Beside the Dindigul Thalappakatti Biryani Hotel in Besant Nagar, a tiny lane snakes towards Urur-Olcott kuppam .
The smell of hot bajjis and milky tea invites you into the fishing village. It’s a pleasant afternoon, the waves lapping against Elliot’s beach glimmer in the blazing rays of the sun. Children, lugging their school bags, from the nearby Olcott School, are returning home. Toddlers roll around in the sand, playing with each other and relishing thenmuttai from the small stalls in the neighbourhood.
One could say the social adda for the residents is the Ellaiamman Kovil, a colourful temple with sculptures decorating the roof. The deity here is believed to have protected all the residents during the tsunami. “Even though the Marina Beach was on a more elevated plane than that of the kuppam , it wreaked havoc only there and not here,” says 66-year-old R Sundaramurthy, head of the Urur-Olcott kuppam Panchayat, and known popularly as chitappa . Today, the temple also acts as a venue for the community pension camp for widows.
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P Sulekha from Besant Nagar, who has come today for the pension camp, remembers how the village was when she came here 55 years ago. “There was nothing but huts, made of dried coconut leaves. No buses or street-lights either. There used to be a funeral ground near Besant Nagar bus stand. These spaces were used to bathe the cows. How much has changed in the last decade, with the growth of hotels and commercial shops!”
The temple also doubles up as a meeting point of Urur Olcott Kuppam Vizha volunteers, NGO members and activists to churn out ideas. The vizha , which is being celebrated since the last four years in this kuppam, is the most awaited cultural event in the village, like the local temple festival called the aadi maasam vizha . “How else could we have watched programmes such as Kuchipudi, Bharatanatyam and Kathak live? Otherwise we could watch them only on television,” says A Patroja, a resident.
Sundaramoorthy has seen many generations come and go. “One could not even find cycles, forget about cars, earlier. Nearly 120 people used to live here 50 years ago.” He recalls the strains of radio wafting from Besant Nagar in the evening. “The historical monument on the shore is named after Edward Elliot, the one-time chief magistrate and superintendent of police, Madras. That area was like a park, that people would frequent to spend hours of leisure. Around 200 metres away from Ellaiamman Kovil, there were around 12 cottages where foreigners would stay. This was also the favourite area of top bureaucrats during that time, who would zoom around the village in their huge cars. It used to be quite a spectacle for us.”
The Urur Olcott kuppam i s flanked by institutions such as Kalakshetra and the Theosophical Society. During rough weather, when the tides were turbulent, fishermen relied on the Bhojanashala set up by the society. They were given free rice, Sundaramurthy recalls. The legend of Ellaiamman Kovil is more than a 100 years old. Some fishermen caught a stone in their net while fishing. They threw it back into the sea. But, it got entangled in their nets the second time too. But, they returned it to the ocean again. When it happened the third time, they realised this was special. They also got such a huge and diverse catch that it could not be contained in one catamaran. “It is believed that the stone spoke out that she be revered by the locals as Goddess Ellaiamman,” says Sundramurthy.
As noon gives way to evening, a slow breeze wafts across the kuppam . To think, this area was once a centre for foreign explorers is hard to believe. Today, it is shadowed by the commercial complexes in Besant Nagar. As one of the residents of the kuppam jokes: “The ghosts of the white men might still be roaming around this village.” One cannot blame them. Because, once you are here, and make friends with the fish vendors and listen to the tales around the kovil , you will keep coming back.
