The Hindu Business Line : Wild with worry

Lost in Telugu land. It happened to Paul and me. By signs we conversed with the Telugu folk at hotels and cigarette kiosks and spoke to ourselves in our spare time. My passionate Telugu friends, Giri and Vyjayanti, did not like it and thought one was not sufficiently appreciative of the lilting nuances of their Telugu tongue, mightily praised by poet Bharati. "You should have taken me along," Vyjayanti told me over the phone and one generally does not argue with her.

Badvel is neither a town nor a village, lying on the edge of the Sri Lanka Malleswara Wildlife Sanctuary which in turn ends up at the feet of the Lankamalai hills. Capital names in Telugu are prolonged alphabetical journeys like the 400 km run either way from Badvel to Hyderabad and back.

At more than 37 degrees Celsius, the air-conditioned Tata Indica contraption turns warm and seems not to have been designed for humans. One is in a permanently crouched position like in one of the American prisons specially meant for unfortunate Iraqis.

We landed at eight in the evening in Badvel and were ushered to our quarters by a forest official who has the habit of always locking himself into a "Yes, Sir" mode with feet and hands held together. Our quarters had some 30-year-old neem trees in flower, offering an aromatic ambience. In the mornings we were taken round the scrub jungle and the deep forest beyond by Jeganathan in his Armada.

"I don't know whether you like this vast spread of scrub jungle with its thorny plants but for me it holds a rare charm," the 31-year-old researcher from the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) told us with some fervour. The lad comes from Trichy (with family roots firmly clasping to Thanjavur) having taken his masters in wildlife biology from a college in Myladuthurai.

Driving into the scrub we arrived at Daggonichalaka, "the best spot in the world to see the Jerdon's Courser," he told us. It was here that he sighted the bird for the first time and recorded its call. There are three coursers in India: Indian Courser, Jerdon's Courser and the cream-coloured courser found in the deserts of Kutch and Rajasthan. One day, we drove deep into the Sri Lanka Malleswara Wildlife Sanctuary, a run of slightly more than an hour ending at a Siva-Parvati temple abutting a pool fed by a thin waterfall. The Andhra sun has shrunk the waterfall to a thin apologetic drip, which could possibly gain girth in the rainy season.

Plastic waste can be noted around the temple, being a favoured tourist spot of Badvel. More than the temple it is the spread out family of ancient mango trees — the largest collection at one place this writer has seen — that got one's soul into a soft, pleasurable spin. Each tree has at least 20 ft girth and climbs to a height of over 150 ft. They stand in a wide circle, knowing and nodding to each other for ages — more time spent together than an ordinary human family.

One went round as the others clicked from every angle and took time out sitting under a tree watching a Tickell's blue flycatcher, a paradise flycatcher, a golden-backed woodpecker and some warblers (hardest to identify). If one wants to sight birds in a forest it is best to plop down near a waterhole and wait; the birds, which are always there, shed their fear and show off with pride. Senior forest officials did tell us of the forests having chital, four-horned antelope, sambar, leopards, the giant flying squirrel and the bear. We did not see anything except a healthy ruddy mongoose and one wondered whether they have all been lost to the poachers' gun. Sometimes forest officials like to believe their forests hold much variety and vainly hope their belief is a fact. It is never so. In these times, forests are more crowded with humans than animals.

Up the slopes of the Lankamalai hills, one was shown rows of the red sanders tree with their distinguishing black trunks. Going by local lore, this tree is smuggled into Tamil Nadu and onwards to Japan for making prized furniture, and quality red sanders wood costs about Rs 45,000 per kg. Then there are the kusum trees with fresh maroon leaves turning green as the summer sets in. It is easy to get into the forest as there are no visible signs of beat guards or check posts at the entry and exit points.

On the way back we saw some 30 to 40 young men equipped with liquor, food and music instruments noisily making to the temple pool with none challenging them. "They will have a good day but not the animals," said an old forest guard travelling with us.

Picture by P. JEGANATHAN/BNHS