One of the places , around town , I always wanted to visit was a water fall that went by the name "Pattathi Para"..Para in Malayalam is rock. Its the first word that intigued me. As i deepened my understanding of the language and the ethos of the place i call home now, I came to understand that the word meant - brahmin woman , more specifically a tamil speaking brahmin woman.
A female to the male "pattar"..
This lent a world of imagination in my head as to why a rock would be called so ?!
I imagined a free- sprited young woman . Learned , astute but curious and somewhat wild who would make sojourns to the rock to commune with nature and be herself. Far-away from the piercing dogmatic eyes that would have her conform , behave in a certain prim and proper way.
It was her place, a place she owned by the sheer connection she had forged with the land.So strong her connection that the rock got named after her , her presence eternal with the rock.
Come June and a long weekend , on a monsoonal afternoon , we set out to explore this place. The road was motorable upto a point and beyond that was a small trek through a path marked out only for a single file ascent by years of feet treading the path .
Lush greenery all around, clouds pregnant with rain , we set out seeking . After a 20 minute ascent in a clearning was this beautiful sheet of water falling off a table like rock.
and so it was ..
A table of rock and not a huge boulder of my imagination , causing the water gushing from above to tumble like a sheet , collect in a basin below and flow down stream to meet the river...
Also had a reality bite when i learnt the sprightly woman in question actually had tumbled to death in the water-fall and hence the name.
May be she came trundling down often , sat on the rock , cooled off and went back to integrate to what life offered her.. may be she was a path breaker .. a vivid journey halted by a wee slip ...Who could tell ?
But she lives on in the lush , the rock and the tumble of water , I told myself.
Kids and I had had an afternoon of exploration, walking a trail and soaking in the beauty of Pattathi para ...
A female to the male "pattar"..
This lent a world of imagination in my head as to why a rock would be called so ?!
I imagined a free- sprited young woman . Learned , astute but curious and somewhat wild who would make sojourns to the rock to commune with nature and be herself. Far-away from the piercing dogmatic eyes that would have her conform , behave in a certain prim and proper way.
It was her place, a place she owned by the sheer connection she had forged with the land.So strong her connection that the rock got named after her , her presence eternal with the rock.
Come June and a long weekend , on a monsoonal afternoon , we set out to explore this place. The road was motorable upto a point and beyond that was a small trek through a path marked out only for a single file ascent by years of feet treading the path .Lush greenery all around, clouds pregnant with rain , we set out seeking . After a 20 minute ascent in a clearning was this beautiful sheet of water falling off a table like rock.
and so it was ..
A table of rock and not a huge boulder of my imagination , causing the water gushing from above to tumble like a sheet , collect in a basin below and flow down stream to meet the river...
Also had a reality bite when i learnt the sprightly woman in question actually had tumbled to death in the water-fall and hence the name.May be she came trundling down often , sat on the rock , cooled off and went back to integrate to what life offered her.. may be she was a path breaker .. a vivid journey halted by a wee slip ...Who could tell ?
But she lives on in the lush , the rock and the tumble of water , I told myself.
Kids and I had had an afternoon of exploration, walking a trail and soaking in the beauty of Pattathi para ...
