On a Shoestring to Coorg

by Dervla Murphy

  Here the fire burns in a low mud stove, which has two holes, one behind the other, for saucepans. It is fuelled with long, fairly thin branches which lie on the floor and are pushed farther and farther in as they burn – or are withdrawn, should it be necessary to lower the heat. All this I observed this morning while standing outside the kitchen doorway watching Shanti boiling water to steep Rachel’s foot; and since it is not my intention to use the caretakers as servants (even if they would condescend to serve mlecchas, which seems doubtful), I immediately realised that because of pollution complications I would have to buy myself a little kerosene stove.

  It must be frustrating for Rachel not to be able to race around exploring our new home, but with her usual stoicism she has adjusted uncomplainingly to being a semi-invalid and she did not object to being left alone this morning while I went into Virajpet to shop. Dr Chengappa had given me the local bus times (the bus stop is a mile away, where our road joins the Virajpet road at what is called Mill Point), and I decided to catch the eleven o’clock ‘in’ and the one o’clock ‘out’.

  Between our house and Mill Point are two long, low, substantial buildings, standing on their own about a furlong apart. These are Devangeri Middle School and Devangeri High School, the former built about seventy years ago by Dr Chengappa’s grandfather, the latter built in 1966 by Dr Chengappa (who paid half the costs) and a group of other Devangeri farmers. The Coorgs have never believed in waiting for some outside authority or central government to provide what they felt they needed; they do it themselves. And you can see this spirit of vigorous independence in the very way they walk and talk and behave.

  I did not wait at Mill Point, knowing the bus would stop anywhere to pick me up, but happily no bus appeared. The little road switchbacked through dark green coffee, golden paddy-valleys, grey-brown scrubland and patches of forest. Sometimes I passed a tiled whitewashed house, guarded by plantains and palms, and usually the pale blue mountains were visible, not very far away, against a cobalt sky. Coorg now looks autumnal: the coffee-berries are turning red and in the forest many leaves are tinged pink, yellow, crimson, brown, or orange – though here green always remains the prevailing colour. A fresh breeze blew, a couple of round white clouds drifted south, and the silence was broken only by bird calls and an occasional creaking ox-cart carrying rice to the mill or straw to the market. As I walked along I rejoiced to think that I am no longer merely passing through this glorious region but have become a temporary resident, to whom each curve of the landscape will soon seem familiar.

  Virajpet is attractively spread out at the foot of Maletambiran Hill, a prominent mini-mountain visible for miles around. The town’s full name is Virajendrapet; it was founded only in 1792, by Dodda Virarajendra, to commemorate the meeting between himself and General Abercromby during the first campaign against Tippu Sultan in 1791.

  A disconcerting Gothic-cum-Baroque Roman Catholic church is visible from afar as one approaches Virajpet. Since its foundation the town has had a colony of several thousand Roman Catholics, most of whom speak Tamil, Malayalam or Konkani. At least the Lingarat rajas were not guilty of religious bigotry and when Tippu Sultan began to persecute his Christian subjects these fled to Coorg and were given a free gift of lands. In his correspondence on this subject with Catholic clergy, the Raja always referred to the Bishop of Bombay as ‘your High Priest’, and under the British the Church lands were registered in the revenue accounts in the name of ‘the Chief God of the Christians’.

  My kerosene-stove cost me Rs.10; like most Indian factory-made goods it looks very ill-made but may just last for two months. Sugar is rationed and costs the equivalent of 12 pence per kilo, or 22 pence on the black market; this means that only the rich can afford it, even at the legal price. Other prices per kilo are: dahl 15 pence, coffee 45 pence, mutton 60 pence, honey 40 pence, baker’s bread 16 pence. Small eggs are 3 pence each (I remember they were half an old penny each in North India ten years ago), ground-nut salad-oil is 45 pence per litre, inferior curds are 4 pence per litre and heavily watered milk is 10 pence per litre – and not always obtainable at this season. Only fresh fruit and vegetables remain relatively cheap – for us, though not for the unfortunate Indians – and a kilo of delicious tomatoes cost me only 2½ pence.

