First Dam visit – Aswan Dam, on the Nile River in Aswan near Cairo, Egypt and Amma with the backdrop of the Marvel of the Giza Pyramid + the Sphinx

First Dam visit – Aswan Dam, on the Nile River in Aswan near Cairo, Egypt and Amma with the backdrop of the Marvel of the Giza Pyramid + the Sphinx + inside the great Pyramid

Leaving behind the aroma of the Mughal Empire in New Delhi, Amma accompanied by the team of engineers chosen by the Kerala State Electricity Board to look into the intricacies of the Arch Dam before finalising the plan, set foot on the ancient Pharaoh’s empire. They landed at the Cairo International Airport on the 27^th of November 1968 with the mission probably to take a look at the Aswan High Dam. Built in the early sixties, the Aswan High Dam is the world’s largest embankment dam built across the river Nile the power generation from which began in 1967. Proximity to another of the Wonders of the world would have made it possible for Achan to shoot Amma’s picture with the backdrop of the second wonder, the Pyramids of Giza, with the inscrutable Sphinx looking on.

One of the first postcards we received at home were from the pyramids of Egypt. I later got mesmerised going through National Geography journals reading about Tutakhaman and the mummies. Come to think of it my parents trip around the world became to me like a Kerala feast, sadhya, during which a drop of each dish is ladled onto a banana leaf for us to taste and if we like it we could ask for more, ensuring that there is no wastage. The many times we repeated the details of the trip using the various photo slides to enthralled audience who visited us, the more curious we became to educate ourselves on the background of the monuments and sights.

Their visit to the then half completed Aswan High Dam construction site seems well timed to coincide with the completion of the first stage of the humungous gravity buttress High dam construction. The Engineers would have been more than thrilled to witness the slow filling up of the world’s biggest reservoir being made by the Aswan Dam on the Nile River! Today when there are undercurrents on the River Nile between Egypt and Ethiopia regarding the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam(#GERD) it whets our appetite to follow their footsteps taken fifty years ago. Reliving the moment brought back memories of the mixed feelings our family had endured, the sadness and the thrill of watching first the Sabarigiri project reservoir and much later the Idukki reservoir, slowly enlarging their boundaries, sinking our temporary residences and familiar scenes.

Though the normal tourist attractions of the Giza pyramids and the Sphinx with the head of the pharaoh Khafre, builder of the second great Giza pyramid, and the Abu Simbel temples of Rameses II, the ancient Emperor of the Lower and Upper Egypt seemed secondary to their main visit to the dam site, Achan did take the opportunity to record it for posterity. The Sphinx, the enormous half man half lion statue, a symbol of the taming of animal power by Man, symbolising perhaps the power of the Pharoah’s kingdom of 2500 BCE, looked on and welcomed them to the magical land of the Arabian Nights and its deserts.

While Achan must have certainly calculated from the Civil Engineer’s point of view and wondered at the intricacies of the tunnels inside the Pyramids  of Giza, standing tall next to the Sphinx, he merrily clicked his next picture.  The portly camel on which Amma in a flowing nylon saree perched herself uncomfortably, seems to open its mouth wide as if to shout a few choice four letter words in its own mother tongue! He had jovially attributed the camel’s protest to the weight of Amma. Achan appears to have superimposed Amma on the great Pyramid of Giza creating history - her picture, the second one, in front of one of the Seven Wonders of the World after the Taj Mahal! 

Achan was aware of the two-tiered construction of Aswan Dam on the immense Nile River, about 500 miles away from Cairo. He had learned about the shifting of the giant Abu Simbel temple sculptures complex from the original Low Dam reservoir banks to a higher plateau as well. While he perceived and gained partial understanding of the Egyptian art history and modern technology, it was his nature to share his knowledge with Amma which certainly would have benefited his team mates too. Amma, nurtured as she was by our ancient culture herself, would have related the Pyramids to the Onathappan/Thrukkakkara Appan made in the form of a pyramid using mud and decorated with flowers. 

The ritual of paying obeisance to the symbolic image of King Mahabali, Emperor of the Asuras, who was adjudged by his subjects as the ideal, honest and considerate ruler to such an extent as to perturb the Gods who were forced to appeal to Lord Vishnu. Using his powers the Lord sends the Emperor to purgatory but with his last wish granted for visiting his subjects on Earth once every year. Houses are decorated and offerings of sweets made for the duration of 10 days in August/September every year during Onam, the famous Kerala harvest Festival, to welcome the dearly loved Emperor. 

On the other hand Amma must have gaped at the Sphinx remembering Narasimha, the fourth avatar of Lord Vishnu himself, to her a living entity, to whom she dedicated her songs at the start of each day for the well-being of her own brood of family, friends and relatives. With the body of a human and the head of the lion, Lord Narasimha proves to an atheist King that his son Prahlad is right in saying that God exists in every grain of sand. Whatever be the myriad thoughts that had passed through her mind, being a practical person she just waited to see what other magic will unfold as the days pass by.

While the Great Pyramids, those incredible engineering feats spoke of the Pharaoh’s journey after death, in full regal style with their mummies covered in gold, symbolized dark feelings of ancient funeral rituals, Onathappan heralded a new era of prosperity and happiness. Achan who has always been in close contact with flowing water, be it minor or major irrigation canals or tributaries or the rivers, must have been elated to be on the banks of the Nile River during his first ever visit abroad.

From Cairo my parents boarded the fight to Rome where the highlight was of course the Vatican and the St. Peters. It seems they had been to the Alitalia/ the Italian Airlines Office, in Cairo for confirming the onward journey on the 28^th of November to Rome.