The Kakatiya Legacy

Yogendra Kalavalapalli & Preeti Zachariah

Pics: Yogendra Kalavalapalli 

WARANGAL/HYDERABAD: The lake-bed of the Puttalamma Cheruvu (lake) in Kanchanapally village, Warangal is still very dry, except for the small, algae-bedecked puddle in its centre. A herd of grazing buffaloes, amble languidly towards it, leaving hoof-prints in loose red soil, spotted with patches of grass and scrub bushes. Trees line the earth-filled embankment dam that cordons off the lake, casting long shadows across its sloping sides.

Kishan Rao, a slight man in a pink and white checked shirt and dark pants, kicks a clod that has dislodged itself from the structure and explains the reason for its flaccidity. “The contractor did not press the freshly-laid soil with a roller after they built it,” he says, pointing out that cracks and furrows had already appeared on its surface, despite it being a very recent project.
Putallama Cheruvu is part of the second phase of Mission Kakatiya.

 The shoddiness of the work done at Puttalamma Cheruvu, being “rehabilitated” as part of an ambitious government programme called Mission Kakatiya, has irked most of the inhabitants of the village of Kanchanapally. While the black granite inauguration stone claims that the contract value to rejuvenate Puttalamma Cheruvu, which is supposed to irrigate around 400 acres of land, was Rs.76.97 lakh, obviously a large part of it has been skimmed off by the contractor, who got into a scuffle with the villagers and walked out of the project mid-way.

For instance, the lake-bed was supposed to be cleared of all vegetation—a process referred to in local parlance as “jungle clearing”. Ideally, the jungle clearance process, as stated in a manual on construction procedure for Mission Kakatiya, involves clearing the plants from their very roots. However the contractor simply fire to them, which removes the plants only at a very superficial level, says Rao, pointing out that saplings have already emerged from the toasted earth.
“These jungle plants prevent the flow of water into our farms,” he rues, “They consume water meant for our farms, are no use to anyone and grow so fast,” he says.

The sluicegates appear to have be restored very haphazardly too. Instead of removing the top layer of existing stone and applying a coat of cement slurry, as specified by the government’s engineering manual, the contractor has not bothered to remove the pre-existing weir structure, choosing to simple pour of a lot of poor quality cement over it, giving it a stippled, patchy look.

 The monsoons haven’t hit yet but once it does it could to be disastrous for the village, believes 62-year-old B. Lakshmanji, “If there is heavy spell of rainfall, the lake fills up very fast.
If the embankment is not strong enough, the water will breach,” he says, recalling a similar incident in 1983 when this indeed did happen, swamping farm-land and the villages beyond, “(Former chief minister) N.T. Rama Rao visited our village from the helicopter. He distributed food packets from the helicopter,” remembers Lakshmanji.





The Kakatiya dynasty

The Kakatiya dynasty, who ruled Telangana between the mid-twelfth century to the early fourteenth century were known for building artificial water bodies to retain water in the notably dry region.
According to Shailendra Kumar Joshi, principal secretary of irrigation and command area development, Telangana, these 46,531 tanks have an irrigation potential of 18.85 lakh acres, of which only 35% is being currently used.

Currently the water-parched state is excessively dependent on ground-water for irrigation. So much so, that electricity usage spikes during the growing season during which the farmers deploy electric pumps to draw in underground water. The average rainfall for Telangana is way below the national average and 231 of the 450 mandals or administrative units in the state have been identified as being drought-hit by government officials. Farmer organizations, on the other hand, peg the number at 368.

For the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS)-- the political party which rode to power in newly-created state of Telangana on the back of a successful movement— restoring these tanks is a priority, understandable enough when 56% of the state’s labour force is engaged in agriculture. T Harish Rao, the state’s irrigation minister, describes these minor irrigation tanks which not just irrigate farms but also recharge ground water, quench the thirst of man and beast and serve as a breeding pool for fish as the “lifeline of Telangana people.”

In a manual on Mission Kakatiya, Minister Rao says that ageing and siltation have impacted the original capacity of the tank. Since siltation, the accumulation of sediments in water bodies, impedes water flow and affects aquatic life the government has embarked on a mission to restore 46,531 minor irrigation tanks in the state by desilting and dredging it. The project, which was kicked off last March, plans to do this in five phases, at the rate of 9,350 tanks a year. The estimated cost of the project is Rs.22,000 crore.






