Thirunelli (BH:D234)

March 24, 2012

Babu's strong, sweet milk tea had quite the restorative effect as we set off from Kuruwa island to Thirunelli. Tea in Wayanad is prepared using a different technique that doesn't involve sieving the tea powder but allowing it to settle at the bottom. The road goes through the small town of Kattikulam before forests engulf it from either side. We are pretty much inside the Wayanad Wildlife sanctuary at this point. 

At the intersection where the road splits to Tholpetty and Thirunelli, stands the "Jungle View" teashop. Subair told us that this is the birth place of famous Thirunelli 'unniyappams'. Of course, we had to try. The small thatched petty shop manages to sell around 40-50kg of unniyappam per day during tourist season. We bought a dozen for Rs. 40. They were twice as big as the regular unniyapam. Crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside...just perfect!

The narrow two lane road winds through the forest that slopes on either side. "Aanathara"-the regular paths used by elephants between Pakshipathalam and Brahmagiri ranges are carefully marked. Roadsigns proclaim that elephants have the right of way. Subair tells us that this sanctuary still doesn't have the full fledged camera system that is in place at other protected forests like Muthanga. Any injury to wild animals leads to a Rs. 30,000 fine and immediate imprisonment. The forest department here is pretty strict about enforcing this. We've heard stories of folks who have waited for hours at santuary roads without success at glimpsing any wildlife so we keep our expectation for any sighting very low.

As we take a turn, we chance upon a flock of jungle fowl. These are slightly larger and much leaner comapred to the domestic version. They were quick to flee at the sight and sound of the car and manage to be airborne for much longer than house hens. The cocks have fairly long impressive tails. As soon as we passed them, they got busy pecking the bamboo rice on the ground. 

Jungle fowl love bamboo rice. A bamboo blossoms and produces seeds only once in its lifetime. Not just for fowl, the rice is great for making payasam and puttu for human beings as well! This is not the same as regular rice infused with bamboo juice that goes by the same name.

We drive by a small settlement. Subair jokes that in Kerala police department punishment transfers usually bring officers to Thirunelli. The deserted jungle outposts can indeed be quite scary. Uncle remembered that there was only one bus a day to Thirunelli, 22 years ago and there was one guest house with three rooms at the temple. If you miss the bus and the rooms are full, it was going to be an interesting situation. But today there are three or four resorts in the area and private bus service every hour till 9pm.

"Aana...aana" (elephant) suddenly Achan shouted. We had just passed 3-4 goats with a goat mummy chastising a jumpy lamb. I wondered for a split second if Achan had meant to say "Aadu" (goat). Subair quickly brought the car to a halt as silently as possible. I got out. Achan was not mistaken. Right by the road side, next to a dried and dying bamboo thicket, 25 meters away from us, there he stood....a majestic tusker!

Twice before in my life have I been so dumbstruck at the sight of an animal. Eight years ago, I spent an entire day watching a tiger cub. From the intermittent stares of his shiny eyes, I realized the stupidity of having a self-image. Here was one of the most beautiful specimens of nature and in his brain, I am no Arun Surendran. I will never know what I am in there. But my image captured in those eyes was more real than anything I can cook up about myself in my own mind. That was what Sully, the tiger cub taught me.

Then in 2009, on a particularly depressing morning, a ruby throat humming bird hovered for a couple of seconds just a couple of feet in front of my face. Under the spell of that radiant beauty and incredible energy, I was forever humbled about my powers of creativity.

And here now was this tusker of Thirunelli. Having been an elephant lover since childhood, I have watched and admired hundreds of tame elephants that are common in Kerala. I have stood in awe of the height and charm of these towering creatures that are decked up for temple processions. Whenever possible I have touched them and fed them. I have avidly read about them, the legends, the folktales, the tributes to their beauty!

But this animal standing in its home setting was an entirely different species. There was an incredible lightness about his presence. A blissful ignorance of his own size and power. Was this raw masculinity? Nonchalantly he was slapping the bamboo shoots with his trunk. I have never ever seen an elephant with both its tail and trunk up at the same time, prancing about, except may be in a long forgotten Disney cartoon. 

He was wildness encapsulated. 

He was freedom. 

He was the inspiration of the elepant cult of Ganesha, the remover of obstacles in India.

