By the Amaravathi

THE Amaravathi river swells into life in the Anjanad valley of the Western Ghats, whose slopes are awash with Kurinji blossoms once every 12 years, descends to the plains near Udumalaipettai, Tamil Nadu, and flows by the village where I was born and raised. The name Amaravathi echoes the Buddhist past of this part of the country.

In Buddhist mythology, the city of Amaravathi is the capital of Indra's kingdom. I decided that on my birthday (the Big Six-O, this year), I should wake up on the banks of this river which formed a major backdrop to my childhood years.

A tiny farmhouse, smack on the riverbank, proved an ideal locale for my morning of reflection. This place, where we usually dove into the river as children, has remained unchanged. The tall marudam trees on the banks, the sounds of a washerman "beating" clothes on a stone, a herd of cattle crossing the river in loose single file, the drumming call of the crow pheasant, a pied- kingfisher hovering purposefully over the water, the smell of hay and the azure blue sky dotted with just a few wispy tufts of cloud ... it was as if time had stood still.

During my childhood, a holiday visit to the Amaravathi river with our little fox terrier, Caesar, in tow, was a daylong affair. With improvised tackles - fishhook tied to a string on a bamboo stick - we sometimes landed fish. There were days when we joined the man who went about poking the slush at the water's edge with a long pole to locate mud turtles. The pool of crystal clear water, upstream in a dilapidated dam, was the venue for our water games, like catch-as-catch-can. This was where our seniors gave us swimming lessons. We returned home ravenously hungry.

Most of our waking hours were spent in the open. When we were not at school, we were either in the river or on top of the Kudai seetha trees that dotted the open landscape. With a flat, umbrella-like canopy and dark bark, this tree is typical of the dry, arid zone in the western part of Tamil Nadu. We were as much at home on the treetops as we were below. Neither those thorns among the leaves nor the occasional bronze-keel-back snake that showed up in the branches, swift as a lightning, deterred us. The games we played, like udhiyangombu, called for deft climbing of trees and adeptness at jumping down quickly. Often the girls joined us.

The night sky was full of stars and you could see the Milky Way clearly beyond. On moonlit nights, we stayed longer in the open and it was time for Hide-and-Seek. This game was very popular because it gave us a chance to huddle with the girls under the cover of darkness. There was more seeking than hiding in this game. When I came home from college during my holidays, the girls had grown distant. You had to devise and play more complicated games in order to get anywhere close.

My work took me to different parts of India. Wherever we lived, our annual trip to my sondha ur acquired the dimensions of a pilgrimage. For our children, a visit to the river, along with the ride in the jutka that took us there, was often the high point of their holidays. They would romp noisily in the shallow waters and ask me to catch for them those tiny fish that darted past their feet.

I was pulled back to the present by the farmhand who had brought my breakfast, rava dosai from Devi Vilas; lunch was Periakadai biriyani. I noticed that the flavour had not changed much. Venturing into the village, I was able to locate at least two childhood friends, one recovering from serious brain surgery. The other was one of our swimming instructors. We sat, not far from a kudai seetha tree, sipped tea and talked about our playmates, both the quick and the dead. Our palaver came to an end when my friends' grandchildren returned from school.

In the evening I was by the river again. All around there were signs of the day being wound up and there was certain serenity in the air I had not noticed earlier. The coconut trees stood silhouetted against a low, crimson sky. A flock of sand grouse arrived at the water's edge for a last drink. In the light of the setting sun, the thin strands of the river appeared like molten gold. On my left, in the fading light, I saw a stretch of sand in front of the Thillaburi Amman temple. This was where we had gathered the day after Gandhiji's assassination to listen to speeches and sing songs at a memorial meeting. My memory of that evening is a picture of our music teacher, Devadas vathiyar, leaning on the wheels of a cart and wailing.

Leaving Dharapuram behind, the Amaravathi takes a sharp bend, meanders towards Karur and meets the Kaveri. Downstream, as it nears the sea, the Kaveri flows into a maze of channels. There the waters blend into the Bay of Bengal and with the oceans beyond.

S. THEODORE BASKARAN

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