Malampuzha Dam

The story of Malampuzha Dam

The reservoir is the heart of it. Held back by a masonry-and-earthen dam about 1,849 m long — 1,626.71 m of masonry plus a 222.20 m earthen saddle, among the longest in the state — the Malampuzha waters stretch away toward the foot of the Western Ghats, a broad silver sheet that mirrors the changing light of the sky. Standing on the dam crest with the wind coming off the water, you look one way over the calm expanse of the reservoir and the other way down onto the geometric flower-beds and fountains of the gardens far below. It is a view that rewards an unhurried hour, and sunset — when the hills darken and the water turns to copper — is when Malampuzha is at its most beautiful.

Below the wall, the Malampuzha Gardens roll out in terraces of lawn, fountain and flowering shrub, laid out by the state to draw visitors and give the great dam a softer, human face. There are dancing musical fountains that light up in the evening, ornamental ponds, a Japanese garden, a children’s park and shaded walkways where families spread out their picnics. Landscaped in the manner of a grand public pleasure-garden, the grounds have become a destination in their own right — many who come to Malampuzha spend the whole day in the gardens and barely glance at the reservoir that made them possible.

Gliding overhead is the aerial ropeway, the ride that children beg for and adults secretly love. A line of small cable cars carries you high above the flower-beds and fountains, swaying gently as the whole sweep of the garden, the dam and the distant hills unfolds below. It is Kerala’s original garden ropeway and still one of its most popular, giving a bird’s-eye view that no walkway can match — the fountains reduced to bright dots, the Yakshi sculpture reclining serenely off to one side, and the reservoir glinting beyond the dam wall. (Indicative — confirm current ropeway operation and timings locally.)

The Yakshi is Malampuzha’s unmistakable landmark. Sculpted by the celebrated Kanayi Kunhiraman and completed in 1969, the enormous reclining nude — a female nature-spirit of Kerala tradition, cast in concrete and rising some nine metres — dominates one corner of the gardens. Sensuous, monumental and unapologetically modern, it has drawn admiration and controversy in equal measure ever since it was unveiled, praised as a landmark of Indian public sculpture and objected to by others for its nudity. Whatever one’s view, it is impossible to ignore: for generations of visitors, ‘the Yakshi’ and ‘Malampuzha’ have meant the same place.

The rock garden is Malampuzha’s quirkiest surprise. Built from cast-off materials — broken bangles, used plastic, discarded tiles, tins, granite offcuts and fuse carriers — it was created by Nek Chand, the self-taught artist behind the famous rock garden of Chandigarh, and is widely described as the second such garden he made in India. Winding paths lead past figures, mosaics and grottoes assembled entirely from waste, a whimsical man-made landscape that delights children and quietly makes its point about beauty out of rubbish. Together with the aquarium and snake park nearby, it turns a stroll through the gardens into a small tour of curiosities.

Behind everything rises the wall of the Western Ghats. Malampuzha sits at the edge of the Palakkad Gap, the great natural breach in the mountains through which the winds — and once the trade and armies — passed between the Tamil plains and the Kerala coast. The blue-green hills form a constant backdrop to the reservoir and gardens, and paths lead toward viewpoints and the small hill temples above. On a clear morning the light off the water and the closeness of the mountains give Malampuzha a freshness rare on the humid coast, and it is this meeting of engineering, garden and Ghats that keeps drawing people back.

Legend & myth

The great sculpture takes its name and form from the Yakshi of Kerala legend, and the folklore behind it is worth knowing before you stand in its shadow. In the old tales the yakshi is a spirit of ravishing beauty — long flowing black hair, a bewitching smile, a hypnotic aura — who appears on moonless nights along lonely paths, most often beneath the pale-flowered Paala tree (Alstonia scholaris). The sickly-sweet scent of its blossom is said to drift ahead of her as a warning.

As the stories go, a lone traveller passing at night would meet a woman of unearthly loveliness who lured him with her charm; by her ‘maya’, or power of illusion, a mere palm tree might appear to him as a shining mansion. Those who followed her were never seen again by morning. The yakshi is often imagined as the restless spirit of a woman wronged or violently killed, at once alluring and terrifying — a figure of desire and dread woven deep into Kerala’s imagination.

Kanayi Kunhiraman’s reclining Yakshi draws directly on this tradition, giving monumental modern form to a spirit that had lived for centuries only in whispered tale and temple lore. It is legend, not history — but it is the legend that gives the sculpture its charge, and knowing it turns the great concrete figure from a curiosity into something older and stranger, watching over the gardens as her kind were once said to watch over the forest paths. (Folklore recounted as legend, not fact.)