The Old Man and the Sea

17 February 2011

The sea is all Kunthal knows. He went on his first fishing trip at the age of ten, hopping into a catamaran with his father and his friends as they set off from Tholpetti, a small fishing village near Thondiarpet, four kilometers from Chennai. He had already lost his fear of the sea by then. “Our fathers would put us into the water and teach us to swim, that was the first step.” he says, looking towards his friend Rajakumar who smiles at the shared memory. “I was not afraid. My father was there, I just went along.”

He had a typical initiation into the world of fishing – puking his guts out into the sea not only the first time but every time for nearly a month before his body finally resigned to its fate and stopped.

But that was a long time ago. He reclines now on the shore of the Marina beach a bearded old man of sixty, his back to the noisy squalor of the fishermen quarters, eyes following two young men assembling their nets near the water to go fishing. Where he is sitting, the beach is cluttered with rows of boats, engines and cocoon-like bundles of fish net. A little away, to his left, revelers shriek and horses trot wearily carrying eager children as parents watch.

Kunthal sits up and turns to watch as the young fishermen, with grave expressions on their faces and thin, sand covered legs, run back up the beach slope to fetch another set of nets. The evening sun is getting ready to disappear behind the light house that stands where the beach sand meets the sprawling Beach Road, on the other side of which rise white government mansions from guarded green lawns. Hidden from Kunthal’s view by these imposing structures, the city hums and growls.

The young men have finished arranging the nets near the water where their boat waits and are scampering up again in a hurry. Kunthal follows their movements eagerly as though he wants to tell them something or offer help. He gets up and shakes the sand off his clothes. The young men are going for the engine which lies on the beach bundled up and covered by a tarpaulin. They carefully remove the cover and insert a pole through the ropes tied around the engine and lift the weight onto their shoulders, then breathing heavily, walk to the boat. Kunthal turns away from this palanquin ride. There is not much he can do to help.

He too had once gone fishing like these men he now envied. First it was in Tholpetti, where he grew up before coming to the Marina beach in Chennai. In those times they used only the catamaran to go fishing. “They were much safer than these motorized boats,” he says. “Even if water entered and the vessel broke, we could take the wood apart and float on them. Boats sink easily, the minute water enters”.

Kunthal himself had owned a boat once, and a diesel engine to power it. “I’ve caught all types of fish there are,” he says. “Sharks, ones as big as our boats,” joins in friend Rajakumar. “But the tastiest fish is the Vanjiram ,” says Kunthal. “Nice big fish…”

 Rajakumar no longer goes fishing to earn a living though he can’t resist the temptation to jump into the boats once in a while. An eighth-pass, he left it for a better-paying government job at Aavin, the Tamil Nadu Milk Cooperation. An illiterate, Kunthal had no such options. But he too gave up fishing forever in December 2004, after the tsunami struck.

No one at the beach knew what a tsunami was until it happened. Kunthal was picking fish off his nets when the water suddenly rose and moved inwards with terrible force, lifting the docked boats up off the sand and carrying them along. “The water came till here,” he says, holding his hands near the neck. “It went past the light house to the government buildings there”

Kunthal dropped everything and ran to the road like everyone else. But before he could reach the road, the water had submerged it. Unable to tell what was on the ground, he tripped and fell, hurting his knees badly.

 That day the tsunami carried away kids playing cricket on the beach and joggers out on their Sunday run. Along with them went Kunthal’s diesel engine, his nets and his livelihood. His boat landed on the road, but the fall left Kunthal unable to do go fishing. “Fishing is a tough job,” says Rajakumar. “It takes a lot of strength to carry the engine. To launch a boat into the sea, at least four men have to push”

The grave-faced young men from before, both in their early twenties, are latching the engine on to the boat. Two other men from the fishing colony have come to help them out, fitting the propeller and loading the nets into the boat. One of the fishermen suddenly remembers something and sprints back to fetch it. A thin gold chain jumps on his neck as he runs, set off against his red vest. Kunthal watches him as he goes. He was about the young man’s age when he moved to the Marina to marry Konasunthari, his wife of thirty six years.

