Category Archives: badaga

The Mouth Watering Badaga Dishes

Badagas have given a lot of importance to their food habits. The most importance, obviously, was given to healthy dishes and how they were prepared. Taste, finds equal importance.

In any festival or celebrations one of the must prepare is the sweet dish known as “Thuppidittu – Thuppadha [Clarified butter – Nei in Tamil] Hittu [Food] – also called ‘Ennay Hittu – Oil [fried] Hittu’. For health and ease of preparation, what better than the wholesome meal of  Eragi Hittu. One of the longevity of life span of  elder Badaga Ayyas and Hethays [older people] is attributed to regular intake of this food for lunch. Taken with  ‘soppu’ – greens and ‘avaray’ – beans curry with a touch of ‘thuppa – clarified butter’…..ah..ah…as I write, my mouth is watering – ‘Jollu Jorira’.

Go here to see the recipes…

One of the prominent Badagas who is involved in many developmental activities associated with Badagas is Mr.T.Rangaiah from Kothiben. He is well known and deeply involved with Tea Board. He is a quiet and unassuming person. In one of my recent meetings with him he mentioned about the Badaga dance.

In olden days, Badaga dance was almost always performed by the artists wearing a typical dress called ‘Dodda Kuppacha’ – a two piece attire in white consisting of a top ‘waist coat’ like what the Rajasthani rural folks wear and a bottom skirt. Since the badaga dance is based on many steps in which the dancers go around [revolving] in circles, these skirts open up making a beautiful sight.

Badagas, in their DHODDA KUPPACHA (a flowing gown like attire) dancing to Kota music. Photo drawing from : ‘Counsel from the Ancients – A study of Badaga Proverbs, Prayers, Omens and Curses’ (Prof;Paul Hockings)

Whenever, any dignitary visited the Nilgiris in those days, it was always the Badagas who would present a dance – both for welcoming the guests and for entertainment – with the Kothas providing the music called ‘harakolu’.

But of late, the Kothas have adopted the Badaga dance. The Nilgiris district admin consisting of ‘babus’ who are reluctant to accept the fact the Badagas are one of the original inhabitants of the Nilgiris like the Todas and Kothas, have been presenting Kothas’ dance much more than the original Badaga Dance.

Mr.Rangaiah also mentioned about a ‘traditional door’ kept in the Tea Board/UPASI complex ‘museum’  in which the Badagas are NOT mentioned along with others as the tribes of the Nilgiris.

You guessed it, the door was presented  by none other than some Badagas from Kotagiri.

Recently I had the pleasure of attending Abhinesh – Revathi wedding at Ooty. What made me proud and pleased is that there are still some sweet ‘old’ ladies who wear traditional Badaga Jewellery in all its glory.

I am extremely grateful to Mrs.Maya Kumar (daughter of Balasubramaniam who had written the well received book on Badagas – PAAME and grand daughter of ‘the walking encyclopedia of everything connected with Badaga, the one and only Jakkadha Bella Gowder) who helped me in taking these pictures.

  POWER TO CHANGE

[Dedicated to my mother]

Anand Ramachandran informs :

COME AND WITNESS A BADAGA MAKING HISTORY BY SUPERVISING THE WORLD’s GREAT FOOTBALL PLAYERS AT KOLKATA ON 02 SEP 2011.

A question from Suresh of Kalhatty who had obviously seen the page on Badaga Jewellery [Badaga Bangara]
has clean bowled me. His question is why do Badagas, always, wear silver rings in pairs. Does it have any special meaning?

I have heard elders telling ‘jodi (bellie) ungara ikku’ – wear (silver) rings in pair but never really found out the significance. Anyone who can through some light?

• Sudha Arjun responds :

  Dear Sir,

  Thank you for including my comments even though you do not agree with them. However, I would sincerely advice all Badagas to re-think the ST status. We do not fulfil the general characteristics of a tribe. I prefer that we are looked upon as a forward thinking community grounded in our traditions of rich hospitality & warmth, willingness to take care of our own people and ability to work hard. We already come under the 27% reservation for OBCs which should cover the opportunities available to us. Are we not going against the spirit of the constitution when we cover economically better communities/ castes in the ST category?