It wasn't the domesticated, groomed, subjugated elephants I had seen all along. They were well washed black. He had covered himself in brown dust. Is it in a limp imitation of his magnificence that the uber emasculated among men in India smear themselves with sacred ash? 

An elephant not chained away from his elephant nature.

All natural. Fearlessness. Lightness. Being. Not becoming. Just being. Timeless. Boundless.

In less than a minute, we were back in the car and moving. Very quickly the expected "anthropomorphing" began. It was a "playful" elephant boy who was "irritated" by the goats and so "going back". We will try to know him using our ways of knowledge. He will always be beyond our words, concepts and ideas. We will point and name. Does he have a care?

A kilometer down the road, we meet a group of spotted deer resting in the dried leaf covered forest floor. "kutty aana nokku" (baby elephant look) Subair shouts but quickly realize that it was not a baby elephant but an enormous pig with a prominent long snout. 

6 pm: Thirunelli temple area now features a multistorey guest house, couple of hotels and numerous shops. Famous old malayalam movie "Nellu" (rice) was filmed in this area. But there are hardly any paddy fields left. According to 13th century Unniyachi charitham, the poem glorifying a legendary and highly respected prostitute in north Kerala, Thirunelli was one of the largest cities in entire south India. The numerous carvings and ruins discovered in these forests agree with that assessment. Once a flourishing city, today a flourishing forest. Cycle of life.

Uncle had been a bit disappointed about not being able to bath at Kuruwa. We ask if the 'Papanasham' stream near the temple has water. A security guard collecting parking fees tells that that there is. We see a few men return freshly bathed. We buy 3 towels and proceed in the bathing areas direction.

More steps to descend and rocks to climb. After Edakkal climb, all of us are feeling the sweet tension in our leg muscles. We go past the "Panchatheertham" (5 springs) pond where rituals for the deceased are conducted. The dry stream bed nearby is not encouraging. Remnants of rituals over the years in the form of broken pots and wood clog it. 

There is no one else at the so-called bathing area. There is no substantial flow either. A shallow dirty pool greets us. We skip the bathing plan and simply wash our feet and face where we can find some flow before the water reaches the pool. As we get done, an old man comes and takes a dip in the pool. I hope all his sins are washed off. Perhaps they will be converted to minor punishments in the form of skin infections.

We try not to laugh at each other as we climb back the stairs in stoic silence. Each of the stone slabs forming the steps have the name of the donor, usually some Nair, engraved on them. These steps have been built less than a decade ago. 

The Thirunelli temple sits smack in the middle of the valley surrounded by mountain ranges on all sides. Sort of the like monastery set created in the middle of the Jusan lake in the Korean movie "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring" but without the lake. Pakshipathalam , famous for its exotic bird species, which can be reached only with the help of a tribal guide can be seen to the West. The temple's old outer structure is simple granite stone stacked without any cementing material. This structure has been through the hands of several religions before its current Hindu ownership. 

The most impressive part of the temple complex is a long stone-column-supported water system that brings clean, cool water from a mountain spring perpetually to the temple. Clearly, the structure housed a sizable population that needed all the water. We followed the stone pillars for half a kilometer till we were warned of elephant presence further up. 

Inside the temple, the idol has now been named the Hindu god Vishnu. It is a male figure standing with a golden crown. Next to the sanctum is a small basil garden. A signboard announces that this is the spot where Brahma, the creator, conducted some fire sacrifice. One of the side deity room features oracle swords. But I guess they could also pass for the plow and tilling instruments of the adivasis that we saw earlier at the heritage museum. 

Men are not allowed to wear shirts inside the temple. My uncle appraches the main priests to get the sandal paste 'prasadam'. The priest prepares to throw a small ball of sandal paste into his arm thus carefully avoiding touching his impure body. But my uncle produces a ten rupee note from this crumbled up shirt pocket. Immediately the priest prepares a small banana lead piece with flowers, kumkum and the sandal paste ball for him. I guess gods are always pleased with a ten rupee on-demand upgrade of the blessings. 

The roofless center area surrounded by the flat roofed all stone pillared structure around it would have been tranquil at sunset it had it not been for the thousand names of Vishnu being droned through the loud speaker.

The rather hefty lunch followed by the tea and car ride meant the senior members of our party had to check out the "pay and use" facilities in the temple guest house. In the meanwhile, with Subair, I went to the official temple management's book store. A 50-something bespectacled gentleman with well-oiled combed back hair revealing a foreheard resembling some of the dry hills of Wayanad was happy to have some prospective buyers. 

