"Reach the boat landing tomorrow morning at sharp nine a.m." the words of the receptionist the previous day occurred to me as I armed my jacket. When we made it downstairs for breakfast, the receptionist greeted us; it was morning and the hotel was lively. We strolled down the corridor to the restaurant. After a light breakfast on cut fruits and cereals we stepped outside the hotel. It was cold and misty outside and as we grabbed onto the massive iron gates which entered into the small garden that led to the boat landing, we let out some brisk puffs.
The boat landing was bustling that morning. Hundreds of tourists had flocked in the verandah. Some chatted while some took selfies of their troupe with the grand Periyar in the background. While I set off to click some myself, nature greeted me with a clout! It started with a startling thud on the tin roof above the verandah that scared everyone. Only a split second apart, something hit hard on my head. I was shaken as I quickly retracted my head. At first, I thought a monkey might have used my head as a ramp to hop off so I looked in the direction where it had gone and my eyes met with a small Jack fruit on the forest floor; It must have fallen
off a tree above the roof.
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| The ghat as seen from the information center |
The area was flooded with tourists and local families, all excited for the boat ride that awaited. In the last few days, it had been a
relief not bumping into any Bengali or Gujarati families. It is pacifying when you are not in presence of people of the same lingo so
that you can speak whatever you want to without anyone knowing it. A trio of a bespectacled man, a bespectacled lady and another man in shades in their
thirties stood beside me, leaning on the railing of the verandah. The sudden
jackfruit incident had shaken them too and the bespectacled man had stepped back
well under the roof.
"Ave naa pare. It won’t fall anymore." The bespectacled lady told her friend in Gujarati. I
turned my head with a start to face the group. Instantly I thought- Great! What’s
next? A Bengali family asking me directions?
A small door in the information center led to the stone steps that ended at the ghat. There at the ghat, three boats were tied to
the shore. Big boats with a lower deck and an upper deck. A dilapidated boat, I
remember having seen the previous day lay under a tree far from the ghat; now that it had
given its service, it was a part of another world, sleeping in the lap of
nature.
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| The dilapidated boat |
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| Shooting |
After a squeeze through a crammed single door toward the steps, we were on our way to our designated boat. A crew of two men from some local TV channel were busy shooting the lake while one of them stood before the camera and spoke out his script.
Jalaraja, literally the king of the water was a blue boat meant solely for the tourists who had checked into KTDC lodges and floated third in line. We walked up a ramp into
the lower deck of Jalaraja. There were two rows of seats with four seats in each row and life jackets hung
from the back of each seat. Our seats were in the upper deck. We took the narrow stairs to the upper floor where we faced another seating arrangement. Luckily, our seats were the first three seats of the first
row. I claimed the seat by the railing and donned my life jacket as per the instructions.
At sharp half past
nine, the three boats revved up their engines and a man untied the ropes from
the stumps of wood on the shore. An elderly man with a steel container of tea
climbed up the ramp to our boat at the eleventh hour. The other man then pushed the boat from the front
till it was well into the lake, the greenish blue water.
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| All aboard! |
The sailor man began turning the boat till it faced the long expanse of the lake further, giving a perspective of the lake sandwiched between land on both sides which fused at the horizon and created a gush of verdant. The other boats had already begun their trip and we were left behind. So, Jalaraja in a feat of competition kicked the waters and dragged itself into the lake sending foaming water jets behind and waves sideways.
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| Submerged |
The boat steered close along the shore and the trees on our both sides swayed in the morning breeze. The front seat in the boat added to the benefit as I got a perfect view of the forest. A thrilling orchestra of birds, crickets and monkeys stirred up inside
the cover. The floor beneath the dense trees was dark and every now and then
tiny birds flew out from the cluster into the sky or over the lake.
The short
submerged stumps of wood that I had seen from the verandah last evening had
grown into large tree trunks, bare and dead. They were green once; like any
other tree in the forest. But that is history now.
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| Passerby |
Back in 1895, when John
Pennycuick constructed the Mullaperiyar dam on the Mullayar River and its
tributary Periyar; the longest in Kerala to send the water eastwards to the
farmers of Madras, the lake came into existence. The bare stumps were
a sad reminder of the past but they continue adorning the lake like any other element in
the forest.
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| In action |
Birds waded to their
tops and spread their wings; some picked their feathers and looked aimlessly at
the boats below while others glided into the lake to prey. At the edge of
the lake, between half dipped tree branches, baby pan cowries practiced
swimming; their parents blowing the whistle and rebuking them.
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| Bird enjoying the breeze |
Everything
seemed to happen at the right time; so well placed, so natural it felt like
it had all been rehearsed. Far off tribal men walked through the forest nonchalant
of a tete-a-tete with a tiger or a Dhole.
A speed boat christened POLICE passed the trio of boats sending
waves that made our boats sway. The sky had been a pale blue since morning
and had later added on a hint of grey. A cool breeze had been blowing ever
since the boat began moving; our life jackets proved to act as a cover from the
cold. For the climax, it drizzled and the forest bathed for the first time
since that morning.
It had been a good forty five minutes when Jalaraja slowed down close to what seemed to be another boat landing with the room for a single
boat. A flight of wooden stairs landed at the boat landing from a small hill. from my seat I could see few deck chairs and a facade to a small cottage on the hill. This was The Lake view Palace. Another KTDC venture which was placed right inside the reserve. Its rooms served the novelty of the panoramic view of the lake and the elephants
drinking, bison herd grazing, dholes chasing boars and tigers spying.
