Let me follow in the footsteps of that delightful gentleman the Mad Hatter who asked Alice, “why is a raven like a writing desk?”, and pose a question of my own: “what is the connection between the Cholas and cows?”. Being of a somewhat saner disposition than the Mad Hatter (although there are many who will dispute that), I will provide a perfectly rational answer and spare you the vexation of thinking up a response. It is very simple, actually: of late, both of them - Cholas and cows - have been jostling about in the upper reaches of my cerebral cortex (if indeed such a region exists). Cholas, because they are my current obsession; and cows, as I have been reading about TM Krishna’s latest book Sebastian and Sons, which is an account of the lives of the people who make the south Indian percussion instrument, the mridangam, portions of which are fashioned out of cow skin. Recently, the two - Cholas and cows - came together in the course of a most delightful day.
Southern India in the 9th century was a ferment of rival dynasties vying for power, struggling regimes, waxing and waning empires and ambitious chieftains ready to seize an opportunity ripe for the taking. From this churning turbulence was born the great Chola dynasty which began with the bold capture of Thanjavur by an upstart chief named Vijayalaya, and which rose to its greatest heights under the rules of Rajaraja and his son, Rajendra. The dynasty earned the moniker Imperial Cholas due to the scale of its achievements.
As is very often the case, a person rises to greatness by standing on the shoulders of the giants who lived earlier; so it was with Rajaraja, whose great-grandfather Parantaka was a fearless warrior whose victories were as brilliant as his defeats were calamitous. Parantaka Chola, the third of the Imperial Cholas, had a long reign of 48 years, from 907 to 955. I will not go into the details of his reign except for what is relevant here.
Over a hundred years ago, epigraphists deciphered a set of extraordinary inscriptions on the wall of a temple in a village called Uthiramerur. The inscriptions are from the reign of Parantaka Chola and describe in staggering detail the procedures to elect the members of the village assembly. Just imagine - over a thousand years ago, the residents of a little village had the vision to come together, discuss, and and conceive of an ideal assembly and who should be worthy of being a part of it. Some of the conditions included the financial status of the individual - he (it was always a he) had to own a certain quantity of land and own his home; he had to be educated; be of good moral character (a list of sins was named; no amount or kind of atonement could knock an aspiring but sinful candidate off the disqualified list) Any impropriety in his accounts or in those of a long list of relatives automatically disqualified him and the said relatives; and so on. A foolhardy wannabe assemblyman? Fuhgeddaboutit! In essence, only those who were financially well off, well educated, morally upstanding and of all-round good character and good sense could even think of putting their hat in the ring. The names of those who made the cut were inscribed on palm leaves and put into a pot; the assembly members were selected by pulling out the requisite number of names from the pot.
Ancient words of wisdom
Dear reader, as you come up for breath from this history lesson, you would be justified in wondering why you were subjected to it. The reason is simple: I was in Uthiramerur very recently and saw, with my own eyes, those very inscriptions, describing everything I just told you about. These photos will give you an idea of how the Cholas conducted business, what their public records office looked like. The temple was probably the most frequently visited place in a village and it made most sense to inscribe all transactions - whether religious, economic, social, military or political - there, for all the world to see and make note of.
And now, another thought might swim into your benumbed consciousness: where do cows fit into all this?
I had occasion to visit a goshala - a shelter for cows - right after this Chola temple. It was started by very dear family friends of ours in 2013, as a place where old cows, normally destined for the slaughter house, could live out their twilight years in peace and with love and care. The goshala is called Sampradaya, and is right outside the town of Uthiramerur - yes, the same Uthiramerur of Parantaka and his temple inscriptions. I have been keen to visit it ever since I heard about it and finally got my chance to do so this week.
We set out, my friend and I, early in the morning from Madras. Uthiramerur lies around 90 kilometres south-west of Madras, off the highway that goes on to Tiruchirapalli (Trichy). We passed a crush of engineering colleges and IT offices and eventually left the city behind. I love driving through the countryside of India. As the urban bedlam fades away, you enter another world altogether, one that is as full of life and chaos, but where time slows down and moves at a gentler pace. We stopped at a restaurant called Saapda Vaanga (Please Come and Eat) right outside Chennai. I opted for Ragi dosai and idlis and my friend had a ghee roast dosai. This is the Tamilian breakfast at its best - a carb-fest that would give nightmares to the keto-and-paleo crowd but oh so delicious and utterly satisfying. And the service......eating there I realised just how low I had sunk into the agitated waters of the lake of Brisk Efficiency. This food was meant to be savoured and the gentleman serving me ensured I did. With an indulgent smile, he urged me to eat more eggplant gothsu, tiny cubes of tender, melt-in-the-mouth eggplant swaddled in a mouthwateringly tangy and spicy curry. It was a specialty of this restaurant, he told me, made exactly the way his mother did at home. To glance at the phone, to hurry through my meal, would be sacrilegious in this place, an insult to the food prepared and served with such care. The meal was simple, the setting, modest, but it was utterly and delectably satisfying.
Breakfast done, we drove on past open fields dotted with trees and stubby shrubs, and turned off the highway towards Uthiramerur. I expected a sleepy village but saw instead a lively, bustling town with shops, temples and restaurants lining every inch of space along both sides of the road. There was the usual traffic mayhem with buses, cows, bicycles, cars, autorickshaws and people all seemingly intent on barrelling in from all directions towards a collision point and managing miraculously to maintain that crucial inch of space to avert disaster. And right there, on that busy street, teeming with the comings and goings of this very modern age, stood that ancient temple that has witnessed all that came to pass here for over a thousand years.
