Here, even a goddess has to wait for ‘rehab’

RAJAHMUNDRY: Not only has the Polavaram project displaced people, it has also managed to displace village deities. One such popular deity ‘waiting’ for her rehabilitation is Gandi Posamma. Posamma, believed to be a remover of obstacles, sees her shrine get inundated in the monsoon regularly since the construction of the project started. In fact, the state endowments department has already made a proposal to shift the shrine to some other place.
The thought is to ‘shift’ the deity to an easily-accessible area from her present abode in Gonduru village of Devipatnam mandal, which is surrounded by hills and dense forests. The temple gets submerged with the first warning at Bhadrachalam and this year’s Godavari floods again inundated it. While it’s getting almost impossible for people to approach the 100-year-old shrine, the shrine and the idol itself may soon be lost to the river.
According to legend, five daughters of a family went to fetch water from the Godavari. Only four returned. The fifth girl had turned into a golden statue. Once a drunkard hurled the statue into the river. When villagers went to fish it up, a voice from the heavens stopped them and asked them to build a shrine and worship Posamma on the river banks. In 1990, the temple came under the endowments department. Every year, the day after Ugadi, a five-day festival starts at the shrine.
While the government has planned to use displacement compensation funds to make a new temple for the deity, it might get too late before the Godavari damages the shrine completely.

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