 A ray of hope

Lush green fields greet you at Makta Kunta, a small pond in Srimannarayanapuram village, a bumpy 8 km ride away from Kanchanapally. Herons and egrets waddle across it, foraging for the odd insect to snack on. A sudden drizzle has begun and the road splicing the reservoir and the field beyond, is empty, save for a lone cyclist wobbling his way home.

 Part of the first phase of Mission Kakatiya, this is a small water-body that can irrigate around 100 acres of land. But the work here is far less sloppy than the work done at Puttalamma Cheruvu. The strictures that the construction manual has stipulated seems to be adhered to. Despite the fact that the project was worth only 9.6 lakhs, the embankment walls are well constructed and the cement used is of superior quality. Jungle clearing, however appears to be a problem--because of no rains last year, the pond was not filled up and vegetation grew in the months that followed. This could impact the efficacy of the structure if clearance does not happen soon, “If there are rains this year, the water will not flow easily. It will not reach our farms,” said G. Ilaiah, a 65-year-old farmer who cultivates four acres.

Work is still underway at Saniga Cheruvu close to Jangaon town, a much bigger project. There is a long way to go, of course—while the weir at the edge of the lake is complete, the lake-bed still resembles a verdant pasture, there is rubble scattered all over the lake bed, a passel of pigs nose into the mounds of rubbish at the site.





The Telangan government’s flagship project is ambitious and has been garnering a fair bit of attention. Minister Rao requested officials from the agricultural department to assess the impact of the project and central government funding is being sought. If successful, it could change the face of agriculture in the region. According to a report in The Hindu, the flagship program has begun to not just increased the water-retention capacity of the tanks but has also improved soil quality—the silt extracted is being deposited back in the field.

However, on the ground, the situation is far from ideal. Too much depends on private contractors, currently. Contractors could be made more accountable if the defect liability is increased from two years currently to 20 years. If that is done, argues Beeram Ramanna, of Rythu Swarajya Vedika-- a group of non-governmental organizations and intellectuals working on agriculture issues, the contractor will be more responsible and will make sure the quality doesn’t take a hit. This will not allow them to escape with shoddy half-baked work, he reasons.

 Right now, “Work is not being done according to specifications laid down by the government,” he says. Villagers agree, blaming it on the usual suspects--greed, corruption and lack of accountability.

 As H. Niranjan, another farmer who incidentally is also a supporter of theTRS party, sardonically remarks, “KCR (Telangana chief minister K. Chandrashekar Rao) has promised us Bangaru (Golden) Telangana but it has become commission Telangana,” he says.

The form of meditation

Courtesy: The Isha Yoga Foundation Website

I walk gingerly down a flight of roughly hewn stone steps, clutching onto the wall with one hand and the folds of my soaking wet robe with the other (we had to shower before—like at a swimming pool). My hair is supposed to be tucked under a hairnet, but I can feel a clump that has escaped it, settle wetly on my neck. I doubt that Mr Degas, despite his penchant for bathing women would have found me a prepossessing sight. In the decidedly unsexy, grimy orange robe and cheap snood, I look more like a slightly deranged sadhvi than any sort of temptress.

I’m at a kund (there are two here and the one for women is called Chandrakund) in a popular yoga ashram in South India. It  is the sort that is mostly frequented by prosperous businessmen in search of meaning, corporate doyens trying to discover new facets to leadership and Caucasians flirting with the exotic, the esoteric, the obscure. Its founder is a mystic of sorts with a wicked sense of humour, a bit of a reputation and plenty of sass.

 I am not a believer. I haven’t been one for years now, so I’m not sure why I’m walking down slippery stairs into a dank cavern (they really have spent money to create atmosphere, I must admit) and have agreed to immerse myself in the dark, bubbling water below.

A few women are already there before me. One stands under a cascading water-fall l that feeds the tank; another floats on her back gazing wistfully at the ceiling which has some pictures of random yogis and sages (think a Tantra T-shirt version of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel); another is hugging to her chest a huge metallic ball (the lingam, which to my horror is said to be solidified mercury. Hello, hasn’t anyone heard of Minamata?).