Six months after his wedding, Kunthal was helping to anchor a boat during a fishing trip when his left hand was caught between two ropes. In an instant of terrible pain, he lost his ring and middle fingers. “They fell right into the sea, so the doctors couldn’t have stitched it back” he says simply, stroking the hand which he always keeps wrapped under a white hand kerchief. Despite the injury, Kunthal kept on fishing, a little slower at work than before, but he had a family to feed.

Another tragedy would come two years later, when he lost his infant son, the second of his five children, to an illness. Kunthal prefers not to talk about such things. His daughter, 35- year-old Gandhimathi, the eldest in the family and the older of two girls, remembers her dad as a restless man who continued to fish despite dwindling profits.

 “He would always be running about doing this and that even though the only time he traveled out of the beach was to go visit relatives back in Tholpetti”, she says. “After the tsunami he was left a little broken. He still spends most of his time at the beach but he can’t go fishing”. Kunthal and his wife now lives with Gandhimathi and her family. She, along with her husband, takes care of her parents and two younger brothers. Kunthal’s other daughter is married and lives with her husband in Royapettah.

The tsunami crushed more than Kunthal’s livelihood. It changed life forever at the fishing colony. “We were not afraid of the sea before,” says Rajakumar. “But now we’re always cautious”. For Kunthal too, the fear he cannot remember ever feeling as a child is now a constant presence. “Even if it’s only a big wave, we move away,” he says.

The catch from the sea has gone down drastically since the tsunami. Big commercial trawlers have done more damage; ruthlessly emptying the sea before small time fisher men from Chennai’s fishing villages got a chance to fish. But two young men readying their boat seem willing to take their chances. They insert a pole each through two of the four handle-like coir loops attached around the centre of the boat on the edges. The two young men fire up the diesel engine and grab the boat from the right, holding the vessel with one had and using the other to lift the ends of the pole onto their shoulders. The men who had gathered to help do the same on the other side and push the vessel with their hands and shoulders, keeping an eye out for the incoming wave which will carry the boat into the sea. The propeller’s runs furiously. The men struggle as Kunthal gets restless on the edges of an old catamaran where he is sitting. They miss a strong wave, and wait for another one.

“Hoy!’ Kunthal shouts, looking at the sea. A wave’s approaching. The young men push with all their might on all fours side, their feet digging into the sand. The wave lifts the front portion of the boat up a bit. The struggle continues. In an instant, Kunthal jumps up and is by the boat’s side, helping to lift on to the wave’s crest. Rajakumar also joins in.

 A final push and it is done; the vessel jerks and is rides over the wave. Kunthal falls back, the other men also let go.

Only two fisher men jump into the boat, throwing the poles inside. The one in the red shirt rushes to the front to balance the boat as it is thrown up and down by waves. In a few seconds, they’re past the waves, leaving only a trail of diesel fumes behind. Kunthal slowly walks back, engaged in some banter with the other men, a little taste of the old life making him smile.

Hoshangabad - 'Covering Deprivation'

15 Jan 2011

Conflicts with officialdom, especially the forest department is the common thread in the livesof most people in Hoshangabad, whether it be tribals who’re denied access to forests, farmers prevented from building small scale irrigation projects or potters denied permission to collect firewood for their needs from the forest.

Potters of Shahpur

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Shahpur, Betul District, Madhya Pradesh:  Babli Prajapathi hopes none of her children will have to make earthern ware for a living. She spends her day making clay ‘Chappathi tawas’ which she sells to dealers from Bhopal and Indore who buy it from her for four rupees a piece, then sell it in the market for ten rupees each. When the rains come and she can no longer work with clay in the open, she makes end meet by doing wage labour either in NREGA projects or others. A widow, she lives with her aged father and extended family in the potter’s colony that lines the highway in Shahpur in Betul district of Madhyapradesh.  Two hundred-odd families of the Kummar caste, live in this colony; all engaged in the making of different kinds of earthern ware as well as bricks for their livelihood.  The men , women and children all engage in the work; women mixing clay, painting and polishing pots or making smaller articles while men mould the bogger pots. Their lives have become harder in the recent years with the declaration of surrounding areas which they depend on for firewood, an essential raw material for the trade, as reserve forest.

