Orders flew in all directions. Overnight, a plan was devised to drain the tamarind pond and then fill it up with soil. With assistance from a British engineer, an Indian engineer submitted a plan that would cost a hundred and fifty thousand rupees. Only God knows where they managed to find such a flood of people to put to work. Officials from the court headed in all directions; they went from town to town to hire laborers, and they brought back thousands of men and women. The government issued an order, effective immediately, that all construction work within a fifty-mile radius had to be halted for two weeks. Every cart in the area was stationed near the tamarind pond. As a result, even the farmers’ market was canceled for two weeks.

They dug a sluice to drain the water from the tamarind pond into the Therekalputhoor channel. In just a day, the tamarind pond merged with the Indian Ocean. Then they stacked up and burned sandalwood all around the pond, in preparation for the main work.

There was a hill about four miles south of the tamarind pond, just by the foothills of the Maruthuva Mountain. They called it Pariah Hill. The entire hill was sheer red earth that had piled up over eons in the space between two mountains. Half as tall as a palm tree, it looked like a giant anthill. Thousands of workers now arrived to dig up and carry soil from this hill. I sat perched in a tree and watched how a basket of the red earth from the top of the mound was passed through several pairs of hands before it was emptied into the open cart parked by the roadside. By the time the hill was leveled to the ground, there was not even a trace of the tamarind pond left. With gashes on their necks from all the beatings and feet swollen from all the work, the bullocks collapsed. The pond had been filled up in just two days.

Then, for the next four days, they focused on laying the road. It ran in a straight line from Vadaseri to Kottar. This new road passed right in front of the tamarind tree. All the commotion around the pond had not affected the tamarind tree in the slightest.

On its return journey, the maharaja’s golden chariot passed right over the spot where the tamarind pond had been. The entire area was filled with the scent of the flowers that lay scattered all over the road. The place looked absolutely heavenly.

“If the maharaja had not come that day, nothing would have changed about this place. The western section of the town would not have developed at all if they had not laid the road! That’s right: it was only since his visit that this town has come into its own,” Asan finished.