I, on the other hand, have only one thought on my mind as I step into the water, “I hope no one can see that I’m wearing nothing underneath,” and I cling fiercely to my robe with both hands, cursing buoyant force and telling myself it would have been a sin for me to subject my gorgeous, new M&S lingerie to this freezing, dodgy-looking water.

My companion, an attractive, intelligent woman is almost one with the water: she glides dreamily along to the waterfall, her face aglow and stands under it, looking like a slightly older version of the Liril Girl (in hideous orange not minty green, though). I reluctantly venture in neck-deep, give the mercury lingam a desultory pat and then declare I am ready to leave.

In dripping robes, we ascend the stairs, shower and change back into our clothes before proceeding to the space we had to get into the cold water for (to activate chakras) in the first place. They call it the Dhyanalinga Yogic Temple: a huge meditative space made of wood-fired bricks and mud, unsupported by pillars, concrete or steel

At the entrance, is a pillar with symbols of various religions inscribed on it, “We welcome all religions here,” says my companion, a sense of pride and ownership, creeping into her voice. I smile, frankly unconvinced. Religion doesn’t work for me anymore, syncretistic or otherwise.

You cannot speak beyond this pillar, so I follow her silently inside, my bare feet leaving behind footprints on the hot stone step at the entrance. The first thing you see in the inner parikrama is a massive granite effigy of Patanjali fused with the body of a snake. The corner in which he is placed is sunken so all you can see is a pair of beady eyes, surmounted by a cobra’s hood (Nagaraja (Siva) is the world’s first yogi).

Opposite him is the Vanashree shrine and the walls around the pathway that lead to the inner sanctum are granite panels telling the tale of six South Indian Saints.

We crouch on the floor waiting to be called in: a bell is rung every 15 minutes and you enter and leave only when you hear the sound of that bell. It is warm—no, hot and I desperately want a shower. I do what I always do when I am bored and have to wait (in church, at the doctor’s, in class): I check out what all the other women were wearing and how much nicer/less so, her outfit is compared to mine. Hardly, spiritual I admit but it staves off boredom.  

The bell rings: people troop outside silently with the same expression on their face that you see on a Christian’s after communion. But then, perhaps that makes sense—the Eucharist is the most important of the Christian Sacrament because to sip of that wine and sup off the bread is to acknowledge the existence of divinity, divinity so close that you can touch and feel and taste it.

A bare-chested priest summons us inside, a placard in his hand that tells visitors to wait inside for 15 minutes till they ring the bell. In keeping with the general trend, I bend my head, assume an expression of piousness and follow the rest of the people inside.

At the risk of sounding cliché as hell, the space is surreal—some sort of nameless, primeval, intense force almost ricochets off the walls. Or perhaps it is my imagination and that is just the Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves setting: think slow, dripping water, oil lamps, high ceilings and a silence so thick that you need a woodchopper to slice through it.

In the centre of the cavernous dome is the linga: a humongous, 13 ft high, phallic structure composed of black granite that represents energy. It is surmounted on a white granite mass, fashioned into coils and there are garlands of marigolds splayed across it.

I’m not greatly impressed but what I’m very kicked by are the tiny meditation nooks that have been carved into the walls of the dome. I make a nuisance of myself, shuffling my feet and tripping over already-meditating people, as I seek to find one just for me. The priest frowns at me and tells me to sit. Luckily, I spot an empty nook and crawl into it.

Ok, now it gets creepy. See, I’m a restless person: I shake my legs when I have to wait for someone; I can’t sit at my desk for more than an hour; I almost always take a quick peek at my watch during Shavasana (unless I actually simply sleep off, I have done that, I admit).

But in there: time actually stood still, the seconds and hours and minutes deposed by a silent, searching infinity where nothing mattered and yet, everything did. The oil lamps sometimes flickered and sometimes were still; you could hear sometimes the breath of the person in front of you and sometime not; the golden golden ceiling of the dome descended and then went back to being very far away.

Nestled in my nook, the space in my head went quiet, something that almost never happens. I wake up at three in the morning thinking about work, about the past, about relationships: all those niggling little burrs that cling to your skin so tight that they soon dissolve into it and become one with it.