It is a modest temple, made of stone, with a simple elegance and charm. The cacophony and flashy colours of its surroundings set this quiet little temple apart. It is called the Vaikunta Perumal temple and is today under the care of the Archaeological Survey of India, which means that it is clean and quite well maintained. The famous inscriptions run in neat, straight lines along the walls. I ran my fingers through them and imagined I was back in the 10th century, watching the engraver chisel out the royal order, letter by letter. Looking at them, I had to marvel at the work done by the epigraphists and historians of times past who read and translated these words, in the Tamil of the Chola era, a tedious, painstaking endeavour that had to be fuelled by an immense passion for the work at hand. Thousands of these inscriptions, along with their translation and analysis and commentary, have been published and are available in full and for no cost, online. Their work is the key to the kingdoms of the past, the magic that brings history alive.
Up a flight of steps is the sanctum sanctorum which was dark; the only illumination was a tiny flicker of light from a single lamp. Outside, a priest was busy cleaning copper and brass utensils and he disclaimed any interest in or knowledge about the history of the temple. “The other priest will come, you ask him,” he snapped at us, scrubbing with a force that hinted at pent up frustration and bitterness. The other priest materialised shortly after and was a much more affable sort. I was impressed with his knowledge of the temple’s history and it was good to see his pride in it. Right outside the grounds of the temple is a bus depot - that, alas, is what has become of the temple’s tank. For shame!
Uthiramerur was what was called a brahmadeya, a brahmin village. According to the priest, Uthiramerur remained a largely brahmin village until a few decades back. Then the inevitable immigration to foreign shores happened here as well, people sold homes, others moved in, and Uthiramerur moved on, becoming home to a more diverse population of people.
It was time to bid goodbye to the past, to move from the Cholas to cows. We managed a miraculous U-Turn and headed back a few kilometers and turned off into a small side road that led to the Sampradaya goshala.
The goshala is set in 5 acres of land. We were greeted by a pack of joyous dogs of all shapes, sizes and ages, leaping and rolling about in their delight at seeing their beloved mistress. Their energetic joy remained unabated for quite a while, until suddenly, one by one, they collapsed into a deep sleep, just like that. Oh, to be able to fall asleep anywhere, anytime, like that!
On the property is a small house, where a caretaker couple lives, several sheds that house the cows, a small Krishna temple, and land dedicated to a rotating variety of crops like peanuts, eggplant, urad dal, beans, pumpkins, bananas, soursop and drumstick, to name a few. Only all natural fertilisers and insecticides are used. This time it was peanut plants that occupied much of the land and it was such a lovely sight to see the bright greenery all around. The lady who helps with the work at the goshala picked a plant of the ground and there was a cluster of pale beige peanuts - or groundnuts as they are called in India, which makes perfect sense considering they grow in the ground - with the rich mud clinging to them. I opened a pod and ate the tender, creamy peanuts inside. I have no words to describe just how delicious they were. The nuts were too young yet to be harvested. They needed another month in the warm sunshine before they would be ready. Apparently the bright green leaves start fading and dropping off, and that’s when they are ready for the picking.
We walked around the property. Fortunately it was a mild day and a gentle breeze was blowing. The puppies and dogs followed us everywhere, gambolling in the sunshine, engaging in little faux-fights with much snarling and yipping, and then rolling over together like the best of friends! There is no joy like a bunch of happy dogs!
At the back is a large room in which dried banana bark was being made into bowls and plates of several sizes. The machine that does this is simple, but brilliant. The bark is placed under a part that cuts out a circle, and then bends and compresses it, with heat, into a sturdy, disposable bowl. All in under a minute. It is wonderful that many places now use these plates and bowls in place of the once-ubiquitous plastic. In my childhood, plates and cups made of dried leaves and bark where quite common; it was what many roadside vendors of forbidden delights like sundal and raw mango used. Then came along plastic that somehow smacked of Progress and Modernity and the old dishes were largely abandoned, especially in the cities. Well, things have come full circle and now the old leaf-and-bark plates and bowls, dressed up in a bit of chichi packaging, are back in vogue.
We walked past newly planted teak and rosewood trees, banana, soursop and drumstick plants, and came back to the front of the property. The dogs were exhausted now, and fell asleep instantly, sprawled over the little verandah, the mud, a shady spot under a tree.
And then.... the cows! Is there an animal on earth with more soulful eyes? Is there a more peaceful sight than a shed full of cows chewing the cud, slowly, meditatively, without a care in the world, with all the time in the world? This is the soul of the goshala, these sheds with cows, calves and bulls, all spared abandonment, abuse, or the slaughter house (where parts of some of them end up in the mridangam of TM Krishna’s story). From its beginnings as a home for old cows, it has grown to include pregnant cows, and their calves and today there are around 50 of them at the goshala. Every day, they are let out to graze in the poromboke lands surrounding the goshala, and are brought back into their shed when they are done, where a regular supply of hay, fresh greens and clean water await them. The cow sheds are clean and very well ventilated. There are fans for the hot days of summer. This is a dream retirement home for these lucky bovines.
I fed all the cows and calves a variety of spinach that had been freshly picked for them. They tugged it out of my hands with surprising strength and mooed their contentment with this feast. They seem to be eating constantly!
Our tour of the goshala done, we went into the house and ate a delicious meal prepared by my friend, a lot of it from the produce grown from the farm: a delectable pumpkin and tomato soup (just pumpkin and tomato cooked together, pureed and seasoned with salt and pepper), and the match-made-in-heaven triumvirate of sevai (rice noodles), mor kuzhambu (buttermilk curry) with goshala-grown okra, and roast potatoes. I didn’t think I’d be able to eat after that heavy breakfast, but with food as tasty as this, the stomach makes room!
Our goshala visit done, it was time to return home, a journey through space and time back to the very modern urban world of Madras. In the course of just a few hours I had travelled to another world, and to another era, and it is an experience I will cherish forever.