  I got home soon after three o’clock feeling very arm-weary: again the expected bus had not appeared. Rachel seemed quite unruffled by having been abandoned for over four hours in strange surroundings; I suspect she becomes so involved in her own affairs of the imagination that she fails to notice time passing. As I scrambled up the ladder she said, ‘I like the sounds here’ – and I know exactly what she means. Urban sounds merge into a distressing blur of noise, but each rural sound is separate, distinct and comprehensible – the soft trot of cattle-hooves on dust, the tossing of rice on a wicker tray, the crowing of a cock, the squeaking of the pulley as water is raised from the well, the harsh disputes of parakeets, the shouts of men urging oxen around the threshing-floors, the barking of a dog, the grinding of grain in stone hand-mills, the laughter of children, the thud of a coconut falling – and now, as I write this at 8 p.m., the unearthly howling of jackals.

  On the way home from Virajpet I met an elderly gentleman with an old-world manner who introduced himself as Mr P. A. Machiah, the husband of a cousin of Dr Chengappa. Later he and his wife called, to make sure we ‘lack nothing essential’, and I soon realised that we certainly do not lack good neighbours. Mrs Machiah – tall, slim and briskly kind – is such a practised granny that Rachel adored her on sight. She eyed our establishment appraisingly and then said she would lend us a slop-pail, a basin, a jug, a large spoon and two saucepans. I really warmed to this couple, who have invited us to visit them tomorrow. As they were descending the ladder Mr Machiah paused, beamed approvingly up at me and said – ‘Anything in excess of what you need is luxury!’

  12 January.

  I woke at six-thirty to hear an exotic dawn-chorus of jungle-birds and see a silver sky turning blue behind the trees. A thick mist lay on the paddy-valley and moisture was dripping to the ground like slow rain, from the leaves of the immensely tall palms.

  Rachel has become much addicted to bed-tea so I got the stove going and for want of a teapot made an excellent brew in a saucepan, tea-house style. At present milk dilution is my only worry. One expects it to be diluted in India, where a variety of desperate governmental anti-dilution measures have merely provided new and better opportunities for bribery and corruption. But if our suppliers, who live on the edge of the compound, are diluting the Murphy half-litre with unboiled water from the well we may soon be in serious trouble because of Rachel’s refusal to drink boiled milk. I have assured them I will pay the same for a quarter-litre of neat milk as for a half-litre of milk and water, but I fear the watering habit is too ingrained to be eradicated overnight.

  Although I might not choose to live permanently without the modest mod. cons. available in my own home, I do positively enjoy a spell of the simple life; one needs it, to keep in touch with what are still the realities of life for the majority of human beings. It is also worthwhile rediscovering how superfluous, though time-saving, most of our possessions are; and it shocks one to realise how much we waste. Here every banana-skin is eagerly devoured by some bony passing cow, and every discarded sheet of newspaper has a use, and every empty tin, bottle or box is treasured.

  Rachel is now able to hobble around our rooms at top speed, but until her wound is healed she must avoid infected dust so she rode piggy-back this morning to visit the Machiahs. We were guided by a little old Harijan woman, with teeth that have been broken and blackened by a lifetime of betel chewing, who lives in our compound. She does errands for anybody who will give her a few paise, and Mrs Machiah had instructed her to show us the way.

  Crossing the farmyard behind our house we came to the Devangeri maidan, and then to a rough, dusty, hilly track running west for about two miles through paddy, scrub and forest. It forks at a settlement of sub
stantial Muslim cottages, barns and cattle-shelters – Coorg seems to have no slummy shacks or hovels – and turning right here one descends to a level expanse of stubble, beyond which rises a steep ridge. On this stands the Machiahs’ house, surrounded by richly scented rosebushes, many varieties of flowering shrubs, and papaya, orange and supporta trees draped with black pepper and loofah vines. The Machiahs spent most of their working lives in Bombay, where Mr Machiah was a senior railway official, and I have rarely met a couple who are so zestfully enjoying retirement.

