Two Tier Series 6 - A Press Of Popularity

Reema Subia finds the ancient abode of Lord Jagannath overwhelmed — both by pilgrim numbers and rampant commercialisation of a beach resort.

For centuries, its picturesque beauty, ancient civilization and spectacular temples have inspired poets and philosophers. It has attracted research scholars, artist, and, of course, drawn the devoted — for the religious, the city of Puri has always been a magnet because it is one of the most sacred sites in Hinduism.
The fine white sands of the beach at Puri have only added to the attraction.

Puri is the site of the Govardhan Math, one of four cardinal institutions established by ancient Hindu philosopher and teacher Adi Shankara (the others are at Dwarka, Sringeri and Jyotirmath). But it is also one of the ancient maritime cities of India: Ptolemy, the second century Roman geographer, wrote about maritime trade between Paloura (Puri) and the islands of Indonesia.

Puri means town and it gets its name from Jagannath Puri or the abode of Jagannath (the universal god), whose temple was constructed by various rulers in the 11th and 12th centuries. The Rath Yatra (Festival of Chariots) of Lord Jagannath, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, usually in the month of June, is of course, the big attraction of Puri, the leitmotif of the annual, lemming-like, mass migration of pilgrims.

Devotees from across the world come to Puri to see the three main deities of the temple (Krishna, his brother Balarama and sister Subhadra) in procession, a sight that is supposed to absolve them of all sin. In past times, the ultimate salvation for true devotees came if they allowed themselves to be crushed under the wheels of the chariot of the gods. The city’s population of 500,000 usually swells to well over 1.1 million during the festival.

In the light of dawn, the shrine of Lord Jagannath glows luminously, and the holy sounds of the temple bells, sacred mantras and bhajans (devotional songs) meld melodiously into the sounds of the sea and the silence. Early morning risers can also go to the seashore to look at the colourful catamarans and watch the breakers from the Bay of Bengal wash over the beach. But many residents and regular visitors feel that little of the original glory of Puri survives. More than 1200 hotels and guesthouses have come up in the areas nearest the beach.

The relentless pressure of the sea is lapping at the shores of the city’s latest development — the recently constructed Marine Drive, where luxurious hotels and spanking new apartment complexes have sprouted. Thousands of sandbags line the area, but they haven’t been able to protect it from the tidewater: the new Marine Drive was completed in 2004 and by mid-2005, the sea had begun its destruction, says citizen Janmyejay Badapand. This is the road that the Puri Konark Development Authority (PKDA) spent Rs 1.5 crore redoing, even though it was in the middle of the high and low tide zones, and an area where Environment Secretary B.K. Pattanayak agreed that any kind of development was totally banned.

Puri Collector Rashmi Ranjan Pattanayak, however, disagrees that there has been any violation of rules. “We did not construct a new road, but only developed whatever was there before 1991, which was under developed,” he says. Pattanayank’s is a view that is shared by the politicians: Local MLA Maheswar Mohanty, Bharatiya Janata Dal heavyweight and Orissa Assembly Speaker, waved aside environmental concerns.

“We can’t proceed because of this attitude; we are still backward. Look at Pattaya in Thailand, a city developed just by the side of the sea. We have to look forward,” he says. But, as Ratikant Pattnaik, a private engineer, points out, “sewage lines from hotels throw their waste directly into the sea, turning the sand black”, He adds that the development authority does not take any action to keep the beach clean: morning visitors are greeted by wine bottles and polythene bags.

Tourists are equally concerned about the degradation of the environment around Puri. Johanna Lif, a Swedish girl who visits the holy city every year in February, says there is unplanned construction, unregulated traffic and pollution of the sea-shore. She also thinks that, “the administration should make a silence zone and restrict entry of vehicles on Badadanda” (the big wide road which goes from the Jagannath Termple to the Gundicha Temple and is the scene of the Rath Yatra).

While the increasing number of tourists and devotees to Puri is certainly helping those involved in providing them hospitality and other services earn money, it’s also resulted in destruction of green areas in the city; every year hundreds of coconut trees are lost. If the locals are suffering, the irony is that god too has not been exempted from the travails of over development.

“The jaala (firewood) and maati (soil to make the pot used in the worship) are not available as readily as they used to be: this is a big problem for Lord Jaganntha,” complained 83 year old bramhin Radhaa Ballava Rath. Another place that urgently requires official attention is the swargadwar, the cremation ground. Locals say a wall should be made around the area: the cremation ground is totally visible from the sea road and the fumes from the pyres waft over it as well. Puri is foremost a tourist city, with most citizens eking a livelihood catering to visitors in some way or the other. If rampant over-development, non-existent waste management and crumbling infrastructure are not addressed, the city will begin to lose the tourists it now attracts in large numbers.

The beach at Puri is considered unique because it is positioned so that visitors can view both the sunrise and the sunset. In that USP is a metaphor: if authorities seriously improve its infrastructure without mismanaging expansion, Puri will remain a sunrise city. But if they persist in overdeveloping Puri to death, they may well preside over its sunset.