Paper short abstract:

The places traversed by the river Periyar in central Kerala (South West India), and the river itself, are the foci of this paper. The fluvial narratives are punctuated by the riparian relationships through time and space up to the biggest flood of the century in 2018 August.

Paper long abstract:

During the pre-state forms of urbanisation, the river Periyar along with the backwater system afforded easy means of transport and trade. The navigability of rivers for long stretches deep into interiors, and the later development (1800s) of the canals provided for an elaborate system of cargo boats and ferries. This was an efficient and convenient conduit for early inland trade, especially for the transportation of raw materials from the eastern mountains to the Cochin harbour. This served as the prime channel for colonial timber trade. At present the river is the sole source of drinking water for the city of Kochi in Central Kerala and the small towns along the banks of the river, which themselves are fast evolving into new urban extensions.

The former coordinates had been geographical particulars like hillocks, ponds, water channels, and occupational features like agricultural fields serviced by some of the smaller rivulets. These have been important spatial boundary markers. This is not to suggest that places or regions existed in conditions of insularity. As Eric Wolf (1982) argues, there never have been any "cultural isolates". But in contemporary contexts, technologies of control and the versatile flows of capital have dissolved earlier markers and boundaries, and reconfigured the region in terms of neoliberal processes. The contemporary flood of 2018 brings with the waters a gamut of unintended designs into the riparian narratives in the making.