I am a nurturer, a load bearer, a silent spectator and a
carrier of scars and memories. I have been a witness for generations of life
forms that have blossomed as well as perished on me. I am the land you walk on,
the land you worship, the land you curse and the one who silently watches you
grow and patiently wait for you to come back to me!
You have named me ‘Gummalapuram’ and have demarcated me to
be within the village limits, belonging to Thally taluk and Krishnagiri
district of Tamil Nadu state of India. As a contagious portion of land, I also
encompass small hamlets like Ganganahalli, G.M Doddi and Gumalla.
Let me begin my story, my version of the events because as
the old African proverb goes – ‘Until the Story of the hunt is told by the
Lion, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter’.
My timeline is very vast to be easily comprehended by your
sense of time. So, I shall restrict my narration to the period of the advent of
humans on me. I had always been covered by scrub forests, dominated by bamboo,
as the weather I harbour supports mostly scrub vegetation. Though scrub forests
are no less interesting than evergreen forests. These forests are home to some
beautiful birds like the Paradise Flycatcher, Sirkeer Malkoha and many more
mesmerising feathered friends. My forests sheltered some proud cats like the
tigers and leopards and have been home to the giants - elephants, for decades
now!
Your kind has always lived in harmony with me and my other
tenants. Your ancestors revered and worshipped me. Their life revolved around
my seasons and they always accepted my givings with gratitude and considered
every life around them sacred. They were clever when they took shelter in caves
to secure themselves from elephants in the nights. Till date you will find some
beautiful caves on me that have the remains of your ancestral bricks and
residence proof. Such was the harmony between your ancestors and me that you
sit in these caves for a minute; you will know that only harmony with me can
give you that quality of peace and calmness! Yet with each passing day, you are
undressing me naked and building your beloved cement villas that you covet with
such great obsession and pride! But I know the truth that inside those villas
you, my children, undergo immense depression, dissatisfaction, sorrows but
still put on the most fake smiles I have ever seen in my lifetime (which is so
huge that you cannot comprehend!).
Things began to change when two brothers who were kings,
dropped on me one fine day! They were hurt and bloodied from a battle and came
to my village in search of help. Though I have never understood your concept of
‘caste’, it seemed to matter for your ancestors. One such caste, who was the
majority on me, closed their doors to the kings and refused to give them water.
By then, one of the kings ventured off
to my forests to seek solace while his brother went to another caste seeking
help. While the former walked to the forest, drops of his blood kept dripping on
me. And at every drop that fell, a temple arose and thus, the saying that I have
108 temples, 108 caves and 108 lakes! The king who went to the forest died due
to his injuries and there lies a temple which is worshipped till date by the
villagers. They go in turns, again according to their caste, to offer their
prayers to this temple for rains every year. And lo behold, it wasn’t hard for
me to guess that the villagers believed that it would rain only when the
highest caste would go to pray! Yeah, my rains follow and understand your
language of caste! Oh, I have this tendency to go off track when I start
narrating my story. Getting back to the brothers - Whereas the brother who died
in the village, cursed the folks who had refused to help hurting humans and
legend has it that the entire household of those families have perished from
this village!
As time progressed, the lives on me became more anthropocene
and economical. When your ancestors were dependant on my forests, their life
might have been difficult but it was more peaceful and qualitative. Now, the
villagers strive hard to feed and clothe themselves. My soil was so red and
rich that it attracted brick making industry to my villages. I kept saying no
to your extraction but, sadly, you men never understand the term ‘No’ from any
female and now, due to your over extraction, my soil is neither red nor rich
anymore! The village was dominated by one or two households that were
materialistically better off than the others. Rest of the villagers went to
their households for work and worked on ‘their’ land. How can I be owned by any,
still remains a mystery to me! Because I do not belong to any life form, I have
lived before you and I shall live after you. You have arisen from me and you
shall come back to me and become a part of me! Then how can you demarcate me
and call me your ‘property’. I nurture all the life forms on me, then how can
you restrict me on a paper and say I should nurture only certain households
while the rest drop their sweat on me and till me! Those were hard times when
the villagers started to chop my forests to collect firewood and sell them in
the market. They started to clear my forests to make more land for their kind,
not realising their folly, that for their kind to survive, they needed my
forests. As the proverb goes, they were digging their own grave with no
realisation. I had blessed my villagers with everything they needed – fertile
land, rains that lasted 9 months in a year, food, forests and peace of mind. I
am clueless as to why did they then clear my forests that called the rains for
them, degraded the very soil that gave them food to eat, a lifestyle that gave
equal measure of leisure and work – only to earn some papered money that would
buy them all the things I had arranged for with no price! How can I forget, you
call yourselves the most evolved and intelligent creatures on me. Aren’t you
now!?
Time further progressed and another land called ‘Bangalore’
grew in proximity to me. This land has her own story to share but I will stick to
my own. As she grew closer and closer to me, my villagers morphed. They morphed
into economically driven machines that only dreamt of re-locating to Bangalore
and make loads of money! They forgot and still tend to live that way, that the
very essences of life forms on me are bio-diversity and balance! When
monoculture seeps into life, like in education, work fields, lifestyle,
agriculture or food – that life form becomes too boring for me to sustain and I
decide to slowly wipe that form off my face.
The life forms that I considered my own have tonsured me
bald by cutting away all the trees on me and left me so naked that I have
stopped feeling ashamed of my nakedness anymore. My rich dressing of red soil
is all gone and now I wear tattered rags of yellow, sandy, degraded soil. My
other life forms too are shooed and scared away when they come on me in search
of food and water. There is no more gratitude or sacredness to life or me! While
my trees called the rains, by cutting away the very old trees, no one is left
to call the rains to me now. I am blazing with thirst, waiting to quench my
parched body and cover myself back with forests. Though few of you folks may
argue that you have planted Eucalyptus to cover me up, those trees don’t belong
on me, they come from a far off distant land-relative of mine and they do not
understand my language. They do not speak the language that would call my rains
nor do they build a relation with my soil and other organisms down here. Your
ancestors and I communicated with each other and shared our stories and lived
peacefully. Now, I try to communicate with you, in the language your ancestors
understood but which you have arrogantly refused to learn. I give you signs
that if you do not heal me, you shall perish, because your timeline is
miniscule when compared to my infinite one!
Until all life forms on me are not treated with love and
respect by you, including certain groups of your own species, I shall not be
healed. I need my forests to cover me, call my rains; I need my other life
forms to maintain balance of life on me; I need you too to enjoy my creation
and beauty. There is still time to heal all of us, including you, to come back
to being wholesome and blissful again.
I pray to you to stop growing towards the sky, because your
roots are in me, you need the warmth I give. Let your sight come back to me
again, O human, stop beckoning to reach the sky, and bend down to touch me with
reverence again so I can bless you with peace and bliss!
Yours’ truly,
Gummalapuram