Matsyagundem

Somewhere in the watershed of my dusty hair, a bead of sweat gathers and then flows down the bridge of my nose, converting the full-stop of the Vermillion Bottu into a dynamic comma, as I set out with the SLR for the stream bed of River Machkund.

I am at Matsyagundem, a little known place reached by negotiating 12 kms of an atrocious bullock cart track from the road that leads to Paderu in the Araku Valley. Mythology wise, this is Dandakaranya, geography wise, this is Andhra Pradesh, ethnography wise, this is deep tribal hinterland.

Funnily enough, though its spectacular photography weather now, I had reached Matsyagundem with my jacket drenched and my helmet beaded with rain. Very much a throwback to the Araku Valley of yore, when torrential rainfall was the norm here, all year through.

Matsyagundem is a spot where the river Machkund had a natural obstruction of stone in its course, creating a natural lagoon that used to be full of tame fish. At this moment however, the river itself is very, very dry and there is a concrete monstrosity all along the river's breadth and of course a view-point bang above it.

I naturally avoided the view-point and rode to the small shrine just besides, flanked by huge mango trees and was met by a smiling priest clad in a Gamcha, unshaven and stubbled like me and equally sunburnt too.

The temple turned out to be one of Shiva (incidentally my favorite God, so I got anointed by the Bottu) and the priest turned out to be lacking in any airs whatever, so naturally I decided to rest my back against a pillar and chat him up.

In five minutes, we are surrounded by a gaggle of wide eyed children (most in blue shorts and white shirts), obviously playing hooky from school and household chores and even as I am asking about the state of the rains and the success of the view-point, I am being cajoled to go and see the fish, of course under local guidance.

A flight of steep stairs winds down to the Machkund, and as I gingerly make my way down behind my carefree guides, the priest locks the temple for the day and follows me too. The stairs are flanked by huge brown boulders on which I can spot Elephants sketched in white paint, and I am about to take a picture before I peer closer and see that its just the BSP election symbol.

The Machkund is atrociously dry and there are not many pools where I can see even tadpoles, what to speak of huge tame fish! The priest is with us by now and tells me in evident pain that some people up stream had poisoned the waters and most of the fish had died. But this man of God knows his parish pretty well, and leads me over and across half of the stony stream bed and then finally we are at a deep crevice amongst the boulders. Everybody amongst my smiling clique points down into the slippery crevice, some speaking Oriya, some speaking Telugu and some speaking Hindi.

The descent does look fishy and I am scared of being stuck if I fall, but I still go down on a knee and then realize that this will require me shooting with the flash, something I am not very good at.

But then I can make out some fairly huge and scaly things churning the waters in the crevice and mostly in order to please everyone around, light up the hollow with the brilliant Vivitar flash.

And then the priest decides to jump into the act, with half a coconut in his hand, descending onto the same ledge where I am carefully standing. There isn't room enough for his temple-treading bare feet and my size 11 Nikes, so he stands on mine, banging the coconut against the rock and then throwing the white meat into the waters, while intoning, "Aa Re, Aaa Rey!"

And man, oh man, the fishes do decide to come, roiling the waters in a feeding frenzy, with at least a couple of them at least as big as my arm!

I am again painfully aware of being stared at, so this time, I bend down into the hollow while the priest scampers out of the way and when again we do the same thing, this time in better synchronization.

The flash goes off and a couple of tame fishes are finally recorded for posterity.

Cramped and shaking in the knees, I decide to call it a day and we all make it back to the temple. The priest invites me to stay the night there itself with him, but I am intent on making it to Jagdalpur by nightfall, so I quiz him about the road, even as I pack the camera into its carrying case.

A wave of the hand all around and then I am out of Matsyagundem, headed for Jalaput and the Orissa border, even as the young rogues who should have been in school chase me out of the temple complex.

And in fitting with the clime, its throwback time again, as a fine frieze of rain starts falling.

May it rain, I pray, may that concrete monstrosity get washed away, I pray.