I barely felt those 15 minutes—I didn’t hear the bell either (and I was awake, mind you). It is only when people around me started getting up that I did too, silently following the crowd outside, more than a little stirred, a little shaken, a little closer to that country we call peace. 

Since my phone hasn’t rung tonight

                                                             Less of this, please

As with most things in life (my body, work, book, clothes, family and sundry ex-boyfriends) I have a complicated relationship with my cell-phone. There are days when I love it—when I’m receiving  a flurry of messages from eligible bachelor or connecting finally with a source I’ve been chasing or when my mother  or sister or Z or A calls up at the end of an awful day, just to tell me they miss me.

But there are other days, I long to throw it away. Or better still stomp it into the earth until, like Wordsworth’s proverbial Lucy it, “ceases to be.” Like when random people who speak only Hindi ask for Ramkayalli and abuse me terribly when I refuse to tell them where he is (it is a recycled number that was owned by the hitherto mentioned Ramkayali who incidentally has around 1.5 l in Vijaya Bank ALL THE TIME,  lucky bugger); or when PR girl calls to tell me that company XYZ is launching a new frying pan that sings while oil sizzles and that as singing cookware is now a trend, I should definitely do a story, pegging it on XYZ (I know I’m being mean, but still…); or when significant other (potential or existing) doesn’t text or respond leaving you too distracted to function; or when my voice notes get deleted or refuse to download; or when I spend an entire day trawling Facebook in my PJ’s while all the world and its sister are conquering mountains, getting hitched, running marathons, losing weight, writing books or partying wildly till the wee hours of the morning.

Of course, cell-phones are great. You can download super-cool apps that book cabs, tell you how many calories you have eaten, keep you constantly connected with everyone you want to ( and many you don’t) etc but it’s also awfully intrusive, at times.  And oh, so addictive….

I got my first cell-phone only in my third year of college. It was my father’s hand-me-down—an ugly, grey, boxy thing nothing like the sleek, sexy handset I now own (or it owns me, I say).  I just thrilled that I finally owned a phone without a wire and no longer had to crowd outside the slightly malodorous PCO booth in college and glare at some dreamy-eyed young lady coochy-coing into the phone while the rest of us melted in the oppressive Chennai heat. Besides, I’ve always had a thing for things like laptops and emergency lamps and walkmans (it doesn’t become walkmen, no?) ---pretty much anything that works without having to be plugged in (A shrink will  tell me it’s a sign of commitment phobia, methinks?).

It probably was the phone that was with me for the longest time. Then it got traded in a couple of times, and then again till I finally got the one I now own—an Iphone 4 S.

You remember that slightly cheesy number (I loved it in college, of course) of Celine Dion that said something like, “If walls could talk, ooh they would say I want you more.” I must admit that I'm glad that cell phones do not talk. I was be horribly embarrassed by the epistles (I keep forgetting it is Short Messaging Service) I have composed on them.

“Dear Mr Love of My Life (No. 105). You were the best thing that happened to me. I have never felt this way about anyone. Since, we cannot be together, though, I wish you well. I hope you find someone who makes you happy (yeah, right).  As for myself—I resign myself to my fate .Yours Preeti. (I kid you not; I have cluttered inboxes with messages like that)”

Or, “Don’t worry, girl. He will spend his life regretting it. You are brave and strong and beautiful and you will find a man who sees you for what you are (like really—can it get more cliché than this?)

Even worse, “What did I do so wrong? Why did things have to turn out this way? (yes, choosing your fate is like choosing neck-patterns at the tailor. I’m sure Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos will spin it just the way I chose)

I know it’s a bit late in the day for New Year resolutions but I’m giving this one a shot. Break surgical attachment to phone. Put it away when you are talking to someone and walking on the road. Stop analyzing people’s state of mind from a single sentence long message. Avoid stopping mid-breath during a yoga session to take a quick peek. Don’t trawl Facebook when you have time to waste—read a book or talk to someone, instead. Put it on silent at night and stop looking at messages when you get up to pee or drink a glass of water. Stop arsine Good morning and Good night messages to random folks who don’t give a damn either ways. Switch it off completely, not put it on silent mode, during a movie or play.

And hopefully discover that glorious sound of silence for a bit—I haven’t in so long.