As they have been told by forest officials not to enter the nearby forests to collect firewood, the potter  families most of whom cannot afford to buy firewood from other sources, resort to sneaking into the forest late at night to escape the eyes of forest department officials. “Wednesday is market day when dealers come to buy our ware,” says Saraswathi Prajapthi one of the potters in the colony. “On Tuesday we have to set up the furnace to heat the pots, for which we need wood”. And hence, over the weekend and Monday, families set out in bullock carts at two or three AM in the morning to collect firewood from the forest. They return in the morning, only to be intercepted on their way out of the forest by officials. Once caught, bribing is the only way out. Sixty to Seventy is the going rate to transport  one cartload of fire wood out of the forest.  The Kummars have now formed a small organisation comprising prominent members of the community and have submitted a memorandum to the District collector and ministers of the State cabinet in December 2010 demanding that they be allowed to collect forest produce that they desperately need to continue their trade.

None of the families possess much land, and are thus unable to build sheds to store the pots which are arranged in front of their dwellings, out in the open. The local Tahsildar’s office views this as encroachment and has routinely slapped eviction notices and charged fines of hundred rupees when it goes on an anti-‘encroachment’ drive.

Only a few families in the colony make bricks, which is a more expensive process and requires land. It is made harder as officials including the Tahsildar have to be bribed to pattain permits for the same. “Kummars were always allowed to set up furnaces without applying for permits,” said Madan Prajapthi. “Now we have to pay to pay a minimum of Rs. 5000 to set up one furnace. For five furnaces set up on an acre of rented land, I had to pay 10,000 Rupees”. He rents land at a price of Rs.20,000 for eight months.

Pottery work can only be done for eight months due to rains which make it impossible for four months. Whatever little saving they make from eight months of work is used to live through four months of no work. A few men and women who can find work do daily wage labour. Unemployment is high in the district and mostly only NREGA work is available.

Most of the children go to school. Saraswathi Prajapathi was adamant her son should not take up pottery. He goes to college in Betul and she hopes he will find some other work . But for most families pottery is the only option. Pappu Prajapthi whose family makes pots that range from five to 60 rupees in retail price is training his children in the ancestral work. “They go to school but there are hardly any other jobs available so they will also take up this trade. It is a family business” he says.

Chaos reigns at the Itarsi mandi

ITARSI: Every morning trucks and trolleys roll past on the Itarsi-Hoshangabad highway making their way to the Itarsi mandi – one of the two largest wholesale grain markets in Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh. The large market turns into a hub of activity with farmers from five districts of the state – Betul, Hoshangabad, Harda, Sehore and Narsinghpur – converging here to auction their produce.

This government-run ‘Krishi Upaj Mandi’ (farm-produce market) facilitates the auction of food grains through three separate auction units, one for rice, one for soyabean, and a third for wheat and Bengal gram. Anywhere from 20,000 to 40,000 sacks of produce reach this market everyday, said R.S. Srikarwar, security authority at the mandi.

The auctioning is a laborious process. Farmers transport several quintals of grain in rented vehicles to the market and sometimes end up waiting for days out in extreme weather conditions for the auctions to take place. The ‘trolley auctions’ are relatively easier. Grains are displayed in and auctioned directly off from the trolleys in which they are brought to the market. But a majority of the produce brought to the mandi is sold through bori auctions that require them to be unloaded and displayed in mounds in open spaces before the auction, leading to much waste and damage.

