.  During a casual conversation with the teashop owner, he mentioned the word “kumbli” or blanket.  That caught our attention.  Hadn’t Buchanan written something on coarse blankets?  We rushed to the car to look through Buchanan’s volumes, which we always carry with us.  We soon located a relevant paragraph:

In the neighbouring villages many coarse blankets, or cumlies, are woven from wool which the country produces.  When offered for sale, they are almost as hard as pasteboard; but this quality is given to them by a decoction of the kernels of the tamarind ...  They seem to be an article of dress in almost universal use above the Ghats …

“So do people still weave coarse blankets around here?” we asked the teashop owner.

“Yes, of course” “Take the first left and 12 kilometers from here is a village Obalapura with an entire community of weavers”.

“Should we?”  We asked each other rhetorically.

 We were on yet another detour from Buchanan’s Journey … this time to look for coarse blanket weavers.

At 1 o’clock in the afternoon on a hot summer day, contrary to the level of our enthusiasm, Obalapura looked desolate. But no sooner had we begun making enquiries, our enthusiasm turned to disappointment.  The weavers had given up this occupation.  Yes, all of them.  And this happened just a year ago.  Seeing the anguish on our faces, the villagers, perhaps in consolation, told us there was another village, Yaravarahalli, 25-30 km away where people still carry out this occupation.  One villager was absolutely certain, his daughter was a weaver and he could even take us there.  This was an offer we did not want to refuse.

We reached Yaravarahalli, this time with more guarded expectations.  It was like any other small village and at first did not seem to have anything about it that made it look like a village of weavers.  After being introduced to a few local villagers, we were led towards a small house.  In the courtyard we got a glimpse of some old, if not ancient looking, spinning wheels.  The interior of the house was rather dark but when our eyes slowly adjusted to the light inside, we saw an old man working on a loom that seemed to have been taken straight out of a museum.  Going around the village we were convinced that the initial fascination was not merely momentary.  Almost every house had these ancient wooden spinning wheels and looms and every woman and man, young and old, was busy spinning yarn, ginning wool or working at the loom. We had to come back to know more about these people, their occupation and their lives.  And how could we tell others our story?  We had already thought of the answer; a documentary film.

Over the course of the next several weeks, as we went about filming and taking interviews, we began understanding a lot more of about the weavers and coarse blanket weaving.  The weavers are of the Kuruba caste and consider this not just a traditional occupation but as something they have been ordained to do. It continues to be practiced as it has been for centuries with almost no technological encroachment.  The long and tedious process of making a blanket begins with collecting wool from shepherds once or twice every year.  The weavers, armed with pairs of crude scissors, follow shepherds over hundreds of kilometers as they migrate in search of greener pasture for their sheep.  Shearing wool not only provides the weaver with the raw material for the blankets but also keep the sheep healthy.  In return for their service, the shepherds compensate weavers with a few Rupees for every sheep sheared.  The weavers return to their villages with bags full of wool, which is then beaten with a stick or ginned using a bow before being separated into various colours; black, white and shades of sepia.  With a simple wooden spinning wheel, the nimbleness of their fingers and dexterity of their toes, the weavers transform the raw wool into thread.  Yaravarahalli fitted an idyllic Gandhian setting, where no man or woman, young or old remained idle, working all through the day on the spinning wheel.  The thread then passes through a few more steps before it goes on to the loom.  It is first strung on a wooden frame some ten feet long and six feet wide, where a paste made from tamarind seeds, just like Buchanan describes, is applied.  This tiresome process takes several hours but is critical for it is what gives the wool strength and the ability to resist water.  The treated thread is then measured on an antique looking contraption before the weaver actually puts it on the loom or more precisely, a pit loom.   This is a loom where the weaver’s legs are suspended in a pit dug below the ground.  His body and hands are then on level with the loom placed on the ground.  The loom itself were mere beams of wood, all held together as a frame within which are these rows of coarse wool thread that is slowly knotted together over the next day or two, into a coarse but very elegant blanket.

“Two hundred and twenty five rupees”.

“Impossible.  Maximum is two hundred and ten, same as last year. This is my final offer”.

We could not believe it.  This is what we heard at the meeting between the weavers and a couple of traders to negotiate this year’s price of blankets.  After days of hard work a blanket was sold to the trader at just Rs.210 to Rs.225!  We spoke to the traders, also Kuruba, who take the blankets to the Malnad (about 200 to 300 km away) and sell them to shops and individuals, sometimes on credit.  With a deep sense of concern, the trader told us he sees the worst happening soon; his fellow community people may have to give up this occupation.  The market for blankets is witnessing very poor demand and it is only a matter of a few years before coarse blankets completely give way to plastic jackets and raincoats.  He understands the predicament of the weavers but is helpless against the market forces.  An ancient occupation that has withstood the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution and colonization now stands at the threshold of globalization and rapid economic growth of the Indian economy.  Today, coarse blankets are at the edge, if not the very end, of their existence.  The effect of these forces is already being felt on coarse blanket weaving with the abandonment of looms in several neighbouring villages.

Obalapura was a case in point.  When we returned to find out what was the one final reason that pushed them to abandoning their looms, we were surprised at the answer; bore wells.   Yes, the availability of water had made agriculture more profitable.  With an increase in demand for labour, the weavers found the wages more lucrative than weaving blankets.  While many of them accepted the changing economic realities, there was an old man who seemed shattered at being forced to give up his traditional occupation, his way of life.  “I do not even offer prayers to the loom or the wheel anymore” he said, pointing out to an old and dilapidated loom that lay in the corner.  And in anguish he added, “Our children ask us to close the pits.  We told them why not put us in the pit and close it”.

The documentary took shape in the next few weeks. The film’s objective was simple; it was an attempt to capture the sights and sounds of an ancient occupation in its contemporary and increasingly frayed context and at a critical juncture in its long and textured history.  We were pleased when it was chosen to be screened at a documentary film festival in Slovenia and then in Brazil but the reaction of our weaver friends from Yaravarahalli was even more fulfilling.  “The film will tell our children someday of the hardship and struggle we endured in weaving blankets over hundreds of years”!

It is time to end our detour and get back on our journey … rather, Buchanan’s Journey.