March 24, 2012
Green Gates hotel at Kalpatta is owned and operated by two Dubai based businessmen, Jaleel and Hanif. Tastefully done with minimum damage to the green acreages all around, this hotel stands in stark contrast to the concrete monstrosity that stands a few meters up the road. A flux board announcing government plans for Wayanad development kept under the old peepal tree at the intersection that leads to the hotel says that a feasibility study for an airport is to be conducted. Wayanad has neither railways nor waterways nor a coast. But what it has is abundant jungles with so far not much disturbed tribal and wildlife.
Airport plan is a phenomenal stupidity only meant to fatten the pockets of numerous politicians who own large estates in the area. Karipur airport at Kozhikode is only 2 hours away from Wayanad. I don't think any reasonable, responsible tourist, planter or businessman is ever going to insist on landing here at an airport created by destroying hectares of forest and its associated wildlife. But then who cares? We are prudently bringing up a generation who are blissfully content with virtual reality. As long as I can set a Nat Geo photo as my desktop and ipad wallpaper, should I really care if anything in Wayanad is presevered?
Green Gates has a small section of standard hotel rooms and a restaurant named after Pazhassi Raja. I am not sure the valiant 18th century king appreciates a catering business named after him. The expensive part of the hotel are the cottages culminating in a bamboo tree house package. There is a fairly large open area surrounding the swimming pool that can be used for performances. I wonder if they organize native dance and music shows. Monkey families police and plunder the place of whatever they can get from the not so mindful guests. The bamboo signages and decorate art work of the hotel beautifully minimalistic. Food wasn't that great but then it is to be expected when there are plenty of cheaper, "home-made" style eateries all over the district.
Our guide for the weekend was Subair. He reported in his Indigo by the time we had freshened up at 10:30 am. Right from the word go, it was clear that Subair would be "Munnar's Murugan 2.0". Several times since the trip had been planned, we had discussed about getting someone like Murugan to show us around. Subair was all that we wished for. He hails from Meenangadi town. Meaning "fish market" in Malayalam, Meenangadi is famous for its dry fish business. Subair's father moved here 70 years ago. He and six of his elder brothers are all true sons of the Wayand soil.
"Everything has drastically changed in the last 8-10 years because of tourism," he said pointing towards a brand new Chevy showroom as we sped towards Karapuzha dam, our first destination. Wayand economy used to be entirely agrarian which led to a large number of farmer suicides last decade when prices collapsed. Fortunately or unfortunately, the booming IT business at Bangalore brought incredible tourist influx to the place. Software engineers found the utterly rural, beautiful Wayanad a great weekend getaway 4-5 hours away. 90% of the cars parked outside our hotel were the 'KA' Karnataka registration. There was a token single 'KL' Kerala registration among the ten.
My uncle had been to Wayanad 22 years ago. He remembered that there was a single bus that plied within Wayanad at that time and a couple of buses that ran between Kozhikode and Wayanad. Now there is a bus every 5 minutes, not to mention the Mercedes and Toyotas that keep the roads fully occupied.
Karapuzha earth dam stands a naked wasted tourist opportunity. There is a beautiful island at the center of the reservoir. With collapsed edges that reveal the deep red inner soil, it would be ideal for setting up a small eco-friendly picnic spot. There were no signs of boating. Subair mentioned a resort coming up on the other side and of young men who do row up to the island to party during weekends. But they are hardly eco-friendly.
A goat family and few lonely bovines grazed lazily in the rapidly heating up sun. One of the gigantic cast iron shutters of the dam was partly open. The spillway looked like it hadn't seen water since its construction. But Subair showed up impressively high watermarks on the banks that are breached once monsoons set in. Apparently, school exam season was the reason for the deserted look of the place. Otherwise a few hundred people visited daily.
Three or four autorickshaws converted into ice-cream trucks were trying to get some business at either end of the slowly arching nearly half a kilometer long dam. "Ice cream venno?" (Do you want Ice cream?) a 5-6yr old boy manning one of the stalls asked me. "Ippo venda" (Not now) I said having tucked in the hotel's complimentary breakfast. "Thirichu varumbo vangikumo" (Will you buy when you come back?) he persisted. "Nokkam" (We'll see) I told him. Since we headed towards Amabalavayal from the other end of the dam, I never saw this little Icecream Ambani of Karapuzha again.
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