Heaven on earth

The tea gardens reaching up to Nallamudi, in Valparai, are owned by the Bombay Burmah Trading Company, but where the hill falls off into the Pooncholai, the Forest Department of the state government takes over. The tea gardens are scenic enough, but the shola forests of the pooncholai make them quite run-of-the-mill in comparison.

To get to the pooncholai, we have to buy tickets from the forest guard. It is then that we learn of a unique gent who is allowed unhindered access into the forests. "He has seen God, you know", says our driver and he is backed up by the forest guard. Yeah, right. 

The climb up through the tea garden is a slow gradient. The sight of a black shouldered kite on a silver oak keeps us company through a curve. The flower of the tea plant - now, whoever thought they would be allowed to blossom? - with a bug lying on its back inside the petals kept conversation going for a while.

Then, silence. A dragonfly, with a deft mid-air swerve, swooped on a small Blue Tiger butterfly with a softly audible 'thwack'. It is surely not polite to watch someone eat, but we try to take pictures. The dragonfly is not amused and it goes deeper into the tea gardens.

We are near the edge. A ledge, with a concrete structure, comes into view. An old man close to the building sees us coming and calls out, urging us to come on over. We watch. He goes to the edge, raises his arms to the sky and yells across the valley. Not a language that any of us can decipher.

We follow his arms as they come down, to look across the valley. In the far distance, seven or eight threads of silver seem to be descending directly from the clouds that wrap the peaks. The threads are lost in the multi-coloured greens of the sholas, and, much lower down, emerge as broad streams making waterfalls as they course further down the valley.

A path dips away to the right, and at its end, a small clearing houses two large, flat, sloping stones, which, together with a third, smaller one, form a rough triangle. An open flame on the small stone is almost invisible in the bright sunlight. The larger stones are decked out with flowers in bright colours, some of them way off any palette that you can imagine. 

Along the path, many of those flowers bob at us. Amidst them, more bright colours flash around; flying jewels, those Crimson-backed Sunbirds. One would think such brilliantly coloured feathers would stand out, but they merge with the vivid flowers until we are confused if it is the flower or the bird that is flying.

Heaven on earth.

And then we see the signboard on the side of the path. In Tamizh and English, it says this is the 'SEEN GOD SHRINE'. The old man is waiting, he has seen us looking at the sign. "38 years and 104 days ago", he says. "I saw God. Here". He speaks in Tamizh and English and says his life changed that day. No more trousers, no job, just tending to the stones for a couple of hours a day before going to his son's house for his daily 'kanji'.

Velu has seen all the animals of the forest. He is believable, for he does not tell of the tiger we missed last week. The last one he saw was five years ago. We ask him about the God. "There was a square patch of brilliant light, and it grew to a column that seemed to reach up to the sky. He was beautiful. I saw him with these mortal eyes.", he says, emphasising the mortal-ness. 

We probe further. What did he speak to God about? "Why would I need to tell you about that? I saw Him, I spoke to Him and I am the better for it". So, is he a devotee? "பித்தன்னு சொல்லலாங்கொ (a manic would be more apt)". He is happy. Maybe he did have some kind of epiphany here.

There are few better places to have a vision of God, anyway.

Ranthambore, Day 4 (last)

All packing done during the night, we were off to an earlier start – by about 10 minutes – than usual. It was much cooler than the previous days, but somehow, all the animals seemed to be having a lie-in. Running up to the top of a hillock on the Aravalli range, we took in another look at the dhok clouds across the valleys before going back to what had become a restful spot – the ranger station at Padam Tal, where we could watch the Golden Oriole, the Common Iora and the Parakeets on a Ficus, as also various waterbirds. The muggers had come out in strength to bid us a goodbye; the other high point of the safari was our coming across tracks of a porcupine, its footprint looking like one of the flowers children draw, with a large central circle fringed with six or seven circular petals.

The large group had broken up; 7 of us were the first away, rushing to Jaipur – a two-and-a-half hour drive – to take the SpiceJet flight to Chennai, touching down at Ahmedabad and Hyderabad on the way. A few stayed on at Sawai Madhopur and some others were spending time at Jaipur. Our goodbyes were rushed, but that doesn’t matter: we’re sure to see each other again, on the GoogleGroup if not at the MNS meeting – or maybe on the next MNS trip!

Ranthambore, Day 1

After the 15th of April, all the Cassia fistula trees along the streets of Chennai were barren, shorn of their flowers. Bouquets of the konna, among other things, are supposed to be an auspicious sight on the morning of Vishu, the harvest festival of the Malayali and had therefore been taken down from the trees to be a part of the Vishukani display.