The old man with tea
hopped off the boat onto the boat landing and climbed up to the resort and vanished. The
boat immediately receded in the river and proceeded. Far in the green meadow, a bison
herd was having breakfast. As soon as an accompanying guide on the boat
announced it, riders got up from their seats convulsively and a melee followed.
Look! Bisons! Look papa! Look mama! Look everyone!
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| The tea man |
Soon afterward, in another meadow a pack of Dholes, wild dogs caught everybody’s attention. They
looked at the boats with tongues lolling out of their gaping mouths, their
canines glinting with an equal shine in their green eyes. The rain had ebbed
for some time and a certain patch of cloud had cleared thus partially giving
way to the sun. The sunlight embraced the leaves like a family reuniting after a
long departure. The water with millions of tiny waves and its surface
shimmering gave it an appearance of the slimy body of a slithering snake.
The boat cut through the lake, and reached a dead end. It slowed down and began turning towards
right; the engine drone lowered. We
had reached the part of the forest that we had seen from the ghat; trees and trees. They looked like a sleeping man with his hands on his belly. The forest
once again moved into meditation as the clouds that were hovering above us
gathered and the lake filled with the pitter patter. The tall trees that made up the sleeping man swung, a persistent rustle passing from tree to tree. The man
was breathing, caressing his rising belly and his open long hair spread beyond
his head shook with the wind.
The wind slowed and
the rustling stopped. But it drizzled. The forest was quiet again, much like
the sleeping man himself. The boat was now aimlessly moving along. The animals had returned; perhaps the play was done! So as the boat turned at the end of the journey, where the lake was dominated by jagged rocks and only a thick row of trees divided the lead sky and the grey lake, it became melancholic.
Yet, in that sadness
I found peace; a world far from us
after all; a realm like nowhere. No language, no discipline, no rules and yet
so peaceful. This was Paradise. Even for a layman who would be tired after a long hard day at work, Thekkady, with its signature lake and equally tempting vegetation would be a spot on treat. On that boat, sitting in my seat, my eyes behind lenses I felt
envy in my heart.
The horizon had now adapted a
dark blue color fused with the clouds that had gone grey and the rains poured. When we reached the ghat and the boats brushed the ground, tourists
were back on their feet. They walked down the ramp and stood by the lake on
rocks posing for pictures and selfies. The forest guard arrived at the scene to take matters
in his hand, he was handed a mobile instead. Take our photos will you?
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| An intrusion |
As his pompous chest deflated, The guard blew his whistle and left. The pictures were taken and so was the guard!
When I reached the
ramp, I took a photo of the boatman’s cabin- a cramped little space, a high
wooden chair before the wheel, a talkie, a vase of flowers, a kettle and some papers. It was a small house, a boatman’s sansar.
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| Sansar |
Tribal families
fished by the lake, nodding and mocking the urban rush while they handled
their rods, caught some fishes and cooked a succulent fish curry over a fire
built by the lake itself. Waking up by the call of the birds, living with
the roar of the tiger, walking beside the elephants and sleeping to the chorus
of the crickets under the barely penetrating moonbeam.
On our way back to
the information center and to the steps bordered by mahogany trees leading to
our hotel, cherishing the memory of the boat ride we spotted a group of foreign men
with stout sticks in their hand walking aside a forest guide. They walked past the
tribal women washing clothes by the lake and disappeared into the jungle,
behind a drapery of leaves.
“Excuse me, which
way is the information center?” a stout middle aged man asked me on my way to
the stairs to our hotel.
“That way.” I promptly signaled which way the center was.
“Thank you very
much. Baba, okhane jete hobe. Dad, we
have to go there” The man called his father in Bangla. I was left speechless. What are the odds?
The thought of coming across a Gujarati family and a Bengali family on the same day hadn't left me. But, back in hotel the sight of tourists walking in the forest returned to me. The lovely
receptionist who had attended to our inquiries before, quenched my curiosity by briefing me about the Nature
Walk- a three hour trek through the jungles under the supervision of a guide. The
mornings were ripe and the animals often came to the lake for their ablutions
which gave the maximum possibility for their sighting.
Hence, I booked the half
past seven slot for the trek for next morning. A walk through the forest would be a total different experience for me and I would take back to my home Thekkady mud with me!
After the booking was done, I returned to our room while mom and dad retreated to the hotel spa where they were introduced to Shirodhara.
When two Sanskrit words- Shiro meaning head and Dhara meaning flow combine, Shirodhara is born. Warm oil
is gently poured on your head and is meant to impart a soothing effect to you after the entire process. What gets flowed on the temples depends on what is being treated and includes oil, warm water, coconut water, milk or buttermilk.
When my parents returned back to the room visibly drenched in oil they declined to the bed and stayed there until snacks. We had had a hearty lunch downstairs earlier. The main attraction had been the crispy fried Tilapia fish which had a delicate aroma of curry leaves and tasted fabulous with lemon squeezed on them. The other dishes available on buffet were Puttu- steamed cylinders of ground rice layered with coconut, Dosa, Appam- type of pancake made with fermented rice and coconut milk, a spicy chicken preparation, and lemon rice.
After an equally ceremonious dinner, and dessert consisting of vanilla ice cream topped on fresh cut pineapple, banana and papaya, I made a dart towards a group of waiters standing at the end of the hall.
"One plate of fresh cut fruits to go please." One of the waiters nodded in reply and turned in the direction of the kitchen door.
I realized that a plate of fruits won't be all that I would be needing the next morning.
"Excuse me! A bowl of salt too." I called out to the waiter who nodded without giving a second glance over his shoulder.
Salt. Salt I would need a lot tomorrow.
What will happen tomorrow? What adventure awaits in the rainforest of Thekkady?
Stay tuned for the treat.
