The Final Year M.A English students of Fatima College in Madurai did not know what to expect when they started brainstorming for topics for making a short film on any social subject and zeroed in on the legendary Kiruthumal river.
The derelict condition of the important water channel came as a shock to the team of 40 college girls as they began researching, exploring, interviewing and scripting for their documentary.
Some of the students heard their parents telling them how Kiruthumal, as ancient, holy and revered as the Vaigai, had water gushing round-the-year. “My mother recalled how as a child she enjoyed taking bath in the river, whose water was described as clean and sweet as the tender coconut,” says B.Arul Monica, the team leader. “And that was barely four decades ago,” she points out.
The fact that a significant river had simply vanished from the city’s landscape made her impress upon her team members to fill in the gaping hole in the river map. When the 40-odd students set out to document the film, “ River Once”, they were horrified to see how the river had transformed into a mere sewer.
The lost Kiruthumal river is a separate river originating in the hills of Nagamalai in Thuvariman to the west of the city. The students interviewed Thuvariman panchayat leaders, old villagers and farmers, archaeologists and historians and senior citizens who told them Kiruthumal was named so because it garlanded the city winding its way around the Koodal Azhagar Perumal Temple in the heart of Madurai. Also known as Narayana Cauvery, the river finds mention in epics and sacred texts such as Srimad Bhagavatham and Narayaneeyam as the place where Lord Vishnu took the Machavataram (fish) incarnation. With original five natural springs that fed into Kiruthumal as mentioned in Paripaadal, the river water also filled the agazhi (moat) around the Tirumalai Nayakar palace in Madurai.
But it is the present condition of the river ruthlessly slaughtered over the years and transformed into a sewer that many people don’t even know about its existence. “It is very important to preserve our tangible heritage,” says Monica.
“What we saw and filmed were stinking drains and garbage-dumped channels at various points and particularly in Achampathu,” says another student Jency Ruth. “It is difficult to miss the sight and foul smell of the gravely polluted water tract,” she adds and wonders how people manage to live around it and continue to abuse the environment further.
The locals told the young team how the Thuvariman tank got its supply from five springs and kept the land all around fertile. The team could, however, film only one spring at Pulloothu in Nagamalai. “We were told how the excess water from the Thuvariman Periakanmai (the big tank) formed a stream and joined Keni Vaikkal, another stream, carrying surplus water from Vaigai and these two streams joined to form the Kiruthumal,” notes Monica.
The Kiruthumal river that found its way through Erkudi, Achampathu, Ponmeni, SBOA Colony, Subramaniapuram, Makalipatti, Keeraithurai, Melavasal, Heera Nagar, Ellis Nagar, Thideer Nagar, and Samanatham met its death when the flow from Nagamalai springs was blocked and a channel was constructed to take water to the southern outskirts of the city. With the width of the river shrinking, the channel turned into a sewage dumped open drain. Urban practices and encroachments totally disrupted the water channels and the city’s network of its rivers with small and large water tanks.
Through our film, we want to awaken the people and help them rediscover the ancient river,” says Jency.
Till the 1960s, river Kiruthumal had a bed width of 40 feet and 11 months of water-flow. Its banks were adorned with plantations and the river catered to the purposes of bathing, washing and agriculture in addition to its role of draining out flood water and recharging the ground water.
Several temples and cremation yards in Madurai are still located alongside the erstwhile water tract but what is more conspicuous now are the ills of urbanisation – encroachment, concretisation, garbage dumping. Over the years, sand mining lowered the Vaigai riverbed, while the bed level of the channels from Vaigai carrying water to Kiruthumal remained at a higher elevation leading to dysfunctional feeding of channels. The river got encroached and its width reduced drastically. Agricultural lands were converted for residential use. The land use changes at the original catchment, the redirection of water and the changed geomorphology of Vaigai contributed to the drying up of the Kiruthumal river, which also faced onslaught from untreated effluents and household garbage. In the last few decades, the river bed became home to people facing landlessness and poverty.
This transforming tale of a totally forgotten entity done entirely by the college students with guidance from English department faculty and some professional help from DHAN foundation is an eye-opener.
“Experts told us it is possible to revive the river if we as responsible citizens stop polluting and throwing garbage and the Corporation desilts the tanks and diverts water from the Vaigai,” notes Monica.
With their film uploaded on YouTube and making some noise, the students hope the water systems in Madurai will have a future.
