It is a surreal sight to behold. If tourists flock to the riverbank to see the half-visible structure during the rains, they wander through the crumbling, yet elegant church with its Gothic architecture during the dry months.
The French missionaries who built the Rosary Church on the banks of the Hemavathi at Shettihalli village near Hassan in Karnataka in the 1860s would not have had an inkling even in their wildest dreams that the river would, about a century later, engulf their place of worship. When a dam came up across the Hemavathi in the 1970s, people were relocated from Shettihalli, and the church went under water. Since then, the structure plays hide and seek — under water when it rains and out during summer — earning it the name “floating church”.
Films and television serials have been shot here and of late, it’s a popular backdrop for pre-wedding shoots. The people of the submerged village have not lost their ties with the church. In April, when the water level is low and the church is visible, they gather, gazing at the majestic remains that hark back to a time when the church bells called the faithful to prayer.
(Text and images by K. Bhagya Prakash)