Behind a crumbling fortress

Even after 1972, when the stranglehold of that repressive tradition loosened, the 70-year-old chose to stay back within the fortress—in her house with yellow walls and dank interiors.

Srivaikundam is just like any other hamlet in Tamil Nadu’s rural backyard with its rows of concrete houses, potholed roads and stray cattle. But this village, about 25 km south of Tirunelveli, is steeped in history and intrigue—tales of kings, a murder and an imposing fort, the Pillaimar Kotai.

What now remains of the fort are two massive wooden doors held by small portions of the centuries-old fort walls and five families who stay within—one, that of Bathrakali. Over the years, the Pillaimar women stepped out but the custom left a deep imprint on Bathrakali’s mind. “Now I am forced to leave my house to visit my daughters. I have no option. They are married to men outside the kottai (fort),” she said.

Married to her uncle, who died a year ago, Bathrakali shows little interest in the world outside. “We never knew what was happening outside. Woman tutors came to teach us and they used herbal cures for illnesses. There was no need for us to step out,” she said. The 20-odd families within the fort lived and died on 16 acres of land, without electricity and with no running water. No man from outside, including government officials and authorities, were allowed inside the fort and the women were forbidden from stepping out. The women could only marry the men inside. If they ran short of grooms, they wedded the married men, or remained spinsters.

Their story goes back almost a thousand years. The Pillaimars were ministers in the kingdom of Thennavaraya Pandian, who ruled Madurai. But they fell out with the king after they refused to endorse the crowning of his second wife’s son. They fled Madurai, fearing the king’s wrath and took refuge in Tirunelveli. The king there gave 16 acres to the Pillaimars, built houses for them and to protect them, built a ‘mann kottai’, a fort made of mud walls.

The king also granted Rs 63 every year towards the maintenance of the fort. Even today, the district administration pays the same amount to the Kottai Pillaimars as honorarium and a symbolic gesture. The Pillaimars continue to enjoy the ‘privilege’ of crowning the idol of the king at the Nellaiappar temple in Tirunelveli. They are paid Rs 4.17 for it.

The women remained within the fortress, from birth to death. Even after they died, no one from outside was allowed to see their bodies, which were stitched up in cloth bags and cremated in a burial ground reserved for them, perhaps the only time they were taken outside. The oppressive tradition spawned gory stories, one about a little girl who strayed outside while playing and was killed by the fort inmates.

L. Manohar, a bachelor who still lives inside the kottai, said, “We were a peaceful community, god-fearing like the rest. Yes, our women could not get out. But that was a centuries-old tradition. Now they step out but Bathrakali is the only one who has experienced the oppressive system before 1972.”

“It was a strange tradition. But we did not find it odd then,” said G. Balasubramanian, whose father S. Ganapathy, was accused of murdering Shanmugasunderaraja, a fortress inmate and a DMK leader, in 1972. That was the first time the police entered the fort, breaking a tradition and with it, bringing down its repressive rules. That year, Balasubramanian’s family was the first to step out of the fortress and settle in Tirunelveli town. Some of the other Pillaimar families too decided to leave. They now live in the nearby Nellai and other parts of Tamil Nadu.

But for Bathrakali, her house behind the fortress gates remains her only world. As the sun sinks over the sleepy hamlet, the ruined fort, eerily silhouetted in the twilight, is the only evidence left of a strange tradition.