The legend of Bangari and Singari and the historical town of Bahour.

Bahour is a small town bordering the two rivers, Then Ponnaiyar on the South and Malattar on the South and naturally a very fertile place which was the right mix of water resources, fertile soil, huge number of water channels and close to the Bay of Bengal, having pristine unpolluted beaches and a mix of primary production of agriculture, fisheries. No doubt, the ancient South Indian rulers had found Bahour to be a prosperous town to make it their focus.

Thus Bahour known as Chathur Veda Mangalam (land of four Vedas) had once, a famous Sanskrit College where the students who passed out from here, had preference and lucrative offers in Kancheepuram, and even far off places like the Kashi. The famous temple "Moolanathar Swami Temple" was built by the Paranthaka Chozha and later developed by the Pallavas, Rashtrakoodas and the Naickers. Intact, Puducherry had detailed information regarding this temple which is built on the Kaarana Aagamam and the Vimana of this temple has a square frame due to the name Chathur (another meaning being Square) Veda Mangalam which is typical of the Chozhas who used to include an element of secrecy in all their temples.

Another notable natural heritage of Bahour is the Bahour Tank itself which happens to be the oldest tank in Puducherry (older than the biggest tank of Oussudu) and have abeautiful network of smaller tanks. The history points to a big drought in Bahour, when two unmarried wealthy sisters Bangari and Singari donated their wealth to deepen the tank and strengthen the bunds and also to dig a channel from Then Ponnaiyar to the Bahour Tank which is now known as the Bangaru Channel named after the sister Bangari. Some older people say that these sisters used to live in the South Street of Bahour.

To celebrate the historicity of Bahour and its natural heritage the Puducherry Heritage Festival held a Dance Drama in the Moolanathar temple on the 5th of February 2017 on the legendary life of Bangari and Singari.


More about Bahour will be shared at a later time..
(Krithiga Ravichandran as Bangari and Divya Ramesh as Singari in the Dance drama of Salangai Cultural Academy).

A year gone...

It has been quite some time, that I published my last post - almost a year. The year that was gone was too full of so many things, too many activities that I did with Pondicherry Science Forum, too much as in my personal capacity. The Make Science Competitions 2016 was a mile-stone for me as this was the 10th year that I have been coordinating this programme along with the University of Paris, South 11, France. Every year about 12 teams of government school children get a small seed money to carry out small research projects and out of them, about 4 of them get special awards and cash incentives. I also finished my third year as the Chairman of the National Academic Committee of the Government of India's programme, the National Children's Science Congress 2016 which was held in Barmati, near Pune in Maharashtra where we had more than 700 children, 200 teachers and several experts, scientists gathered from 27th to 31st December 2016.

During this period, I lost one of my best friend, philosopher and guide Prof.SS Lokras, (in November 2016) who was a leading Fuel Efficient Chulah Innovator (Retired Scientist from Centre for Sustainable Technologies - formerly ASTRA-, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore) whose model of 2+1 pan ASTRA Stove continues to be one of the best fuel efficient Chulah in the world with efficiencies of above 40%.

The year 2016 also has been quite turbulent, the hottest in the decade, because of the Cyclone Varadah that created huge loss of property in Chennai and surroundings, the year with very little rainfall, the year of Indian de-monitization, the death of Jayalalitha, the Amma of Tamil Nadu, the resurgence of youth of Tamilnadu for "Jallikkattu", and many more...Though these are quite unconnected as it may look like, one can see a pattern of disturbing trends happening.

Pondicherry also witnessed a new government, a new active Lt. Governor who has brought about a very active governance system which the government should take forward. We also saw some very positive changes where the stakeholders of the traditional irrigation tanks were brought back for their upkeep and maintenance, though I doubt their fight to get mainstreamed is far from over.

Anyhow, another year has started, Hope the youth of India will emerge more rational, more scientific, and will start a new movement for better governance, argue for sustainable developmental initiatives, make our country free from corruption, free from all the bad things that destroy ourselves including the bad parasitic MNCs and their game plan for plundering the poor.