Accessible from the city of Bangalore within a few hours of travel are many exotic locations caressed by the river Goddess Kaveri. It is in the southern districts of Karnataka, as she enters Tamil Nadu that she begins to take form, fullness and shape. Blessing the vast scapes of the deccan, she is indeed the sensuous enchantress of the south bringing fertility and life to the arable lands between the ghats.
As she unravels her bare bosom across Mandya, she is a delectable maiden flush with the waters of the Sahyadri. Just past the monsoon, her waters brim and dance down the falls of Shivanasamudram in Mandya and Hogennekal in Dharmapuri. While men around her fight in the name of language and spill her water in cold dispute, she maintains her naughty seduction and sways her hips through her bountiful basin.
hogannekal, Dharmapuri district, Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border.[Sept-20,2008]
shivanasamudram, Mandya district, Karnataka.[Sept-6,2008]
Her falls are famous and men flock to them, revel in the seasonal fullness and sing her praise.
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Rivers are our wealth. They bring the life-blood for our agriculture, they light our hydel-powered homes and they keep our traditions alive. They have seen men and their empires rise and fall, not once but many a time. And if we quarrel over their waters and waste their lay across the land, there will be none to blame as we thirst to death.
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After Hogannekal and Shivanasamudram, one can have a respite, sure. But when you are on the trail of the bringer of bliss, and when you have been seduced by the apsaras of the south, you cannot stop with Mandya and Dharmapuri. Deep down at Mettur she is restrained, and let loose again; she brings a verdant hue to the fields of Tanjavur and Tirichi, and finally merges into the Bay of the Bengal.
Not just that, her tresses at TalaKaveri excite you into the trail too, a trail of the sensuous enchantress of the bountiful south…..
