Taking a break from my regular posts, I am sharing today an article that was published in Rail Bandhu a while back, titled - A Hymn called the Cauvery
We stand atop the mountain, and peer into a tank. Around us are the lush green mountains of the Western Ghats, and, it seems apt that a river as holy as the Cauvery should originate here, in the Brahmagiri Ranges of Coorg, Karnataka. She bubbles forth as a spring, in this tank, during the monsoon months, and then flows down as a river from the foothills, giving the place its name -‘Talacauvery’. It is at these foothills, at Bhagamandala, that we first see her as a river, and this is also where she meets the first of her many sisters. Here, she merges with the mountain stream Kannike, and the invisible (and maybe mythical) Sujyothi, to form the Cauvery, as we know her. A temple at Bhagamandala enshrines both, Vishnu and Shiva, and the Cauvery, when she is in full flow, washes the steps of the temple, as if paying obeisance to them both.
