We Walk In Those Footsteps....

 It is one of those mornings in Coorg in the early days of the monsoon when the sun peeps through low clouds that bring in short spells of light rain.  I am walking away from the little town of Ponnampet with no destination in mind, but a hope that the clouds will stay away till I am done with the stroll and get to the meeting I am due to attend.  

The road leads down to the valley and winds by the little brook with lush, dense grassy banks, its waters gurgling as they drop over small rocky outcrops.  I stop to see the stream and to listen to the sound of the gurgling water, for this isn’t just a sound, it is music, with the richness of being - alive, vibrant, throbbing and percussive, all at once.  The sound of the stream is romanticised in advertisements but - here is the irony - when people are by a stream, they pay little attention to it or hear its rhapsody or even hear their voices within.  To listen to the music of the brook takes time and no one has any to spare, save for the cackle of conversation and a photograph that will be soon forgotten.  So, the waters of the brook flow on, the gurgle a rich sound of musical silence….

The paddies in the valley are yet to be planted and the road leads up a gentle slope, so, after a while, I walk on, past the ubiquitous coffee. A small road spins by to my left and, on impulse, I turn in by a signboard to a Bhadrakali temple both to see the temple and get off the main road.

And then, about fifty metres in, is an astonishing sight on my left: a pristine sacred grove, impenetrably dense with trees, creepers, orchids and shrubs jostling for space and weaving within each other.  The trees here are giants in this wet deciduous forest, reaching for the sky and bursting into sartorial elegance at its apex, the canopy, while strangler figs form gorgeous patterns of stiflement as they encircle their host. 

As I stroll in wonder, I see a huge raptor take to the air from its vintage point in the canopy, with slow, heavy wingbeats after it spots the homo sapien below.  The lighting precludes conclusion; what was that, a black eagle? I will never know, of course, and just this once, watching it fly away is what matters, for a spectacle without a name has an aura of its own.

A minute later, a hare bolts out from the sacred grove and makes a dash down the little road, as hares always do.  They are Nature’s Great Dashers and this one stays true to type. I see a path through the grove, one that has been created by human hands, but in the monsoons, it is one that is less trodden by us.  What other species have walked that way?  The answers - when we do find them - are often surprising, for many forms of wildlife have learnt that humans bring with them both trouble and food.   They learn as much as we do, but the price they pay is higher and they have learnt that too.  

The sacred groves of Coorg are strange silent places for the most part, protected by devout belief and unnamed fear of the divine and the supernatural.  These groves are a treasure trove of ethnobotany and natural history, of the past in the present and of form over fashion.  Isn’t it odd that the antidote to greed is a fear of the unknown?  

And when I am done and retrace my steps, I see a gorgeous restless bird, with a distinct jagged tail that it perks up, much like the fantail flycatcher - it is the white rumped shama and I watch it fly away into the canopy but Richard Bach said it well: A farewell is necessary before we can meet again…..

Some days are meant to be perfect. 

Photo by Chaitanya Patankar (from FB)