Chaos and confusion reign at the market –farmers blame the government officials for delaying auctions by days on end. Ramdas, a small time rice farmer has been waiting for three days with his produce at a time when Madhya Pradesh is experiencing one of its fiercest winters with temperatures falling to 1 degree Celsius. “Initially they announced a bori auction,” said one farmer. “But once I had laid out the grain on the ground, the officials decided to hold a trolley auction instead. We have been waiting for the last three days for them to conduct the auction.”

Some farmers have been waiting at the mandi with their produce for four and even five days; bearing the burden of mounting rent on their vehicles as well as expense for food while they wait. Most come to sell their grains when there is an urgent need for cash, like a marriage in the family. But if in the end the produce doesn’t fetch a good price, they are forced to haul it back or sell it at a loss.

As the auction begins, small farmers are left watching helplessly on the fringes as dealers crowd around mounds of grain, spending not more than 10 seconds to determine the quality while the government-deputed auctioneer calls out prices. Within a minute, the produce is sold and the auctioneer and traders move on to the next mound. “We are experienced enough to determine the quality by looking at and tasting the grain,” said Ashish Dubey, a dealer who buys for the Itarsi Oil Mill, as he popped some Soyabean into his mouth from a mound that was being auctioned. “My quality estimate doesn’t differ more than 2% from that of a testing laboratory”, he adds.

Once the sale takes place the labourers employed by the traders or the mandi move in to remove the grain; weighing and packing it into gunny bags to be transported to godowns or factories.

At the administrative office of the market, rice farmers angry at the mismanagement of auctions are holding a protest. But complaints like these are met with apathy. “Even when we refuse to sell our grains in protest, the government uses the police to beat us up, instead of pulling up the officials here,” said the leader of the local rice farmers union.

This year the rice farmers are faced with greater misery than others. Even though Madhya Pradesh produced a ‘bumper crop’ in rice this year, surpassing even Punjab, prices have dipped due to the increase in supply. The Basmati varieties that used to command a price of Rs. 2800 per quintal last year are now sold Rs.2000 and even Rs.1800.

 Many farmers had allocated more crop area to rice, shifting from soyabean the prices of which have fallen in recent years, to rice which fetched good profits in the last season. “The government-imposed tax on soyabean exports led to a fall in prices that the farmer gets,” said Sardar Narvinder Singh, a Punjabi farmer who migrated to Madhya Pradesh in search of cheaper land. Soyabean is also a high maintenance crop with no guarantee of a good yield as opposed to rice.

Soyabean prices are especially dicey as they are subject to the fluctuations in the share market or the dabba market as the traders call it. “Sometimes the prices change every two hours depending on the market,” said Ashish Dubey.

Where the Mahua means much

Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh: When the harvest season is over and after the Holi colours have faded off the walls, the Mahua trees bloom; their flowers falling to the earth, waiting to be gathered by the village women and children.

 The Mahua tree has always been a large part of the lives of men ad women in rural Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere in Central India, especially the tribals. The tall trees dot the village landscape, and are found in abundance in the uncultivated outskirts of villages and in the forest. The fleshy corolla of the Mahua flower is an important part of the village economy. The Mahua season lasts through February and March. The flowers are gathered at night and early in the morning and then cut and dried for preservation. Once dried, they can be stored away for more than a year. Poor families use these preserved flowers during the monsoon when food and work are scarce. Sugandhi Bai, a Gondi tribal woman displayed the carefully stored dried Mahua she keeps at home. “We usually fry them in some oil and eat. If there is no oil in the house we eat it raw and drink some water”.  Dried Mahua flowers are made into chutney with ground nut and consumed too. The seed of the Mahua fruit, called ‘Gulli’ by the villagers, is used to extract oil which is also stored in large jars for later use or sold.

While tribals still consume preserved Mahua, others usually collect only to sell it off to the market. Considered an exotic ingredient, dried Mahua is exported and used in fancy cuisine in cities. A kilo gram of dried Mahua fruits can fetch more than a thousand rupees in the market.

