Stories In The Ruins Of Time

In January, while backpacking in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, I chanced upon on a photo of an abandoned church on Instagram. A black-and-white image of an impressive façade ravaged by time. I was intrigued. Who built this church? Why was it in ruins? And where was it? The caption didn’t answer my first two questions, but it did offer the location. That was enough for me, for as luck would have it, I happened to be staying just an hour away from where the church stood in all its ruinous glory.

So, I took a bus from the city of Hassan to the small village of Shettihalli. I then walked a kilometer down an idyllic countryside road, quiet but for the noise of the occasional motorbike. There were just enough people outside the handful of houses to point me in the right direction. An old woman finally gestured to head down a sandy path carved in between bushes and trees. And then all of a sudden, there it was.

French missionaries had built Shettihalli’s Rosary Church in the mid-19th century. I, however, saw just the gothic shell; an exposed brick façade slowly crumbling, its walls and columns etched with human scribbles. But when I considered that the church had spent time underwater every year for the past fifty years, I found it remarkable that it was even standing.

The Hemavathi River has always flowed behind the church but about fifty years ago it was dammed. Shettihalli’s inhabitants were subsequently relocated, and the church’s slow collapse began. During each monsoon, the reservoir filled up and almost swallowed the church whole. Only the spires peeked out.

The width of the church’s façade suggested that it was a big structure, but it was impossible to determine its height; the roof was missing. One could only imagine the stained glasswork that must have once adorned the building. One could only imagine the sermons that must have taken place, and the villagers and missionaries who must have crowded the pews. One could only imagine the homes and the markets that must have formed around this place of worship. One could only imagine.

And that seemed to be the allure of Shettihalli’s crumbling church.

But the question was, for how much longer?