"What is the history of this temple?" I ask. 

"Brahma installed the idol here..." he began.

"Not mythology, Sir, I am asking about the history," I interrupted. 

"Oh" he paused for a while, "it is better if you check out some of the books then!"

He pointed to the neatly laid out Wayanad specific books on the table. I fingered through a few and was thoroughly impressed by O.K.John's "Wayanadan Rekhakal" a collection of essays on the history and contemperory society of the district. With a slice of Edakkal engravings as its cover photo, the title of the book which means both "records" and "lines" in Malayalam was clever. Famous cartoonist of Kerala, Namboothiri, is currently serializing his autobiography in Bhashaposhini magazine with the same title which is apt for a man whose lines have thrilled Malayalee readers and given forms to some of the all time great novels in the language for the past few decades. 

7pm: heading back to Kalpetta. Night descends swiftly in the jungle. The drive becomes thrilling. We look longing towards the spot we had seen the tusker earlier. Nothing there but crumbled bamboo. But one kilometer further down, we find another one! What a lucky evening! This is not a tusker, but she is equally brown from the dust. Patiently she was having her supper by the roadside. Since she was so close to the road, we went further down before stopping. There wasn't enough light to get a picture. But a car coming in the opposite direction illuminated her in its headlights. I quickly grabbed a shot but in the hurry it was out of focus at that distance. 

"You have already seen two wild elephants. Your Wayanad trip has been worth it!" Subair said. He went onto narrate one of his own elephant encounters. Couple of years ago, having heard about a hartal next day, him and friends on three motorbikes set off to Bangalore to take part in a bike race. In the Sultanbathery -Mysore road, twice forest officials warned them about a tusker roaming in the area. They wondered whether they should turn back. A lorry driver offered to go in front of them and warn them in case the elephant shows up. They followed the lorry for half an hour. Suddenly the lorry halted and the driver put on the left indicator. The bike riders assumed that this meant the tusker was on the left side and they should pass the lorry through the right. They raced past the lorry only to find themselves face to face with the tusker. Subair turned the bike instantly to avoid colliding but the elephant swung his trunk and grazed the dude riding behind Subair. They stopped after speeding away for 5 minutes. It was impossible to drive any further because all of them were trembling so much. They loaded the bikes on a truck coming in the opposite direction and came home. The friend who was smacked by the trunk was down with high fever for three days. "If an elephant is chasing you and you are running, take off whatever clothes you can quickly and throw it up some tree or hedge you can find. The elephant will be distracted by it and will come after you only after it has finished that tree off." native wisdom from Subair.

 

As soon as he finished the story and the tip, we see two massive wild buffalos staring down the road from a high ground. We stop to get a better look. These huge beasts are easily one tonne each. Rippling muscles under the jet black skin. Paler faces and dirty brown curved horns. In Malayalam there is a saying that roughly means to stare like a wild buffalo. After this encounter I understand how apt it is.Couple of kilometers further down, we stop to let a wild pig family cross the road. They are least bothered about being in the headlights. 

Once out of the forest range, Subair picks up speed. Night drive through this landscape at 100 kilometers per hour is exhilarating. Subair needs to get to his friend's house where a marriage is set to happen next day. 

8:15 we are back at the hotel. Complimentary dinner after freshening up. Almost fully the dinner conversation is about the wild tusker. Achan says Edakkal was more than what he expected while Thirunelli temple was a let down. I think that has mostly to do with the contemperory "professional" management of the temple. We are entertained by a bunch of young SAP professionals (from their tshirts) in the table next to ours at the hotel's restaurant. Their problem for the night is that one of the team members cannot "religiously" eat non-vegetarian food on Saturdays. Not only can't he eat, he cannot stand being near it for some, I am sure, religiously logical reason. "But you guys go eat, yaar!" he kept insisting. The friends were not wishing to accrue the sin of abandoning a once a week strictly vegetarian companion. Afterall, "papanasham", the stream to wash away all sins was 60 kilometers away at Thirunelli. They leave together with the decision to check if any pure veggie place is available nearby. I am glad the young man doesn't insist on leaving any district where meat is consumed on Saturdays.

Our long eventful, exhausting day had begun at Kozhikode. I had one night's sleep backlog. As exciting and informative as Mr. John's book was, I was out sooner after my head hit the pillow.