Lets start at the very beginning…

Lets start at the very beginning… 

….a very good place to start…. When you sing you begin with do…re…mi… when we say our story we begin with ….

……my sister Chandrika’s words………..

Our parents got married when the second world war was in progress. The turmoil that ravaged all over the world hardly caused a murmur in their nest, cocooned as they were in the rolling hills of Munnar, in the Western Ghats and Achan’s journey around the world took place at the peak of his career curve.

For me and my siblings, Chandrika, Shylaja and Unnichettan, our eldest brother, Achan  was the Tarzan of the jungles - like the Kerala police of those days - clad in a knee-length khaki pants and a hat fitted firmly on his head, grinning like the Cheshire Cat he used to appear and disappear from our lives. He was our hero : relating  his encounters with elephants - he could smell them from half a kilometer away, pinpoint where they are by the way they broke the bamboo and even one particularly naughty rogue elephant that used to routinely topple the drum with charcoal or their provisions in the camp - their encounters often at the most unexpected moments, like when someone attends nature’s call. Thus, for the better part of his life he was swinging from one dam site to another, in the heart of a jungle fraught with tigers and elephants not to mention the monkeys and other wild animals, birds and insects. 

He had been working with the Kerala Public Works Department Irrigation projects from which later the Kerala State Electricity Board got formed. In this way from the very idea of building a dam, taking the survey for locating its placement among the thick forests, he was working and learning how to harness and use the hidden power of flowing water. He walked with his team of surveyors clearing forests, walking through the slush in the middle of tributaries, rubber boots their only protection against leeches, through sparsely populated tribal villages in the middle of the primeval forests of the Western Ghats. Names of Dams and irrigation projects, such as Thumboormozhi, Pallivasal, Vellathooval, Peringalkuthu, Neriyamangalam, Peechi, Mattupatti Devikulam, Munnar follwed by Pamba, Anathode, Kakki, Moozhiyar and the pinnacle of his achievement, the Idukki, surface from my subconscious laced with Achan’s humour and highly contagious laughter. Looking back now Achan seems to have been an officer and  gentleman committed to building India as a nation, duty bound  to all of Jawaharlal  Nehru’s Five Year Plans, translating the higher realms of intelligent planning and commitment to the betterment of the community  around him. He often joked that his last born was the epitome of his ability to master the five year plan, as his first couple of children were spaced four and six years but his youngest was born exactly five years to the day after his third child!

 From Pallivasal producing 37.5 MW, one of the smallest hydroelectric projects of the Kerala Electricity Board to the Idukki double curvature Arch Dam with an installed capacity of 780.00MW Achan had imprinted his brain and brawn on 70 % of the 2107.91 MW hydro electric power stations in Kerala. Achan and his team led adventurous surveying missions to fix locations and test the hardness of the soil and rock formations without any hesitation giving scant regard to the heat and other myriad mental and physical difficulties they encountered. Looking at it from the present day facilities of GPS devices that pinpoints the exact location with details of geography, topography etc the realisation dawns that they really did achieve an extraordinary feat. Though he believed that small hydel projects were ideal for Kerala he went about meticulously fulfilling orders from his seniors.

It was only in the early 60’s, soon after we relocated to Trivandrum for our studies that my perspective of the whole project and its magnitude changed drastically thanks to Miss Benjamin, the then Headmistress of Baker Memorial School, Kottayam, my former school. During one vacation, the students from the school, accompanied by the Headmistress, visited the Sabarigiri project region at Anathode. While I was their guide showing them the concrete dams, the Anathode Dam as well as the Kakki Dam, under construction on the Pamba river tributary where Achan was the Executive Engineer, I sensed their admiration which made a great impression on me. 

Most employees living at the dam site left for their homes during the holidays when there is a pause at work. Achan would be holding fort and we, the family members sitting snugly in the city of Trivandrum, would be directed to pack our bags and spend the vacation at Anathode (so named as it is situated in the middle of the forest where the elephants cross over, being a low valley between hills, ideal for building the dam). Often we accompanied an employee sent on official duty to the state capital Trivandrum. The fragrance of Peaberry coffee powder, Achan’s only demand, wafted the interior of the car or jeep during the whole trip!!!! Nestled between hills, Anathode would light up as we approached at night, illuminated by the light beams of Mactrucks carrying loose cement to the damsite crawling up and down to the valley, precariously manoeuvring the  hairpin bends.

 During our stay sometimes the whole valley would suddenly throw up sounds of dynamite explosions for the dams or we would be woken up from deep sleep to the sound of crackers used to chase the wild elephants away. During the monsoon, amidst the pitter patter of the rain, film songs and dialogues in the local language Malayalam would reverberate in the whole valley through the mist and fog from the plays enacted by local artists, often spreading social and political messages, the sole distraction for the workers, often from the north of India with no idea of the language. The workers contribution to the local culture and cuisine, especially making of flatbreads added to the mosaic of Kerala lifestyle that had been absorbing various cultures over centuries thanks to the spice trade.