The Nilgiri hills pay homage to Hethai Amma

Ketti/ Nilgiris (Tamil Nadu)

The ooru gowda or village head CKN Ramesh was here, there and everywhere as preparations gathered momentum at Ketti for Hethai habba or festival, the biggest annual event for the Badaga community in the Nilgiris, the day before. Hethai habba always falls on the first Monday after the full moon in the Tamil month of Marghazi. This year it fell on January 23.

Ramesh is the head of the 14 Badaga hamlets or hatti that make up Ketti in the Nilgiris district, Tamil Nadu. “I have been the ooru gowda for 23 years, before me it was my father, and before him his father,” the Badaga community leader told Gaon Connection before rushing off to set right some crisis in the kitchens.

About 30,000 people were expected to eat at Ketti the following day, on January 23, 2023, and men, women and children milled about as they prepared to welcome them for the habba.

Hethai Amma is the Badaga deity and they believe she is their ancestor from where they have sprung. Hethai means grandmother, and her words of wisdom and advice are upheld even today.

Groups of women sat surrounded by mounds of vegetables — raw bananas, brinjal, pumpkins and potatoes. They washed, peeled and chopped them, before filling them into vessels that were then carried indoors where they were lined up, ready to go into huge cooking cauldrons on wood fires, later that day.

Also Read: The Ho tribe in Jharkhand celebrates Mage Porob – a festival to uphold equality, co-existence and social harmony

A feast for the faithful

“Be sure to attend the anna daanam tomorrow. We are preparing lots of food,” Shanthi, one of the Badaga ladies from a nearby village, told Gaon Connection. “You will never taste food so good,” she smiled as she deftly chopped raw bananas into cubes. A couple of other women stripped curry leaves from their stalks.

Outside, on the veranda that wrapped itself around the hall, sacks of rice and avarai or dried beans were piled up, waiting to be cooked. They were all donated by the faithful Hethai devotees for the occasion. There is of course, the maasu hudi, the ubiquitous curry powder prepared with coriander, chillies, cumin, cinnamon, fennel and a host of other spices, to be found in every Badaga home, which would go into the avarai and vegetable curry later.

“Ketti is made up of 1500 Badaga families, and most of them are here today,” Shekhar B, an elder Badaga from Ketti, informed Gaon Connection. According to him there are about 436 Badaga hatti spread across the Nilgiris.

“We observe the Hethai Amma habba as a homage to our ancestors and also to mark the harvest. We offer our gratitude to Hethai Amma for a good crop, for our cattle and dairy produce,” he said.

Where hospitality is sacred

More visitors arrived and Sekhar and a few others welcomed them by draping a seelai (a white cotton fabric) around their shoulders, a traditional mark of respect to guests, and invited them to eat.

“Food is an intrinsic part of our culture. It is through food we show respect and extend the hand of friendship, even to our enemy. We do not allow anyone to leave our village/hatti/home without eating with us,” Shekhar added.

While one huge area was earmarked for the anna danam on the big day, smaller kitchens were set up behind other temples and community centres in Ketti to cater to hungry devotees who continue to arrive the day before, and the villagers themselves who were hosting the festival. Visitors were made comfortable for the night in the halls abutting the temples and in the homes of the villages in and near Ketti.

The evening before the habba, Hethai Amma was carried from her mane or home below, up to a small Ganesha temple uphill. She travelled in a wooden palanquin secuer on the shoulders of able-bodied men.

“No photography,” a boy resplendent in a veshti and shirt and shiny Rajnikant-esque cooling glasses, tossed over his shoulder at someone struggling to capture pictures on a mobile. “We have taken permission from the village head,” the mobile lady called out anxiously to the boy, who turned, said ‘okay then’ and walked away with a cheery wave.

Also Read: Dried flowers, fire, and merry making mark the Holi of Adivasis in Chhattisgarh

The mystique of Hetthai Amma

What happens on the hill top, stays on the hill top. The Badagas are fiercely protective about Hethai’s privacy. While everyone is welcome there, cameras and phones are strictly not allowed near the holy spot where Hethai will spend the night with her devotees. There will be prayers, music and dance and oracles and soothsaying. The goddess will manifest herself in one of those present and speak through him or her.

The following morning, in Achanakal hamlet, about 30 men prepared to make the holy journey to Ketti village about two kilometres away, carrying staffs that represent Hethai Amma, from their individual homes to the top of the hill. There was music and dance, and the men, all in white carried the staffs to a nearby temple where they were washed and decorated with vermillion and turmeric and flowers and taken up where Hethai Amma awaited them. It is a sea of white wherever one turned. The men were in their signature white turban and seelai or dupatti (a white cloth) thrown over their shoulders, and the veshti or mundu around their waists.

In the background loudspeakers loudly sang paeans to Hethai Amma. Women in colourful saris but with the white wrap around their shoulders, rushed around their homes, making endless cups of coffee and tea for those still arriving.

Every doorway in Achchanakal gleamed yellow with marigold flowers strung across them, and of course there were the kolams all along the street.

Also Read: Tribal communities celebrate Sarhul, their new year, by worshipping the Sal tree

Seven-year-old Prithvi and his friend Rudraksh waited impatiently to go off to look for untold excitement that awaited them at Ketti. But both obligingly posed for a photograph, a picture of sartorial elegance in colour-coordinated shirts and veshtis.

The men, after a ceremonial dance, set off holding aloft the now decorated staffs in their hands and headed to Ketti from Achanakal. They were followed by children chattering excitedly. As they trudged towards Ketti, it became obvious that the number of visitors swelled rapidly. Buses offloaded some, while others got off cars that then parked at impossible angles on the slopes. Many many of course just moved on foot. The men climbed up to the hill top, while others, diverted by the untold riches of a mela that had sprung up overnight, tarried below.

A festival of fun

At the foot of the hill, every available inch on an open space was taken up by shops selling plastic phones, trumpets, cars, inflatable balls and, inexplicably, dark glasses which every boy below the age of 14 seemed to want. A merry go round creaked around with squealing kids.

Saroja busied herself arranging the toys she hoped to sell that day, in between having a video conversation with someone back in Coonoor where she is from. “I have been coming here every year for more than 25 years,” she told Gaon Connection. Not too far was Rukmini, also from Coonoor who sold puffed rice and peanuts, who is also an old timer at this fair. “I have a shop in Coonoor market, and I come here to sell my puffed rice. Each packet costs Rs 20,” she told Gaon Connection. “It depends. There are years I do very well and other times, when I have to carry some of the stuff back,” she shrugged.

Perhaps her competition was the masala corn that sold briskly as was ice cream. A watermelon seller waited forlornly for some health buff to buy the fruit.

Meanwhile, the decibel levels rose as groups of Badagas from other hattis sang and danced their way down after bowing their heads to Hethai Amma. The beat of the drums and the clamour of children begging for toys vied with the loudspeakers welcoming all visitors and inviting them to the anna daanam was about to begin.

“About 500 people at a time can be fed the hot rice, ghee, avarai and vegetable sambar and rasam on banana leaves. The idea is to feed them, clear up quickly and make way for the next batch. That is the only way to avoid a bottleneck,” Ramesh, the village headman explained.

As the people swarmed in and out, loud music announced the descent of Hethai from her hilltop temple to her home. Rousing cheers rent the air and she was ceremoniously escorted to her home where she will be safe, secure and comfortable till the coming year.