  While we sat on the veranda, drinking our nimbu pane, Mr Machiah explained the exact significance of the Coorgs’ sacred brass wall-lamps. All important family decisions and events must take place before the lamp and agreements made, or loans given or received in its presence, require no signed document or other formality since it is an unforgivable sin to break a promise to which the lamp has been ‘witness’. In each household the sacred lamp must be lit morning and evening and it is unlucky to say, ‘The lamp has gone out.’ Instead, one says ‘Make the lamp glow more’. The prayer-room should never be defiled in any way, so when passing through it at Devangeri we must always take off our shoes.

  Mrs Machiah invited us to stay for lunch, but I made an excuse about having to go to Virajpet as I hope to establish a casual two-way dropping-in relationship, on the Irish pattern. However, we were sent off laden with sun-warm fruit – a colossal papaya, a hand of bananas and a dozen supportas.

  Butter and cheese are virtually unknown here, but we have both become enslaved to the fabulous Coorg honey. It tastes, in truth, like a food of the gods – which is not surprising, given the variety of flowering trees from which the local bees operate.

  This afternoon, in Virajpet, an enthusiastic young man in the South Coorg Honey Co-operative told me there are more than 16,000 beekeepers in Coorg, where it is the main cottage industry. But he complained that the average production of honey per hive was only ten to fifteen pounds, compared to almost fifty pounds in the United States. ‘Never mind’, said I (who knows nothing whatever of sericulture), ‘perhaps you can’t have both quality and quantity.’

  The young man sighed. ‘You think not? Then it is better to have quantity and get more money – don’t you agree?’ And he looked baffled when I replied coldly that I did not.

  Already I am being made to feel a part of Devangeri. As I walked home several strangers stopped me to ask how Rachel’s foot is today, and how long we are going to stay here, and why I like Coorg so much. The Coorgs seem always ready to stop for a chat, instead of staring suspiciously, as so many Indians do, or turning away to laugh at one behind their hands.

  Tonight I have a sore tooth – the penalty for excessive thrift. I bought the cheapest dahl in the bazaar and it was so lavishly adulterated with fine gravel that I am lucky to have any teeth left. Tomorrow I shall present the rest of the dahl to Shanti, who doubtless is more expert than I at the skilled work of unadulterating grain.

  13 January.

  An uneventful day, full of beauty and contentment. This morning we went for a three-hour walk through the splendidly untouched forest north of Devangeri and – today being Sunday – passed several huntsmen carrying guns and hoping to go home with a deer, a wild boar or at least a rabbit. I had not thought there were any rabbits in India, but the locals assure me there are. Perhaps they were imported to certain regions by the British. As the Coorgs were never bound by the Indian Arms Act they have remained keen shikaris, which explains the total absence of monkeys in these forests; unlike most Hindus, the Coorgs do not regard monkeys as sacred animals but as crop-destroying pests and good meals.

  The few people we met all wanted to know why I was walking briskly towards nowhere in the heat of the day with a large child on my back. When I explained that I was simply walking for fun, to enjoy the landscape, they plainly either disbelieved me or thought I was at an advanced stage of mental decomposition.

  On our way home we came on three Ain Manes and, when we investigated these, were of course observed and invited in to drink coffee or nimbu pane. A typical Ain Mane is approached by a long, narrow, winding lane – an oni – cut deep through the reddish soil of a coffee-plantation, with seven-foot-high banks. At the end of this oni are substantial red-tiled cattle-sheds and outbuildings – often two centuries old, yet kept in perfect repair – and then comes a paved threshing-yard with a slim stone pillar in the middle and mango and flame-of-the-forest trees around the edge. Half a dozen stone steps lead up from the yard to a long, deep veranda – the Kayyale – which is reserved for the elders of the family, who gather there to relax, chat, play cards, confer, drink, arrive at decisions and receive guests. Usually the sturdy wooden veranda pillars are lavishly carved with gods, cows, birds, fish, lizards, snakes, elephants and flowers.