The Mahua flower is also used in the preparation of liquor, popularly referred to as Mahua. This spirit is prepared and consumed by tribal sans non-tribals alike and even though the sale is unauthorised, it is freely available in the market. According to government directions, a family is allowed to keep five litres of Mahua liquor at their home at a time. (Price of Mahua liquor)

A long wait for water

Nandini Thilak  and Satyanarayan R Iyer

BANABAHEDA (Betul): For the villagers of Banabaheda and Chikalda, who almost entirely depend on farming for subsistence, lack of irrigation is their main concern. Due to water shortage a large part of their land holdings go uncultivated, making it impossible to grow rice and wheat.

Farmers mentioned how the Bidiyadol dam, a small-scale irrigation project was never completed. The cost of the project shot up 18 times from the initially sanctioned Rs. 19 lakhs to Rs. 3.5 crores.

Villagers blame the corrupt contractors for embezzling the project money and later abandoning the work. With much of the land surrounding the dam, having come under the control of the forest department (establishment of the Satpura Forest Reserve), hopes of resuming the construction have drowned amid wrangles between the Irrigation and the Forest department over environmental clearance.

The dam, forest officials say, will submerge protected areas as almost 90 per cent of the work was completed before the construction stopped.

Irrigation officials say that the local court ordered a stay on the work of installation of nala pipes that would divert the water. The questions nobody seems to have an answer for is– Was this not foreseen?  Is there no alternative water channel to the farms?

The Irrigation department says it has filed an appeal and the issue is awaiting the government’s verdict. The local government seems to be indifferent about it. “Now the matter is in the hands of the central government. No one knows how and when the case will settle,” said L.N. Yadav, a divisional official at the Shahpur Irrigation office.

An ex-irrigation official (name withheld on request) blamed everyone including the Panchayat for mismanaging the project funds.

“The farmers, the Sarpanch and Panchayat members are illiterate, the contractors take them for a ride,” he added.

There are 15 dams in the Shahpur block of which Banabaheda is a part of, with a capacity to irrigate 6316 acres when full, which happens to be less than 25 percent of the area. In the entire block 60 percent of the area is classified as forest and the rest as cultivable land.

Even those farmers, who possess more than 10 acres of land, are unable to do anything beyond subsistence agriculture due to water shortage and are critical of the Panchayat and the officialdom.

“We’ve demanded several times that the Panchayat do something about the water problem, but nothing has happened. At least the tribals benefit from government yojanas. I receive no help,” said Jag Ram, a dalit farmer. He and his sons cultivate just enough to sustain their family. 

“To repair and complete the dam will require at least another crore which we cannot afford. We are helpless,” said Daulat Yadav, the ‘Up-Sarpanch’ (Panchayat Vice President).

The land around the dam is dry, with sparse vegetation. The argument that the dam will submerge protected areas is hence slammed by the farmers.

“If they want to protect the forest, why is there so much logging?” asked Ramnath Malvi, one of the farmers. Trucks use the road leading to Banabaheda to carry timber from the forests to the timber depot managed by the Forest department.

Eurocommunism - Lessons for the Indian Left

The Indian left’s decline is widely attributed to its disconnection from the masses and its failure to acknowledge and address India’s social realities. In a recent interview, CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat himself admitted that the Indian left was still "banking on the concepts and theories of the 1940s" and had not adapted itself to changing times. He also acknowledged a fundamental flaw in the Indian left movements- the refusal to acknowledge caste system. Feminist scholars have often lamented the left’s refusal to address, even within its party ranks, concerns centered on gender and sexuality. As India is swept by different socio-cultural changes, other movements and issues—gay rights, extremism, the rising influence of religion on politics, tribal movements, extremism—have   also become issues that the left movement must grapple with. While the left leadership remains impervious to these prevailing currents, it might be useful for those interested in the future of left politics in India to look back at the ways in which other communist parties in democratic countries in Europe, when faced with a similar national environment, made attempts to re-invent themselves expanding beyond just the organised working class within their fold.

