A few years ago, I wrote a series of articles on the forgotten river of the city, Karamana, in the pages of The Hindu MetroPlus . One of the best responses I got was from a college teacher from NSS College, Karamana. She had worked in the college for a couple of decades and crossed the river through the Karamana Bridge twice a day while commuting from her residence in the city to the college.
After reading the series, she wrote to me saying that she had never thought about the river although she crossed it almost every day on her way to work and back. She was moved when she realised that her thirst was quenched by the river every day, that her house was built with mortar made with sand from this river bed, and that after her demise, her ashes might be immersed in the very same waters of the river.
Today, the river is very much in the news because of various efforts of the State government and local self-government to protect and rejuvenate it. The recent flood has woken up the State to the rights and protests of the rivers. Karamana river also was in spate during the flood. Its natural cleansing effort and its eviction of encroachments from its flood plain were seen in glimpses in various places in Thiruvananthapuram.
Illustration accompanying the news of the inauguration of the bridge over the Karamana river, which appeared in the Illustrated London Times
No one can describe the major cities of the world like London, Kolkata or Delhi without referring to them as cities by the river (Thames, Hubli and Yamuna respectively).
Curiously, most promotional material on Thiruvananthapuram does not promote it as a city by the river Karamana. Karamana river, being in the capital city, has been tucked away behind the cityscape and no visitor to the city today might notice the city as one by the river.
The river seems to have escaped the notice of poets from the city and those who settled in the city, a neglect that has been addressed now by poets like Gireesh Puliyoor.
Waterfall on the Karamana river at Peppara
A cursory glance at historic writings tells us that the banks of the Karamana was once the city’s front yard. Alas, it has become its dump yard today. The river gets dirty as it winds unnoticed through the city backyard and receives a lethal injection at Thiruvallam where the highly polluted Parvathy Puthanar joins the river, and together the two complete a short journey to the estuary, where it meets the sea.
Like rivers all over the world, Karamana has it fans. Like Kaveri, which inspired great music composers of South India, Karamana was an inspiration for great composers like Swathi Thirunal, Irayimman Thampi and Neelakanta Sivan. Swathi Thirunal had a special love for this river. The mandapam built by him to watch the river in spate, near the Karamana bridge, and the Kunnu Bungalow in Mudavanmugal, his favourite spot for sojourns, are both evidence of his affair with the river. From the Kunnu Bungalow, one could see the river winding through lush greenery, with the Western Ghats in the backdrop fading into the horizon.
A walk down the hill leads to a Kadavu where glimpses of life intimately connected to the river are still seen. The residents catch fish from the river, bathe in the river and cross the river in country boats to the temple on the other shore.
Aruvi, an Adivasi woman, who lives in the upper reaches of the Karamana river
If one traces the origins of the river, one can find tribal communities living in harmony with the river. In one of my travels, I met a Kani woman named Aruvi (stream), who seemed to be a personification of the river in her name and in her attachment to the river. The river is pristine in the hilly regions where many of its tributaries emanate from.
A new bridge now carries the outbound traffic from the city. The old bridge had its foundation stone laid by Swathi Thirunal and was opened by his brother Uthram Thirunal in 1854. The spectacular ceremony was sketched by an European artist and was published in Illustrated London Times . The area adjacent to the bridge is still called Kalpalayam, a camp were stones were stocked and worked on.
The stone used is of special variety, called ‘Narikallu’, and the bridge construction was overseen by Col. William Horsley, who also built the Travancore Observatory. Horsley also wrote a memoir on erstwhile Travancore in 1839, much ahead of Sangunni Menon writing a formal history of Travancore. He describes the river too.
Prior to Horsley, Ward & Conner in the Memoir of the Survey of the Travancore and Cochin States (1827) describes the Karamana river thus: “ The Karamanay River is the most remarkable. It’s general course is about fifty degrees S. W. making several grand windings. It rises from the deep valleys of the high range of mountains about Chenboonjee peak; The river is navigable for rafts to a considerable distance, during a portion of the year attended with difficulty in hollows where the stream is violent and bottom, rocky. The timber for exportation is dragged to the river by elephants and floated during the rains. Small canoes roughly hollowed also are at this season floated down. It was in agitation to throw a dam across this river on the East of Curacolum for the purpose of conveying water by a canal to the Trivandrum Fort across the Killiyaur. ...from thence it winds through a rich country to Poondra flag staff and soon after leaving the southern declivity of the table land, falls into the sea above Punnatoray head-land”.
The river banks are fertile lands where keera and venda flourish. But the two dams built upstream have weakened the flow of the river and it is no longer able to deposit enough alluvial soil on the bank. The banks are still green with coconut trees, bamboo, thaza (Pandanus) and Othalam, in places where it has not been encroached upon.
The Killi river, which has the Attukal temple on its banks, joins the Karamana river close to its discharge into the sea. Killi has one of the oldest dams in Kerala, though a small one, at Maruthankuzhi. The stone slab shutters of the dam are no longer there and recent renovation hides its antiquity (of more than 250 years). The dam had a channel, called Kochar, which took water to the Padmanabhaswami temple, which has vanished now.
Killi river bank at Valiashala has another important historic monument, the Valiashala temple, most likely one of the campuses of Kanthaloorshala, an ancient University. The temple has inscriptions relating to Rajendra Chola (AD 1013-1045). Not many are aware that this university was unique in India, in teaching Charvaka philosophy.
A river that has nurtured culture and bio-diversity on its banks and has quenched the thirst of city residents deserves a better deal. The earlier it can be protected and revitalised, the better.
Published - September 28, 2018 04:58 pm IST