  The traditional Ain Mane is a handsome, massive, four-winged structure; in far-off days it often served as a fortress, like the Nair houses of Kerala. Half a century ago, before families became so fragmented, it was not uncommon for one Ain house to shelter seventy or eighty people, perhaps representing five generations, while it was normal to have forty or fifty family members living permanently under one roof. Yet the process of fragmentation began long ago, under the Lingayat Rajas, who feared the power of some of the richer and more enterprising families. These Rajas actively encouraged the establishment of separate homes by Coorgs who had come into property through marriage, or who for some reason had had to leave the ancestral nad, and the British presence and the development of coffee plantations accentuated this tendency.

  At the first Ain Mane we chanced on, our hostess took us indoors to see the general plan of the house. ‘Indoors’, however, is not quite the right word, for on passing through the heavy, intricately carved main door one is in the Nadu Mane, an enormous square hall open to the sky in the centre, where four pillars stand at the corners of a deep depression in the floor – looking not unlike an empty swimming-pool – which is of great importance during wedding ceremonies. Formerly the Nadu Mane was used as a dormitory by the young unmarried men of the family, and the kitchen, bedrooms for married couples, guest-rooms, children’s rooms and prayer-room all lead off it. Most of the rooms are small, with high, raftered ceilings and beaten earth floors, and though they are kept scrupulously clean their ventilation and lighting are poor.

  Each Ain Mane has either a Karona Kala or a Kaimata quite close to the house. The former is a raised earthen platform built around the trunk of a milk-exuding – and therefore revered – tree, and reinforced with stones, rather like the Nepalese porters’ resting places. Here, however, such platforms are for ancestor-veneration and the little shrines built on them face east, sun-worship being so closely interwoven with the Coorgs’ religious life. The Kaimatas seem to be a fairly recent development of these ancient Karona Kalas. They are substantial single-roomed ‘chapels’ dedicated to particular ancestors who died bravely in battle, or otherwise distinguished themselves, and they often contain Islamic-type gravestones though the ancestors in question have usually been cremated and cast upon the waters. Within most Kaimatas crudely carved stones represent the ancestors and on all important occasions a little meat curry, rice and Arak are offered to these on a plantain leaf. There is an annual Day of Propitiation, too – known as Karona Barani – when special offerings of food and liquor are made. And, not content with all this, some families – like the Chengappas – have evolved their own particular forms of Karona-worship, adjusted to the individual characters, noteworthy deeds or possible present needs of their forbears.

  We spent the late afternoon sitting in our own backyard, watching the threshers through a haze of golden dust. Nothing could be more primitive than their methods. Each sheaf of paddy is beaten on a long, flat stone, just as a dhobi beats clothes, and as the grain falls to the ground it is swept up with a grass broom and shovelled into a sack. Because of the threshing our yard is more populated these days than it normally would be and we are a marvellous added attraction – somethi
ng like a side-show at a circus. At all hours people wander up to our apartment to observe the odd habits of foreigners: but they never stay long or handle anything – just study us shyly from the top of the ladder.

  To add to the charms of Coorg, there are no insects in this house apart from an occasional house-fly. No mosquitoes, no ants, no fleas, bed-bugs, cockroaches, spiders, lice or weird unnameables such as afflicted me in my Nepal home when I wrote – as I do here – by candlelight, near a broken window. Outside, of course, there are various types of large and vicious ants. Probably the red tree-ants inflict the most excruciating bite. I absently sat on some this morning, while resting in the forest, and as a result I now find it very hard to rest anywhere.

  14 January.

  The fact that I do not recoil from Coorg’s curiously anglicised atmosphere must be partly owing to the unusual historical process that brought Coorg under the British. It was never subjected to Government of India laws unless these had been made specifically applicable to it and the Raj, having been invited to stay, wisely adopted a policy of ‘Coorg for the Coorgs’ and gave most of the subordinate jobs in the Government Service to the scions of old Coorg families. (The senior posts were of course never open to Indians, however able they might be.) Thus the local British ghost is quite unlike the spirit that lingers in Ooty or Simla, though during the second-half of the nineteenth century the Coorgs enthusiastically adopted the English educational system – not to mention hockey, cricket and whisky.