The year was 1969. Enrico Berlinguer , the deputy national secretary of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) took stage at the International conference of Communist parties in Moscow to deliver one of the strongest speeches that the plenary had ever heard. In his address, Berlinguer, whose party was then the largest Communist party in Western Europe, criticised the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia to unseat a liberal reformist government and raised pertinent questions about Communism and its approach towards cultural freedom, democracy and national sovereignty.

Italian communism was never completely dominated by Soviet-style communism, rooted as it is in the ideological traditions of thinkers like Antonio Gramsci. But Berlinguer’s unexpected questioning of Soviet style communism was symptomatic of the dilemmas faced by communist parties in other western European nations like Spain, France, Great Britain as well. Communist parties in these countries had felt the need for reconciling western democratic systems with Communist ideals; to achieve transformation into a socialist society through democratic means, as opposed to the rigid, undemocratic ways of the Soviet leadership from which they wanted now to distance themselves.

The divisions between Western European communist parties and the Marxist-Leninnist orthodoxy in Moscow deepened after 1969. The leaders of Communist parties of Italy, Spain and France met in 1977 in Madrid and charted a ‘new way’, what came to be called Eurocommunism - Communism characterised by a readiness to adapt to western democratic principles and independence from the Soviet Union.

Eurocommunism was derided by both capitalists and soviets alike; termed opportunism to capture power by the quickest way possible-by opposing the Soviet Union; but it was also a brave attempt at reform, borne out of an engagement with radical changes occurring in the society around. Eurocommunists opposed the lack of internal democracy in communist parties and sought to broaden left politics to include other revolutions of the time—the women’s movement, gay rights movement, student politics—into its goal of a society of equals.

Euro communism evolved differently in different nations and eventually lost most of the ground they gained in the 70’s due to American arm twisting and ideological conflicts and confusions within party ranks, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the cold war and resultant swing toward neo-liberal reforms.

 Eurocommunists in Italy entered into a “historic compromise” with the Christian Democrats.They made considerable gains under Berliguer- polling 34.4% of total votes in 1976, but lost their influence when the agreement fell apart with the assassination of Christian Democratic Party leader, Aldo Moro, by the extremist Red Brigade. A lack of clarity in its ideology and the party’s alleged failure in completely breaking with Soviet style communism eventually led to the dissolution of PCI in 1991.

 French communists eventually took a U-turn and went back to traditional communism, losing the supporters to the Socialist Party (PS). In Spain, internal conflicts led to the downfall of Eurocommunist movement.  Sanitago Carrilo who led democratic reforms in Communist Party of Spain (PCE), was expelled from the party in 1985 after successive electoral defeats and strong dissent against his ‘revisionist’ policies from party ranks.

But for all its failures, Eurocommunism inspired progressive socialist movements in many countries outside Europe like Japan, Mexico and Australia and was even acknowledged by Gorbachev as having inspired him in formulating glasnost and perestroika.

Now as the Indian left faces an uncertain future and the threat of fading into complete irrelevance, it could draw some pointers from the victories and failings of Eurocommunists on how it can adapt itself to changing times and the realities that surround it. However, the Indian left has so far remained remote, refusing to broaden itself to engage with a complex society where class does not constitute the only division, and where the goal of a ‘class-less’, or rather, a just and equal society, is complicated by class, caste, ethnic and regional identities as well.

Divine Intervention?

Hanumanthapuram is not easy to reach. A narrow tarred road snakes towards this small farming village from the Chennai- Chengalpattu National Highway, dissolving into a dirt track halfway through the ten kilometre stretch. On an ordinary day, only a handful of people travel up and down this road, crammed into ‘share-autos’ that service Hanumanthapuram and other villages that lie en route to it. But every month, on Full moon or New moon days, this sleepy village wakes up to receive thousands of visitors. Their destination is the temple of Agora Veerabadrar at Hanumanthapuram, famed for a deity believed to be capable of curing mental illnesses.

