PONDICHERRY

 The Institut Français de Pondichéry, known simply as IFP, is housed in a majestic, recently renovated, French colonial style building with polished floors and wooden doors and windows. Created in 1955, it was a centre set up to study the Indian civilization and culture, with particular reference to the culture and religions of South India. Over the years the Institute extended its study to include Ecology, Social Sciences and Geomatics, focussing on multi-disciplinary facets of South Indian life.

“I don’t think it will be possible”, said Pazhani Kumar, breaking his long silence and handing over the photo printout of the idol he had been given.

The look of utter dejection on the three faces seated before him made him hesitate and pause. He pulled back his hand holding the photo and then took another close look at it.

“You see, identification of such idols is the hardest”, he said, trying to explain the reason behind his statement. “We have hundreds of thousands of photographs of idols and statues from all over Tamil Nadu right from the year 1956”, he said, pointing to the wooden shelves beside him that held alphabet cards like a library. “We take a photograph of an idol and then we classify it according to two variables – the site of its location and its name. If either of these variables is known, then it is very easy for us to identify the idol and verify the location or the name, whichever is missing. As we have manually cross referenced each and every entry in a separate register, either one attribute is enough to identify the idol. That was how the Pathur Nataraja idol was identified and recovered by the Idol Wing police.

But in cases like this, where nothing is known except the photograph, then it becomes a laborious and time consuming task as we have to manually check each of the thousands of photographs against this one. Even then we can’t be sure that we’ll be able to identify this idol simply because of the fact that we do not have a catalogue of all the idols that are or have been in Tamil Nadu. You must realize that Tamil Nadu has one of the richest idol histories in the world, with hundreds of statues in thousands of temples spread all over the state. Almost all the temples are over a hundred years old. So that makes everything in those temples ancient artefacts”, he stopped his long explanation.

The sound of distant waves could be heard in the silence that befell the group.

“Could you at least tell us something, anything, from the photo?” Sarayu asked, her voice beseeching.

Pazhani Kumar looked at the photo again. He then opened his drawer and took out a magnifying glass and looked at the photo through that. In his twenty odd years of working at the IFP, he had looked at thousands of photographs for the purposes of cataloguing and identification. He had helped out even the police in identifying lost and stolen idols and statues. What he was asked to do was not unusual. In fact it was a part of his regular duties. But what was unusual was the fact that the photograph had been presented to him by an old man and two teenagers, one of whom was an obvious foreigner. 

After what seemed to be an interminable amount of time, but had in fact been only a few minutes, the forty-eight-year-old photographer and archivist of the IFP Pazhani Kumar looked up at the expectant faces in front of him.

“I can definitely say that this is a Chozha era idol”, he said. He didn’t fail to note the small smile of satisfaction on the old man’s face. “Since only the front is visible and has been photographed, I can only comment about that”, he continued.

“Could there be something on the back of the idol? Like something to identify it, maybe?” asked Sarayu.

“I don’t know. Usually there won’t be anything to identify an idol on the idol itself if it is a consecrated idol, which this appears to be. What I am talking about is the condition of the idol. So many times we come across idols that have been defaced or broken. Either the hand is broken or the foot or sometimes the base of the idol is broken. This usually happens when whoever removed it is either in a hurry to get at it or doesn’t care about the base, but just the statue. Sometimes the back of an embedded statue will be destroyed when it is forcibly broken off from the structure on which it is sculpted. You must have seen the hundreds of statues sculpted on the walls and the gopurams[1] and pillars of temples. Such statues cannot be removed from the structure without damaging them considerably. I’ve heard that sometimes the damage is wilfully done by the person removing it, as proof of its authenticity. But this doesn’t seem to have any such damage on it, either at the base or on the whole. As I said, I can’t be sure about the back”, Pazhani Kumar explained.

“Ok”, said Sarayu, waiting for him to say something further.

“I don’t think this belongs to any main temple”, he proceeded. “By that I mean that this doesn’t look like an idol of a deity belonging to the main religions of that time, Saivism and Vaishnavism. This is probably what you would call a ‘sirudheivam’, meaning a ‘local deity’. There are hundreds of such deities all over South India”.

“Did they have ‘sirudheiva vazhipaadu’, local deity worship, during the Chozha era?” asked Muthuramalingam.

“Maybe. I don’t know. But I can say for sure that this is one such idol”, Pazhani Kumar answered.

“And from the looks of it, it must have been a much revered one. The idol has been sculpted with exceptional grace and has been worshipped with love and devotion. The sheen on it is proof of that”, he said. “Other than this I’m afraid I can’t say anything further about it”, he concluded.

The disappointed silence was painful to listen to.

“I’m sorry I can’t be of much more help. If at least you could tell me from where you got the photo, maybe that could give some clue as to its location. Where did you get this photo from?” PazhaniKumar asked.

“Just found it in an old book in our attic”, answered Sarayu hurriedly. “We came to Pondicherry for sightseeing and just came in here to see if you could throw some light on it”, she said further.

“Come on, kids. Let’s go. We have lot more places to cover today”, said Muthuramalingam, taking the cue from Sarayu and getting up. The three of them thanked Pazhani Kumar profusely and walked out.

Pazhani Kumar watched the receding backs, not for a moment believing the story he had just been told. A small question popped up in the back of his head. ‘Should he report this to the Idol Wing police?’ He shook his head and decided against it. Not only did he not want to get pulled into an unnecessary investigation, he was also not sure what he could complain about. They were just three people who had showed him a photograph and asked some details about it. What was the crime in that? He got up and went to have his lunch, the event already fading to the background of his memory.

[1] Ornate tower of temples