Athirappilly: Expectation vs Reality
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| What I expected |
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| What I got |
Athirappilly is the largest waterfall in Kerala with a
height of 81.5 feet. There is still water to fall, I was consoled when I
visited it yesterday. But the condition of the waterfall jolted me quite rudely
simply because Kerala has moved only a little over a month from the monsoon
rains. One would expect the waterbodies to be still dynamic.
My first visit to the place was in the
Christmas season of 1981. A small group of us went to the waterfall late in the
evening, swam in the sprawling waters at a safe distance from the waterfall, had
dinner on the rocks, and spent the night with the stars twinkling above us. The
heavy, continuous roar of the fall mixed with its deep, soothing low-end rumble
lulled us to peaceful sleep.
The place had not become a well-trodden
tourist attraction back then.
When I visited the place the second
time, in 1995, there was much bustle in the place with a lot of tourists all
over. And barricades too. But there was water in abundance in the area as well
as the falls.
The might and fullness of the falls
had vanished when Maggie and I stood in Athirappilly yesterday. The forest was
still there, but looking weary and worn out. The entire area looked alarmingly
vulnerable.
Perhaps this happens when we revisit
a place that remains in your memory as a kind of sweet yearning. I couldn’t see
Athirappilly just as a landscape: it had to be set against the landscape of my memories.
And then the shrinking waterbodies
strike us hard. The thinning forest. The rising structures in concrete. The
plastic waste lying scattered around. And the nauseating stench of human sweat all over
the place.
Nature rarely disappears dramatically. It retreats inch by inch, with undue politeness.
I witnessed that process yesterday with a pang in my heart.
The most painful tragedy may be not
the damage we have done to nature but our listless acceptance of that damage as
normal.
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| 1995 - My family members in the background a fraction of the waterfall still behind |
Thanks for having captured the run down look of Athirampally Falls... An adjective, I picked up from the Americans, when I was in Detroit, on the Canada border, just a few hours from the Nayagra Falls, on the Canada side, not far from where Lisa and Sojan used to stay, when their children were tiny tots. Now returning to the Nature's Run Down, and it's Going South, the humans are to blame.. Their addiction to concrete and the ephemeral comforts...
ReplyDeleteThe biggest irony is Malayalis constructing palatial houses and then leaving them uninhabited altogether. The amount of useless construction that goes on in Kerala alone creates immense havoc on nature.
DeleteMonstrous Constructions, by the nouvove riche... Then the older and impoverished rich imitating them... Upstartish Status Symbol Pathology.
DeletePathology indeed.
DeleteThanks for visiting, I miss the translator, I praise the videos, and I wish you both a nice Sunday!
ReplyDeleteSorry your translator isn't working.
DeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteWhat an excellent post... hitting the nail squarely on the head! Change is the inevitable truth of life, but simply to ignore it, or to not take actions that can delay or reverse the adverse effects is complacent at best, entirely ignorant at worst. To be part of the change that is deleterious to onself and one's fellow critters, is abominable. Yet the human race persists... Your example of climate and enivironmental impact is superb. YAM xx
You may be the only person who will understand why I couldn't smile like Maggie in this picture.
DeleteI thought I would share the biggest waterfall in Idaho is shoshone falls, it 212 feet tall and 900 feet across. The biggest water fall in my area is copper creek it fall is 155 to 225 with feet down a dramatic rock face. I have hiked into cooper creek, not the other one.
ReplyDeleteDo share the pics and your trekking experience. I'd love that.
DeleteI'm sorry. I wonder why the falls have depleted so. Environmental factors are influencing everything it seems.
ReplyDeleteThey are! We've done irreparable damage to the planet.
Delete