Exploring Periyar from Thekkady

       

            It was 4.30 pm , when we board on a ksrtc bus to kumily from kottayam ksrtc bus station, conductor told us it will take more than 3.30 hrs to kumily and will reach on 8 pm , if things are going fine. I made a call to Mr.Rajesh, the forest guard, who promised to host us, and remind him about us. Me, with my friend,Prathap Joseph, a freelance photographer, were on our first trip to thekkady ,the anxiety leads us while the bus swirled in hairpins and vroomed in plains.

It was 8.30 pm , when we reached at kumily ksrtc station ,thekkady is just 4 kms away from here, we take an auto. Rajesh made all the arrangements , it was too cold and we take the advantage of a woollen sweater and slipped in to sleep as we need to wake up at early morning to have the advantage of early birds to catch the first worm.

               

We got up at 5 am , the rain added the intensity of cold and shivering, 2 glass of hot tea was a solace, having a bath in cold water was a really a hard thing. We got ready at 5.45 am , the vehicles filled with tourists made a long queue at the thekkady forest check post, the gate will only open at 6.30 am , we got permitted to enter before that,just because we were on foot and have the camera with us. The conditions were not in favour for photography, the light was too low , the heavy snow and rain make things too bad, yet this conditions has its own beauty. A 2 km walk (or drive if you have a vehicle) need to reach at the boat landing. Walking through the forest in a snowy morning was a good experience, there was a total silence,except the chirping of crickets and tweeting of some early birds, just feel it I was walking through the road of the heaven. 

Breaking this surrealistic mood, the horn of the vehicles heard, the gate had just opened and vehicles were in a hurry to reach as early as possible in the boat landing to get ticket for the first boat. In thekkady, the tourist's only heaven is to have a one hour boating in periyar, no other things attract him. We promised to have a trip in a special boat arranged by one of my friend, and it will take us to the far end of periyar tiger reserve, it will only start after 11 am, so we need not to hurry.

              

It was the day of Diwali, the ticket counter for boating too crowded, 95 percent among them are North Indians, the chit chat in Hindi was everywhere, I thought I was in a North Indian Tourist Place. There is Two ticket counters there, run by Forest Department and KTDC both the counters are struggling to accommodate the crowd. The boats are equipped with necessary safety measures, the officials are vigilant not to repeat another disaster (thekkady boat disaster). The place is a haven for monkeys (Rhesus macaque), they are very familiar with humans and not at all afraid of us. They are fed up with the food items offered by tourists , the boards show that it is illegal to feed the monkeys ,but who cares of it ? The main diet of a monkey in thekkady consists packed foods and other fast food items offered by the tourists, if you are not ready to give it , the monkey will attack you to steal the food item, this is a menace to tourists as well as the monkeys as the changing lifestyle may badly affect their health.

          

We were in a hurry to shoot the moods and behaviour of our ancestral animal, while waiting for the boat to start, to our bad luck, we got informed that the boat has been cancelled due to some unexpected reasons and the trip is postponed to tomorrow. We spent that entire day by shooting monkeys, at the end of that day my 20 GB memory card and Prathap's 40 GB card filled the various ankles of the monkeys.

We decided to stay one more day, with the hope of getting a chance to exclusive boating trip wto the least explored areas of periyar river. Next day , to our luck, we get started at 11.30 am , we ensured our camera and accessories are in good condition to have our first wildlife experiment

 

We welcomed with an elephant herd consist of 8 big females and a calf , it was our first experience with wildlife, our camera become restless, we had as many as shots, but shooting from a moving boat was a difficult one, later I understand that this affect the quality of the image. That 5 hour boating was an unforgettable one, we blessed with the sighting of so many animal near the banks of periyar like a giant wild gaur, the antelope, spotted deer, wild boar and innumerable water birds etc.

Periyar preserves a large variety of biodiversity in its banks and the forest is a haven for huge number of wild animals, it is estimated that periyar forest have more than 1000 Tiger population according to a census, it is renowned for its wildlife and attracted the attention wildlife enthusiast worldwide. Unfortunately the this is the same river , the controversial Mullaperiyar water is flowing , how long the feeble dam will survive?if the dam collapsed, 75 lakh of human lives will be claimed, moreover this ,the periyar forest totally will disappear from the map , the countless wild animals including most endangered species will vanish, the life of the animals have equal importance as humanity’s , the right to live is theirs too, the world will only survive , if the humans, with animal co existed and the harmony is maintained. Dear Tamil brothers, this is not a political issue as your political leaders claimed.. this is the issue of our life... please let us live... as our Opposition leader VS says “Please don’t kill the people who have been providing water to you for 116 years “