16-Aug-2002

Friday


Woke up around 6:30 after an uninterrupted sleep. I wanted to make good use of being in the forest and so meditated for some time. All the other guys were still asleep and I stepped out of the cottage after around half an hour into the pristine world outside. The air was fresh and cool, and all I could hear was the sounds of a variety of birds, predominated by the calls of a distant peacock. I sat on the steps at the door. A langur... a silver colored primate with a jet black face slowly walked by, its long silver tail held straight and high curling at- the top, and a baby clinging on to it upside down... a beautiful animal. I felt like rushing for my camera... but just observed the thought without reacting to it, instead I continued to sit there and stare at it motionlessly; it noticed me casually and walked on slowly without breaking its pace. During those precious moments of absolute peace, my mind had just that wild animal; nothing else existed in the world. I watched it as it joined its pals on the roof of a nearby cottage. I could understand the sentiments of wild animal photographers.

 

I could get a better idea of the environment around the cottage since the previous evening the skies had already started darkening when we had arrived. There was a river next to our cottage, brown with silt. There were a couple of cottages around ours, but other than that there wasn’t much in terms of civilization except some tribals. The nearest village was Machinagudi, a few kilometers away.

 

We left the cottage around 9 AM, walked around the place on the way saw a lot of cactus giving flower and even fruits. It was a rare event... once in ten years we figured... for a cactus to have flowers... they were yellow and the fruits were dark purple. The inner part of the fruit was supposed to be edible... and the other guys tried it out while I let it pass... Anindya got his hands pricked in the process.

 

We went to Machinagudi by jeep to have breakfast. Having no idea if and when we would have lunch... we kept gulping down an uncountable number of plain dosas i.e. “roast”, omlettes and idlis. We returned to the cottage later to start our plan for the day; Ashok had spoken to a local tribal, Kallan, who had said he would take us to a waterfall in the jungle, a kilometer away. There was a nice quiet dog which kept visiting us and we gave it scraps of food. I like dogs in general... but this one was particularly nice... it was so quiet and seemed to be very intelligent and understanding.

 

It was 1:30 PM when we started walking towards the jungle where Kallan would be waiting for us. We crossed the river over a bridge and saw him, but every time we saw him, he kept going further away. I was happy to see the dog following us, and hoped that he would continue to accompany us once we entered the dense jungle. I made a mental note to give it some food as soon as we returned. Finally we caught up with Kallan after following him up a small path which led away from the road into the jungle. As soon as he saw the dog, he chased it away... the dog left after some hesitation. He explained that it was extremely dangerous to take a dog into the jungle... it might end up aggravating a wild animal by barking at it, and... so we continued walking more and more into the interior in quest of the waterfall. On the way it started raining and I took every precaution possible to protect my camera. At a few places, the forest was so dense that we had to crawl through the spaces in between the creepers. We saw a huge creeper having something which looked like giant hurulikaayi (beans) and we learnt that its seeds were a source of food. Ashok took one as a momento... it was quite heavy, at least 5 kilos.

 

At 14:00, we reached the falls... it wasn’t just one big waterfall but a series of rapids and small falls. It was an absolutely spectacular sight... a totally different world surrounded by the dense foliage. The sounds of the rushing water, birds and the intermittent rain filled the air... the atmosphere was pure and unpolluted... it was my definition of paradise.

 

There was some elephant dung even in very rocky and steep areas. I wondered how the elephants ended up in a place like that... I didn’t imagine an elephant climbing on a steep slope. On the way back, the rain started pouring heavily; the paths through the forest were starting to become streams as we sploshed carefully through them trying not to slip. We would be totally lost without Kallan... everything around looked exactly the same... I wondered how he could make his way through. We were back at the cottage half an hour later. Time passed slowly and we were in no hurry to do anything. It was soon late nightfall and we had bread and some MTR curry for dinner.

 

The other guys except Jainy wanted to sleep, but I didn’t want to waste the opportunity of being in the forest and sat outside for some time. It was pitch dark outside the cottage, and highly intimidating, I felt relatively safer inside the cottage as long as the front as well as back doors were closed. It was around 11 PM as I stared at the silent darkness outside, trying to identify this fear of the jungle within me. Maybe, as Anindya had commented earlier... it wasn’t exactly fear...  but more a sense of insecurity.

 

I wanted to call home to say everything was ok. Jainy said we could go out and call up. I asked him if he was nuts... venturing into the jungle like that. He reassured me that it wasn’t much... the phone booth was just around the corner near the elephant feeding station. I found myself taking my torch and walking out with him. It was something I had to do. Once I went out... I found my torch with two new batteries, was no more than an aggarbatti, a torch with atleast four batteries which was like a car headlight was required. I could feel my fear rising within me as I walked on the road towards the phone booth, through the quiet darkness, Jainy’s torch light being the only light source. I kept jumping every now and then, seeing predators in every shadow. I kept thinking this is absolutely crazy... what will we do if a boar charges at us. Jainy assured me that if any animal attacked, he would not leave my side... and though I didn’t think he would be able to do much, it was my only consolation.

 

Gradually my eyes got used to the darkness, and I could switch off the torchlight still being able to see in the dim moonlight. My mind was on high alert for every sound around me, but it gradually stopped acting paranoid and calmed down, only a little, as I tried to confront and observe my fear. It was esp. scary when we passed Anna who was silently standing next to the river. After what seemed to be an eternity, we reached the phone booth, and it was closed... Jainy said I knew it was closed, I didn’t want to tell you or else you wouldn’t have come.

We started walking back and on the way, we saw a herd of over 50 deer standing silently in the forest. They moved away every time we shone our torches on them. I tried to photograph them, but they didn’t seem to be interested and ran away.

By the time we returned... it was around midnight, and I was relatively much more comfortable in the forest. I claimed that I had overcome my fear, though Jainy bet I would be too scared to venture out the next night too... I was happy that I had eradicated, to a certain extent, one of the negativities in me – fear.


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