Second Lodge

Chapter 6

I received some glimpses of history about the mansion and most of the records were not perfect, there were records of Plantation Company and its business history but the details of people lived in the mansion and their whereabouts were missing.Edwin James Woods a.k.a E.J.Woods was assigned to construct this Mansion for a scottish tea export firm called Finlay Moir & company, he was a military engineer who served the royal army. The gothic styled mansion was completed in 1903. In 1913 when the general manager"s residence was shifted to Munnar, the mansion was allotted to estate manager. In 1924 a huge flood and landslide havocked the entire hillstation, destroyed the plantations in mist valley, huge asset loss encountered by the colonial settlers all over Munnar, the restoration of past glory became impossible. Thus, the mansion left unattended after the disuse of plantation.

Company had 33 estates in Travancore region, relinquished plantation became a burden to the company, due to its remoteness mansion was not preferred by the company officials. Post independence the Finley Moir & company sold the property to Idukki diocese, while their other estates were acquired by Indian companies. The diocese prospected many plans to convert the mansion to abbey for accommodating capuchin monks but never materialized. But diocese maintained the property reasonably well before it had been sold Credence group in 2002.But retained the ownership of the small chapel and rectory.

I made a short tour of the surroundings, the forest was very near and there could be possibility of wild animals intruding into the premises, leopards, sloth bear, were common and tigers were rare but the most dangerous were elephants, more men died out of elephant attack. Lawrence told me about a trench excavated along the borders of pine forest to keep the wild animals at bay. The trench was dug during the colonial days and really didn’t know whether it could be leveled naturally after all these years.

Riya had done the unpacking and settled herself in that big room. I sat in a bergere chair in the aisle made out of rosewood frame. Lawrence sat beside me in narrow ebony Jacobean. We were discussing the details of farm, a man came, he was about sixty years old but stout and healthy.

“This is Mathai caretaker of this mansion” Lawrence introduced.

The old man clasped his hands in reverence and stood there smiling.

“Mathai used to come in his bicycle he didn’t stay there, he comes morning and inspect the surroundings, do some peripheral cleaning, debris collection and go back to before sunset. The night was unwatched and nobody dared to stay there alone fearing wild animals and ghosts!”

“Ghosts I laughed …. Have you seen one?” I asked Mathai.

He shook his head.

“People are interested in weaving ghost stories as the mansion was abandoned for years” Lawrence said.

It was interesting talking to Mathai, he told me many folk tales regarding the mansion and rectors who held the receivership of the property after church took over it. Among that father Gomez"s story was peculiar, father Gomez was Mathai"s patron he appointed Mathai as the caretaker and since then Mathai enjoyed that privilege.

“The Mansion was never opened”? I asked out of curiosity

“No there wasn’t any provision to open the Mansion without bishop"s permission”.

“Why”?

“That was the rule and receivers strictly followed it”.

‘Strange rules’, I said to myself, I saved Mathai for coming days, wanted to hear more stories and I loved to hear folklores and eerie stories of ghouls and goblins.

Mathai went inside as I asked him to help Riya to arrange our things.

“Sir don’t pay attention to Mathai"s gospels, he would say all sort of nonsensical stories”.

“Take it easy Lawrence… I love stories. There is no trill, if we don’t hear local ghost stories.”

“Ok sir… take care and see you tomorrow”.

Lawrence disappeared as thudding of motorcycle gradually faded and silence returned.

That evening was special Riya and me sitting in the lawn savoring coffee. The lawn was full of weeds but some weeds were beautiful with attractive flowers. The western horizon became crimson, light faded, breeze came with the chillness, whole valley draped in thick white fog and the day ended, our first day in the mansion of Mist valley.

The night was moonless and I was struggling to sleep, the huge roof of mansion above whispered the legendary tales of European conquest, the fight against nature, disease, and aboriginals, whom shot poisonous arrows from their bows. The first tribes to settle in the dense forest of western Ghats were the Muthuvas, surviving the attack of Pandians, the chief war lords and rulers of Tamilnadu, they climbed hills by clearing paths through forest. They survived attacks of lone tuskers, bears and man-eating tigers. There were infants, pregnant women, ailing mothers and limping warriors among them. They piggybacked their belongings and climbed the hills, thus the name ‘MUTHUVA’ stick to their tribe. ‘MUTHUKU’ means back in Dravidian tongue. Muthuva preserved the forest and land, they venerated it and seldom did the exploitation.

The ecosystem remained untouched until the arrival of J.D. Munroe, the Travancore British Resident. He founded North Travancore Land Planting and Agricultural society in 1879. Recognizing the agriculture potential of the land they started cultivating coffee, cardamom and cinchona. Tea didn’t come until A.H.Sherp introduced it at Parvathy now called ‘Seven mally estate’. He cleared 48 acres of jungle and planted tea. Since then tea dominated other plantations.Most of the plantation spread over Kannan Devan hills, the name derived from a muthuvan chieftain ‘KANNAN THEVAR’ who ruled the tribe and was revered by the Muthuvas.