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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