The road to the gates of the Ranthambhore National Park however showed no evidence of Malayalis having gone that way – the few konna trees on that road were in full bloom, their vivid yellow flowers a sharp contrast to the heat-washed early morning. Maybe they were auspicious, too, for almost as soon as we cleared the gate bureaucracy, we had to stop. Dr. Jayamurthy’s keen eyes had seen a movement on the stone cliffs of the Vindhyas – and there we saw what Dr.Jayamurthy had spotted, a sight possibly rarer than seeing a tiger – a leopard, ambling over the rocks. He then lay down for a while, letting all of us take a good look at him, before going deeper inside the ledge and away from our sights.

Bumping along the forest roads, we pulled to a halt on the shores of the Padam Tal, as did several other Canters and Gypsies. A tiger had been sighted there yesterday, said the guide. A herd of chital on the far shore looked at us and then stiffened, sensing a greater threat and then broke into a run. False alarm. It was only a big sambhar stag, coming down for a drink. A Gypsy came rushing up to the group of vehicles. The message was crisp: at Lakharda, near Mandu Point, a pair of tigers had dragged a kill across the road from a waterhole. The race was on. Canters galloped, Gypsies careened, as every vehicle tried to be the first on the scene, to grab the best spot for watching the tigers. But even before we reached there, four or five other vehicles had cornered the vantage points. Not that we were complaining. We had a wonderful view, as the male tiger – a large 5-6 year old – got up, crossed the road up ahead of us and walked towards us, stopping at the waterhole, where he slaked his thirst. Strolling back, he went about 25 feet away from the road and lay down, sated, needing some peace and quiet, now. The tigress was still feeding at the kill, but soon, she needed water as well and so cut across the road to the waterhole. Maybe the male felt protective, for he too got up and circled the vehicles, getting to the waterhole. He saw that the tigress wasn’t too worried about the crowd of onlookers – there were close to a hundred people, standing up on the seats of their vehicles, trying to get pictures the best they could – and had settled herself quite comfortably into the small waterhole, so he wandered back to the other side of the road. The tigress continued to lie in the water, soaking herself for a while, allowing everyone to take a good look at her. When she had enough of it, she got up, intending to walk back to her kill the way she had cut across the road. But by now there was a double line of vehicles blocking that path, so she had to go around, behind the last vehicle. That Gypsy suddenly gunned its engines and reversed, keeping abreast of the tigress – thankfully, it was only for a few seconds and the big girl was allowed to get across before she could build up her anger. We had been there for almost an hour, though it seemed but a few minutes, and the drive back was quick, for we had been lucky, to have seen two tigers on our first safari.

Our enthusiasm at breakfast was rather subdued; the smaller group of 11 had been lucky, the bigger group of 16 hadn’t. And so, before the afternoon safari, they were given detailed instructions: Zone 3. Mandu Point, where the road curves. Watch for a waterhole in the crook. Hoping the pair would still be digesting their morning meal, and hoping that would give the bigger group a good sighting, we went off into Zone 4. We zigged and we zagged. Herds of sambhar and chital were seen, so were nilgai, too, though less frequently. Peafowl wandered about everywhere, the males trailing their tails with practiced unconcern. Troops of Hanuman langur pretended to be unaware of the approaching vehicle, leaping away at the last moment and then muttering harsh words to us. We waited a while at an artificial waterhole, watching the communal drinking – circling around the water were sambhar, peafowl, red-vented bulbul, a flameback, some chital – all making for a nice, peaceful scene. We moved on, leaving the wildlife to quench their thirst without any spectators and Ramanan asked the guide about going to Bakola. “Not possible”, said the guide, “the forest department has chained the way shut. But we will still go on that road, as far as we can”. The road ran to the right of a low cliff, about 12 feet high and sloping down to meet the road just where the chain across two trees stopped us from heading any further. As if to taunt us, a jackal looked at us and loped away, heading into the forbidden forest, as if daring us to come after it. Not falling for that trick, we turned around to head back to the exit. And then, there he was. He looked Vidya right in the eye, and as she called out, the Canter stopped and backed up in a hurry, bringing us all right beside him. He had come down the cliff, probably just after we had passed, hoping to get across to the other side for some food and was now stuck by our return. He was confused, irritated, scared and bewildered at this interruption and seemed thankful when the engine was switched off. Crossing the path in front of our vehicle, he looked out to the flatland, wondering how he could bring down one of those sambhar for a meal. We waited a while, hoping he would show us the answer he worked out, but the little fellow – he was only a year-and-a-half old – did not seem to be that hungry. We drove back to find that the bigger group hadn’t been lucky at all; their guide refused to believe that they knew about a morning kill that he was ignorant about and being at his mercy as to the possible locations of a tiger, the group had spent the afternoon unsuccessfully searching at different locations. They had made up for the lack of tiger sighting with a large list – Dr. Shyamala had spotted over 60 species – of birds and the amazing spectacle of a mugger capturing a large fish in the lake.