  I am glad that you brought up the point of our land being protected, which is exactly what I had raised a few years back in “Burning issues”. Is there no other way to protect our lands? I have heard that in Himachal, only the locals can buy and sell land to each other and harmony with nature is an essential requirement. What can we do to bring in similar laws? How do we maintain the beauty of our hills without rampant construction in the name of development? Is getting included as ST, the only way to protect our land?

  With reference to the perks given to Senior citizens, I beg to differ. Majority of senior citizens across the country have no income and live on their savings, hence, this cannot be an equal comparision.
  Having said that, I look forward to more such healthy debates on the betterment of our community.

  Hello Ms.Sudha Arjun, thanks for your prompt rejoinder. I am putting your comments as a new post with the hope that there will be many more healthy debates on this ‘current’ topic – Wg Cdr JP

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 MAHALAKSHMI comments :

I agree with you Ms Sudha Arjun. Its meaningless in degrading us(Badagas) from our status for mere reservation and benefits from the Govt. There are people all over India(world) even today who die due to starvation, drought etc….There are people who even don’t know that the govt. can help them in many ways. These politicians play a good game there. We badagas with God’s Grace are good enough and developing ourselves in all the sectors today. Its a shame to all badagas asking for ST status though we can stand on our own. We should understand one thing basically (i.e) Reservation from govt. is to help the poor people to come up in their life and to make them stable. When a person from SC/ ST/ OBC gets a govt. job they should write to the govt. That they no more belong to lower caste, they satisfy their needs by themselves & they should upgrade their status. Unfortunately it doesn’t happen everywhere. Very scarcely people are genuine. It looks selfish, we Badagas strive for ST status in the country where we have the duty to abolish the caste difference, we should leave way for the poor and help people to come up.

Instead we can make way for unemployed youths. As we see in other parts of our country we don’t leave our senor citizens in old age home. Also I agree that not all of them are safe and good. We can ask govt. to take any safety measures for these problems and feel them safe rather to degrade us to ST status.

Also we should note that we have a major problem in our community, (i.e)early marriage of girl children, unawareness about the politics, in general though we are educated we lack in understanding the things that happens around us and take measures. We have to fight for these……….

This is a must see video on youtube [Uploaded by yogeshajjan] in which a youngster  traces the wild path in the wilderness of the unspoilt Nilgiris that was frequented by his forefathers. Hats off to those who made this journey to Devarbetta. Yes, with a nice sound track – Badaga Song.

THALAIKAARU EMMATTI: This is the place where my grandfather and great grandfathers lived with their cattle to overcome drought. This place is unknown to our generation. This journey is to find my grand fathers wild house-I just added a sound track ….

http://youtu.be/UdzPucNJI30

Dear JP,

I knew that Badaga women were unique in their own ways. They were courageous, well displined and hardworking to the core. They were the incornation of goodness, tolerance and kindness.,embodiment of virtues. Your mother was undoubtedly one such soul. I earnestly pray for her purest soul to rest in peace.

Kethorai.R.Rajma

Thank you Rajma, you have summed it in the most beautiful way. It was mother, who was a true Badaga[thi] who made us hold our head high and to have the courage of conviction – JP

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Thank you, to all those friends who had sent condolence messages on the demise of my mother Mrs.Idyammal. She was born on 02-09-1912 and named Kaaday [Kade] and her pet name was Ida which became Idy.

2-9-1912 —-13-7-2011

Being the youngest, she was the pet of her parents,Rao Bahadur Bellie Gowder and Nanji Hethay. She had a big influence with all her brothers and after Rao Badadur Bellie Gowder passed away in 1935, she was the uniting force of the family.

She lived a full life with all its pleasures and pitfalls. Being a woman of great character and courage – she ensured that all her children, eight of us, were sent to schools and colleges.

Education was her topmost priority, probably due to the influence of her elder brother Rao Bahadur Ari Gowder who was 20 years elder to her. Educating all the children was not easy, that too, two of us in professional courses, her fifth child, Balakrishna became a Doctor [though fate played a cruel trick and he passed away in Malaysia in 1975, at the age of 29, just a day before he was leaving for London to do his FRCS, and was the first of her children to pass away which shattered mother beyond description] and me, her sixth child as an Engineer.

She was very strict and did not compromise and had the courage of conviction to carry her decisions through.

There is so much to write about her for she is a phenomena by herself. In her passing away, it was end of an era.

Thank you once again for all the sentiments – Wg Cdr JP