A culture that embraced nature and forged a sense of belonging.
There was a gracious old lady called Vadivoo in old Munnar division of Sevenmallai estate. She was a second generation plantation worker and I knew her during the 1970s. During that period whenever asked she would say her age was a 100 years, shaking her head and smiling her toothless smile. She would tell you with a sweeping gesture of her hands that the yonder tea bushes of Parvathy division were planted by her father. When in a story telling mode, she would narrate how their family came to the district from Udumalpet, (a distance of some 80 kilometers) hiking over the hills from the arid plains in search of a livelihood. Vadivoo was the youngest child and 3 years of age. She was given the privilege of travelling on her father’s shoulder most of the time during the trip. History tells us that the first teas planted in the district were by A. H. Sharpe in 1878 in Parvathy division before the James Finlay period. Vadivoo’s father could have been one among the workers or a ‘Kangani’ involved in the first tea planting of the district. But the daughter marked and embraced the area forging a bond with those tea bushes.
My daughter tells me that at Nallur in Karnataka an old man who stood guard at a wayside temple near a huge banyan tree, now cordoned off by the government in order to protect it, claimed with a wave of his hand that he had planted the 400 year old tree. The fact is that he had not planted it, but the truth is that he felt that he did. That the tree and he, they belonged together like families did. He could relate to the tree and felt a sense of belonging.
In the very same way, here’s Kandaswamy, in the picture, embracing the tea bushes and the very rare Rainbow Eucalyptus tree with a sweep of his hand. He spoke about his father, how he helped plant the first tea bushes in Viripparae. He explained how the first seeds were smuggled to munnar by the white mans wife. Thank god for the stones and symbols planted under the tree that helped protect it from being cut.
The Stillness Project 