49. When with a planter, be a plamter
A friend of a commune gang member, Uday Vir lived in and managed one of the few organic tea estates in India, a most beautiful corner of the world.
The estate was itself a relic from an
earlier world. As Prahlad crossed the last villages, the gain in height led to
a world where Nilgiri Langurs ruled. In this bitingly clean air, life itself
seemed sanitized. The langurs, otherwise endangered, were playing in large
groups. Jumping from exotic Acacia trees that have spread to the very corners
of the Nilgiris, the Langurs were content in hearing their own echo. And they
loved shouting from the tree tops, resulting in a continuous cacophony of
monkey sounds for endless minutes. He slipped into a side road, one that can
scare the living any day of the year.
Dense groves of acacia had smothered all
forms of life. And what was worse is that their roots now entangled with each
other, creating an unlikely maze of interlocked body parts. Walking was
impossible here.
The acacias had created a tunnel atop the
road. As he drove slowly, it dawned upon him that it was neither day or night,
this hazy feeling was the effect of warm air trapped within this tunnel. The
road had turned treacherous and he slowed down.
As the road turned towards the final climb
to the estate, the assistant, a tall strappy Coorg who goes by the name of
Machaih and his crew were busy lopping at fallen branches. The estate
maintained this stretch of government property and with scarcely any human
around, it was but natural that forest officials wouldn’t be seen in these
parts for months. Stopping for some chit chat, he spoke of a leopard setting up home near the tea factory. The
leopard had been seen many times on a high cliff, oddly nodding and seemingly
drunk in the wake of the smoke that billowed out from the tea factory. He added
with a chuckle, that the workers think that the leopard has got addicted to the
smell of tea leaves.
The estate was nearby. Wide grasslands,
stocked with some of the healthiest herbs concocted by nature covered much of the
view. Numerous layers of coconut leaves presented themselves. These were of
course used by the estate to protect the fledgling tea plants from the
unforgiving frost in this high ridge and appeared to provide a layer of
clothing to entire mountain sides. Here and there, high altitude wetlands
bustling with its own unique lifeforms bubbled throughout. It was idyllic. I
could have been anywhere now – Scotland, Mongolia, the Himalayas or the
Steppes. It wouldn’t matter for nature was in fine display and even man’s
remodeling had not yet damaged this slice of heaven.
If this estate had in its power to inspire
poets, Uday Vir’s house was another illusion in itself. Perched high in the
estate, it stood all alone. Natural grasslands and an occasional shola tree,
the house had been built like a fortress by our architecturally minded British
friends. Why they made it the way it was, remains a mystery. The estate is
flanked by two-kilometre-deep gorges on one side, covered by some of the
thickest evergreen forests in India. On the other side, it is protected by a
ten kilometre long drive through treacherous acacia forests, the one I drove
through. On the third side, lies the Mountain National Park, a semi-circular
strip of land that marks the exact spot where the mountains crumble to the sea,
leaving an unnatural chasm between an otherwise normal mountain range and the
surrounding plains, bathed in tropical heat. This estate was the most secure
piece of real estate on earth. And the British still made a fortress here.
Well, we get to enjoy the labour of our
erstwhile cranky rulers. Uday Vir stood outside one of the many secret doors
that opened into the house. Lets go for a walk, he said.
Uday Vir was leading the way and as they
climbed, it became apparent that the house was on one of the many hills that
lead on to the next stretch of high mountains. This apparent illusion is a
special mountain trait for every walk you do, anywhere on earth, you will met
with another and then another rise in the hills till you decide to turn back or
surrender to the elements and continue walking. They walked.
This is the Toda universe. Everywhere you
see, every plant growing egregiously is known to Todas. Long after we are gone
and this estate is in ruins, the Todas will continue to graze their buffaloes
here. Uday Vir was a bibliophile but his obsession with Todas veered on the
spiritual. Prahlad listened attentively to his every word.
You know, amongst the many things that have
passed on in these past decades, I worry most about the cultures which grew out
of centuries of coexistence but have been brushed aside in this change in our
fabric. And people like Todas suffer. Do they continue holding onto their
stories or do they discard their ancestry and join the mainstream. This worries
me a lot. This world, where everyone is the same, where stories are no longer
told, where children grow up on a diet of social media and all of us read the same
newsfeed. In this current world, groups like the Todas will surely fade away,
soon I fear.
Prahlad had been reading up on Todas and
Uday Vir’s warnings were very real. The small population were in real danger of
getting assimilated. Scholars with doctoral work, window shopping for decades,
wrote monumental manuscript and move on. But hadn’t the whole world done the
same to many more tribes.
They came upon a rise. One could see the
plains of Kerala with entire mountains abruptly torn away and probably the
Arabian sea beyond. A dense layer of mist lay hanging above the deep valley.
It was breathing, this valley. The very
definition of Life visible in one of the last impenetrable forests of India.
Countless grasslands, shola forests and a smattering of tea gardens was visible
on the other side. An equally mesmerizing scenery, it resembled a painting made
by the gods themselves. Bald summits, leading upto rolling grasslands of a
perfect green and jabbed by thin outcrops of trees, now you know why the Todas
held so much significance to these ranges.
Grinning madly, Uday Vir pointed out
ambiguously towards the south, that is where you guys are planning to set up
that commune. Missing the woods for the tree, ahh, he shouted. Prahlad, this is
where true bliss is. And true bliss is when you find the alacrity to sift the
mundane for the unreal.
This is your true commune, Prahlad. How can
I even start to describe this. How can I pretend to shoot this for eternity. He
laughed aloud as he shouted in a slightly windy summit.
For a few lucky minutes, the sound of the
mountains magnified by an endless current of air. We stood forever.
Uday Vir slapped Prahlad into
consciousness. They made their way down in silence as if they had just attained
Nirvana and had no idea of what else to do in life.
Back at his house, in those last few
seconds of sunlight, they ambled around his expansive living room. It is a
museum, Prahlad mumbled. There were a few old walking sticks, stacked in one
corner and an assortment of sketches on another. Mounted tigers, atleast three
and an assortment of various animals, deftly attached to the walls. It was an
entire world, set in a puzzle but in front of us.
This, Prahlad is my lifetime’s work.
Collecting wares as I moved from one job to another, from one place to another.
You look so perplexed all the time, you may still find something worthwhile to
do, something more than building a commune.
As he kept his commentary active, Prahlad
picked a tiny trap, for small game perhaps. There was a larger fish trap as
well with fish damned at the exit. A complex design that stemmed the reverse
flow of the fish, trapping them effectively. Once could see the frantic fish,
hemmed in by a magical contraption made by the very first men on Earth.
The treasures were spread everywhere. There
was a section with totems of all types, symbols of animals or plants that serve
as an emblem of people that links them to their mythical past. Tortoise,
tigers, snakes, fishes and an overwhelming number of trees, totems find
acceptance throughout the subcontinent. And they signify a deep synergy between
the natural world and the human world, still very much a part of the natural
world of an earlier era. Keeping an ear on his helpful commentary, Prahlad
stood mesmerized by these tiny, often ordinary carvings and felt its value to a
traditional dweller of the land.
When a totem tree is said to have
completely covered a newly wed from torrential rains, before wishing them away,
it also signifies a totem’s role in a traditional society of those days. He
added, you know totems had a conservation value. Whichever animal or bird
signified the totem of a clan was assured of almost certain protection. And so
were various totems that linked to the well being of its human neighbours.
He was impressed. Here was a man who
collected invaluable remnants of a fading past and knew enough to lecture a
bunch of graduate students. Uday Vir picked one of the many totems and
respectfully placed them at the proper spot.
