This is the year of the Nila Kurinji, which blooms once in 12 years. As its rare purplish-blue fades across the hills, wild pink Himalayan cherry and fiery reds of poinsettia and dadap burst afresh. At 7,000 ft. touching clouds, Kodaikanal is a sky island that once supported a unique biodiversity. With the introduction of eucalyptus, pine and wattle by the British in the mid-19th century, agriculture and subsequent plantations since the 1970s, the lush grasslands and indigenous Sholas have depleted drastically — finds INTACH’s joint study conducted with IISER and ATREE supported by satellite imaging since 1973.
People and ecosystems are linked, habitats and livelihoods are inter-dependent. For nine days this September, funded by INTACH and facilitated by the Kodaikanal International School (KIS), The people of the Palani Hills celebrated community narratives of the Kodaikanal region with a pop-up museum, a film, village performers and a skit by KIS students.
Priyashri Mani and Nishita Vasanth worked together in Gudulur, researching indigenous communities. In 2015, they moved to Kodaikanal. At Daily Bread, a popular bakery, they happened to meet INTACH members Sunaina and Anil Choudhry and they found common ground. With INTACH funding, over the course of one year, Mani and Vasanth gathered stories of migration travelling to over 60 villages, covering all 15 gram panchayats of the Kodaikanal block in the lower, middle and upper Palanis. “There is a vast rich history before Western settlers that is undocumented and we wanted to study this,” says Mani, who has a Masters in Development Studies. “Our oral histories and stories of origin are often discounted — they deserve their place,” they assert.
Combining their findings with conventional historical sources such as Gazetteer, the duo traced the paths of traditional communities from the arrival of the Paliyans (nomadic hunter-gatherers) and Puliyans (agriculturalists) 700 years ago. Over 60 dolmen sites establish human presence going back to 2,000 years and more. At the end of the year, Mani and Vasanth had a highly comprehensive yet boring black and white report. Wanting to go beyond that, they came up with the idea of a pop-up museum and an illustrated book, emphasising, “Disseminating knowledge is as important as gathering it.”
Bi-lingual museum
Do museums hold memories? Should museums put culture in boxes? Is there a possibility of dialogue? Over the next two years, such questions augured the design behind the bi-lingual museum (English and Tamil) and book — for young adults onwards — with designer Shubra Nayar’s participation. Capturing the forest ambience, colourful stories and artefacts demonstrate co-existence and hierarchies — how the Mannadiars came up and dominated the Puliyans, who had mastered hill agriculture; the Asaris specialise in metal work and Arunthathiyars work with leather.
Traditional practices are still kept alive as Vasanth elaborates: “In the forest, honey-gatherers do a ritualistic dance around a tree before smoking the bees out, without harming them. In Moongilpallam, deep inside the forest, homes are built with plastered mud in bamboo and grass roofs. Older members distil lemon grass and go across to Kerala to sell the oil.”
Before it was set up as a recreation centre by the British, Kodaikanal was first occupied by the American missionaries in the 1850s, who also started the Kodai School. At the museum’s opening event, presided over by INTACH Chairman Maj.Gen. L.K. Gupta, Corleigh Stixrud, Principal of the KIS, acknowledged the hill-station’s synergy. “Somehow the dynamics of different groups of people bring out the best in the people here,” he observed. Many migrated to the Palanis, which stretch across 2,000 sq.km., to escape famine and drought, or in search of alternative livelihoods. The migrants included communities such as the Thevars, Sri Lankan Tamils, Muslim traders, Mudaliars, Nadars and Kannadiyars. As INTACH member David Thomas puts it, “This potage spiced with so many different kinds of people speaking so many different languages — is the wonder, the beautiful mosaic that is the Kodaikanal hills.”
About 18 km from Kodaikanal, at 6,300 ft., the old settlement of Poombarai exemplifies this diversity. “There are 13 to 14 community types in the village,” informs Vasanth.
Alongside the pop-up museum, a musical troupe from Poombarai performed traditional dances such as the deer dance and the dance for the Kurinji. “The Kurunji is not to be plucked, only to be seen and savoured,” the performer announced, revealing native wisdom for the fragile ecosystem.
“Every community has experienced the Palanis in a different way — the Arunthathiyars different from the British, the Adivasis different from the Mannadiars and so on. Therefore, we cannot say that there is one concise history of the Palani hills,” observes Mani. Their dream is that the Museum finds a permanent space for sharing and fostering a dialogue, presenting multiple perspectives, truly meaningful to all communities involved — a gateway into the soul of this land.