Legend has it that Lord Shiva, enraged by Dakshaprjapathi’s refusal to invite him to a yagna, created Veerabadrar, who emerged from drops of Shiva’s sweat and punished Daksha by beheading him. Locals and devotees who come to the temple believe that the temple sits on the place where Veerabadrar battled Daksha. The temple is estimated to be 300 to 400 years old but despite its fame, the building’s wears an unassuming look, a welcome change from the gaudy, commercial temples that dot cities and ‘temple towns’.

A tree laden with offerings stands in front; colourful threads and painted miniature cradles hung by childless couples decorating it. Below, few old women sit selling betel leaves, Veerabadra’s favourite offering, as well as vegetables and other provisions. The area doubles up as the village market place.

 Locals shrug when asked about the temple’s therapeutic powers. “People come, stay for ten-twenty days and then leave when they’re cured”, a woman on the ‘share-auto’ had said. Are you going there? “No…” she said, visibly embarrassed, and got off at a village on the way, mumbling a hurried goodbye.

Around the temple wall, six or seven people—relatives of the mentally ill patients brought to be cured here—cook rice in makeshift stoves. Inside the temple, an eerie calm prevails. Men and women lie scattered on the floor in front of the sanctum sanctorum. Some are huddled on the floor under blankets, others sit leaning on pillars, their eyes vacant. A mother sits near her adult son, coaxing him to do something. The temple officials who sell puja tickets are sitting inside a netted cabin with nothing to do; visitors are few on an ordinary day.

Behind the sanctum sanctorum on the floor sits Vijayalakshmi, her forehead marked with an abundance of red vermillion paste. She looks about sixty and is dressed in saffron robes. A wooden stick sits menacingly in her hands as she eyes passers by with a glint in her eyes. She grew up in Jaipur, but her family lives in Madurai she says. “I came here three months ago. I have been everywhere, Kashi, Rameshwaram… Veerabadrar , he speaks to me. You stay here for fourteen months he said to me, I will go back to Madurai after that”. As she is talking her eyes follow a young woman who is circling the sanctum. “She is praying for her husband, comes here daily…you must circle the deity 16 times, then he will hear your prayers. The priests don’t do anything, there is no charge, the patients talk directly to the lord, he tells them what is happening and what to do. Even if they go back after being cured, they come back on Pournami and Amavasi days to pray.”

The locals are not very comfortable when asked about their village and its distinction, but have ready explanations for the temple’s powers. “It is the place, it has some strange energy”, says Manoharan, whose brother owns a shop nearby. “The area around is farmland and reserved forests, I think even that has an effect”

Hanumanthapuram receives a flood of visitors from neighbouring villages when special pujas are held on ‘Pournami’ (full moon) and ‘Amavasi’ (new moon). People immerse themselves in the temple pond, a practice that is supposed to help cure all illnesses, including those of the mind. The Tamil Nadu Government’s Hindu Religious Charitable Endowments Department runs the temple. “We inform the Transport department when pournami and amavasi approach, and they run special buses on those days to carry devotees to the temple” said Ms. Chandrasena, Executive Officer in charge of the temple.

What prompts people to seek cure in a temple rather than a hospital? Dr. Prabhakaran, a clinical psychologist who practices in Mylapore, Chennai, says affordability of medical care and awareness are a definite problem in rural areas. The desire to conform to local practices and social norms is also a factor. “Therapies like this help sometimes, when intense faith in the possibilty of getting better becomes sort of therapeutic. But for serious cases, it is definitely harmful” he said.

Temples like this exist in other parts of India too. In Kerala, the Chottanikkara Devi temple attracts people who bring mentally ill women, especially schizophrenics to the temple hoping that the goddess will cure them. Chottanikkara is famous for exorcisms and ‘Guruthi’ puja, which is believed to cure mentally ill women.