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| Call of the wild: Gaur, said to be the largest bovine on earth / Photo: Bhanu Prakash Chandra |
India’s newest tiger reserve in Parambikulam is an oasis in the socio-economic desert
By S. Neeraj Krishna
A lonely butterfly flutters around like a happy vagabond. A banana-chomping langur seems to be jabbering to his mates, “Hey guys, look. Here comes another bunch of clowns.” The peacock, however, remains unperturbed. He is busy pursuing his love interest.
Photographer Bhanu Prakash Chandra and I have just reached the information centre of the Parambikulam Wildlife Sanctuary, which was declared as India’s 38th Tiger reserve on February 19, in Kerala’s Palakkad district.
The young and earnest wildlife warden, Sanjayan Kumar, opens his laptop and shows a chilling video he shot of a tiger devouring its prey. What better way to welcome one to a tiger reserve!
Parambikulam lies between the Anamalai forest range in Tamil Nadu and the Nelliampathy range in Kerala. Both are part of the Western Ghats, which is one of the 34 global biodiversity hotspots.
The rich flora and fauna, three reservoirs (the Parambikulam dam is said to be among the top 10 in the world, in terms of volume), meandering streams and milky cascades in Parambikulam have earned it the soubriquet Nature’s Own Abode.
The superstar here, of course, is the tiger. According to a tiger monitoring team, there are 13 of them here. Other stars include lion-tailed macaque, Nilgiri tahr, elephant, leopard, dhole (Indian wild dog), sambhar deer and gaur, the sanctuary’s mascot.
As we drive from the information centre to our guesthouse on the banks of a lake named Tunakadavu, our tribal guide Babu hushes us up. “Slow down. A gaur is lying behind that stretch of grass,” he says.
As we close in, the gaur gets up. Well, this guy is the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the woods! Weighing about a tonne, this distant cousin of the bison is said to be the largest bovine on earth.
The next stop is by the Tunakadavu lake, which appears in four shades—grey, green, blue and pink—as the sun sets.
The silence, the earthy fragrance, the gnarled branches of a fallen tree, the picturesque lake, streams of light sifting through the foliage, the chirping of birds and the chirr of insects, the overall surreal allure… “Orgasmic,” I note in my diary. But, orgasms don’t last long; one has to move on.
“When will we get to see the tiger?” asks Bhanu, who is a little too excited. “It’s all a matter of luck. There are people who have come here umpteen times, but still have not spotted one,” replies Babu.
What a pity! We humans have spared only 1,411 tigers in India, a figure Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh says is bloated. And today, we yearn to spot even one.
The route to the guesthouse is like an eerie tunnel of greenery. One of the hoardings on the roadside has a message that mankind should follow: “Please don’t tease animals. You are the guest, so, respect them.”
The guesthouse is tucked between the lake and the forest. The compound has a bamboo cabana adjacent to the lake—ideal for a few pegs of stiff rum in the night or a strong cup of coffee in the foggy morning.
The rum has to wait, as the jeep for a night safari cruises into the compound. “God, please show us a tiger,” Bhanu keeps whining as we drive on. He sits eagerly, gripping his camera like a soldier holding his assault rifle during battle.
The jeep comes to a screeching halt. A crouching leopard leaps from the roadside into the woods. “You guys are lucky,” says the driver. “Not everyone gets such sightings on their first safari here.” However, the tiger remains elusive, unlike the sambhars and gaurs who bid us goodnight as we return to the guesthouse.
Late into the night, the sky offers a celestial treat. For someone who is used to the hazy night skies in the cities, this crystal-clear sky is awe-inspiring. I insist on sleeping in the open, on a bench by the lake.
It’s so silent. One can hear the crisp tobacco flakes in the cigarette burn. Slowly, the silence becomes haunting, especially when it’s broken occasionally by calls of animals in the surrounding forests, or by a sudden plop in the lake.
One feels blissfully disconnected from the maddening world. Similar to Paul Theroux’s description of travel in the African bush as a “sort of revenge on cellular phones and fax machine, on telephones and the daily paper, on the creepier aspects of globalization that allows anyone who chooses to get his insinuating hands on you....”
The next morning, we head to Aanakkal vayal (grassland), known as the “dining table of the tigers”. A 4km nature trail will take one to a machaan (tree-house) that overlooks a grassland frequented by sambhars, spotted deer and gaurs. The predators can’t be too far away.
The Parambikulam eco-tourism project offers an interesting package during the full moon period, when the machaan is open to tourists for five days. Tourists can stay in the machaan and, if lucky, spot tigers, leopards or dholes under moonlight. A perfect package for honeymooners who like it wild.
The Vettikunnu Island Nest package, too, is equally amusing. Following a boat ride, one is taken to an isolated island, which will be all yours. Alone in a cottage on an island described as “green oxygen parlour”. Sounds cool, doesn’t it?
Back at the information centre by night, we hear talk about an elephant herd that was spotted nearby. We rush to the spot. “Be alert. Ensure the car zips off when I say,” Babu tells the driver. Heartbeats race as the car slows down.
“There they are,” says Babu in a low voice. Under the light from the car’s headlamps, we spot three elephants, a mother and two adolescent calves. Suddenly, Babu explodes: “Go, go, go….” We failed to spot a young tusker loitering nearby, who charges at our vehicle.
Elephants roam freely here. “They can be anywhere, anytime. They have no restrictions,” says Babu. Young, single tuskers are the most dangerous, adds a tribal chief Pazhanisami. “They don’t need to attack. Just the sight of a tusker charging at you, with his furious trumpet, would make you feel as if your kidney is forced out through your ears!” he says.
One such young stud topples our plans to check out the Cochin Tramway trekking path. The tramway (dismantled in the 50s) was established in 1905 by the Maharaja of Cochin to transport teak from the plantations to Chalakudy near Ernakulam, from where it was shipped to various corners of the world, explains Krishnankutty, who used to work with the Cochin Tramway. One can still see remnants such as wagons, wheels, rails and bridges along the trekking path.
Teak is the most common tree here. And one of the world’s largest and oldest teak trees—Kannimara (Virgin tree)—is Parambikulam’s pride. The 400-year-old tree, declared ‘Mahavriksha’ by the Centre, has a girth of 6.48m and stands 48.75m tall. According to folklore, when woodcutters tried to chop it down, blood oozed from the gash. Ever since, the tribals worship the Kannimara teak.
The tribals here are a happy group. They have benefited from eco-tourism and, in turn, they help prevent poaching and conserve ecology. “More than 200 tribals are engaged as guides, fire watchers and naturalists,” says the wildlife warden.
Also, units to sell goods such as honey, bee’s wax balm, bamboo handicraft and paper bags provide steady income, especially to the womenfolk. “This is a rare success story,” notes K. Rajendra Prasad of Anthropological Survey of India, who is in Parambikulam as part of a national study on tribes.
The tribals’ happiness is palpable at a colony that we visit. The women dance to folk songs as the men go delirious with their traditional drums. As we bid goodbye and head back to the outside world, the song and the beats fade, inflicting a sense of uneasiness.
And my mind is left with these lines by St John of the Cross: I entered where I did not know. Yet when I found that I was there, though where I was I did not know, profound and subtle things I learned; nor can I say what I discerned. For, I remained uncomprehending, all knowledge transcending.