Kalakkad: A forest less travelled

After running across Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the Western Ghats washes its tired legs in the Indian Ocean. To pay obeisance at its feet, we travelled from Trivandrum to Nagercoil, and then to Kalakkad, the southern-most tip of this majestic mountain range.

Kalakkad is the most picturesque sanctuary I have seen in the Western Ghats. The bus ride from Nagercoil gave us an idea of things to come. There were beautiful water bodies all along the 80-km-long stretch, and water birds. The bronze-winged jacanas walked daintily on the lotus leaves, and the leaves didn’t realise it. The black ibises strutted along, showing off their crimson crowns. Two lone pelicans looked lost, and a lone kingfisher left behind a trail of blue in its path.

As I looked out, I realised that green has a thousand shades in Kalakkad’s palette. In a single frame,  I could see a field of fluorescent green with a hundred hues, and behind it a plantain farm of deeper shades of green; a coconut grove beyond which was a darker green; and looming behind them all were different shades of the evergreen forests.

When the bus halted at Kalakkad, it looked like any other dusty, nondescript town in Tamil Nadu; there was no scent of a forest anywhere. But the ride in a rickety rickshaw revealed the forest in layers till we reached the guest house which, luckily, was right in the middle of the forest.

There were two watchtowers nearby. From one, we saw the rare sight of over a 100 teak trees in full bloom. And from the other, the spectacular view of mountains after mountains painted in god’s own watercolours.

Piercing the silence of the evening, an alarm call of the sambar deer reverberated through the forest. Little did we know about the drama that was unfolding in the forest, the climax of which was to be played out in the morning.

It was still dark when we finished making black tea over an open fireplace behind the guest house. Just as we were relishing the smoky taste of the tea, loud crackling sounds of dead wood being trampled upon rented the air. At first it sounded like a lone elephant running amok. We ran and took cover in the verandah and switched on our searchlights. In the pools of light, we discovered that it was a full-grown sambar deer being chased by a pack of wild dogs. When the commotion died down, we saw the deer limping away in the distance. It had survived the ferocious attack to live another day.

Our next destination was Sengiltheri, 12 kms from the guest house. The forest jeep was to drop us just half way, as the road ahead was washed away in the monsoon. We had to undertake an arduous trek up the mountain in the last stretch leading up to 2800 feet. So we stripped down our personal luggage to a mere survival kit. Over the next two days we realised that in a forest you can indeed survive on just love and fresh air.

On our way up, we first came across a waterfall that had a dark, mysterious aura to it. It wound its way through a long, damp cave before it plunged headlong into the valley. And to add to the mystery, the walls of the cave were laden with pre-historic moss. The next waterfall was dry, with only memories of the monsoon trickling down its gigantic boulders. The third waterfall was again unique. It cascaded down the mountain slopes and split vertically into two rivers: Manimuthaar and Pachchayaar. 

In the morning we were woken up by the last call of the owl and the first call of the blue-faced malkoha. As we trekked up to the highest point in Sengiltheri, we were freezing in our sweaters. Even the mountains refused to wake up, pulling their thick green blankets a little closer than usual...