A sojourn
in the woods
M.K.Kaw
Recently, I
went on a visit to my daughter .She had been persuading us to take a few days
off from the routine at Delhi and we succumbed .She lives in a beautiful flat in Tata
Sherwood , Basavanagar , Bengaluru.
The trip had
a terrific start when searching for a cab at the airport and being confronted
with unreasonable demands of Rs. 1700 and thereabouts, we sighted our daughter
Iti looking for us. I must say it was a pleasant surprise and soon we were
trundling along at a fair pace to her
house by the shortest route.
Raj and I
never see the latest Bollywood releases because one has to take so many irksome
steps and then see the artistic offering in a large darkened hall, surrounded
by smelly strangers. You cannot repeat an especially emotion-laden scene, you
cannot raise the volume when the romantic pair whisper sweet nothings in each
other’s ears..
In my
daughter’s house these rules do not apply. We were able to see the downloaded
versions of latest offerngs and take cashewnuts and coffee while watching the drama.
As part of
our itinerary, Iti and Rahul had laid on a five day trip to Coorg. Coorg is
celebrated for its forests, cool air and its famous soldiers like Cariappa and
Thimayya. The moment these names came up, I was inspired to tell my favourite
tale of Sarswati river.How a great civilization was born on the banks of the
river Sarswati. How a cataclysmic event destroyed that culture and dispersed
the Sarswats across the sub-continent. How the Sarswat Brahmins were distributed
to distant locations like Kashmir, Maharashtra, Coorg and Bengal. How all
Sarswat brahmins were cousins. So we Kashmiri Pandits could boast of famous
generals like Thimayya and Cariappa as our near relations.
We roamed in
the dense forests of Coorg, where the trees were huge with large leaves which
swished in the ever stormy wind and created the sound of music, as if there was
a waterfall nearby. But when you ventured forth, gingerly clutching an umbrella
in one hand, you were pleasantly surprised to discover that the whole melodrama
was a creation of Nature.
So one
afternoon, when we were invited to a guided tour of a coffee plantation, we
went in the innocent belief that it
would be an idyllic stroll over an evenly
laid out smooth terrain where the walk would be like a saunter over a woollen Persian carpet.
And I must
say that it started well. The slim knowledgeable youth who introduced himself
as Subba Rao, an executive with the coffee plantation, which was spread over
200 acres, appeared to be the ideal person to introduce a party of fifteen
persons to the plantation, where the air
was overladen with the aroma of coffee and cardamom. And the forest path had a soft, feathery touch
to it and there was no mud or jagged stone to spoil the effect.
As we
proceeded to survey the plants and Subba Rao waxed eloquent on the quality of
the products of Coorg, the path became steep and damp and sharp-edged. Our feet
were plastered with muck and gtime. I found it increasingly hazardous to
negotiate the track. A stage came when my granddaughter Monal and son-in-law
Rahul literally carried me over the
rough terrain.
Raj later
told me that we looked like Mahatma Gandhi being supported by two girls when he
went for an evening stroll. She would have photographed us, had it not been a
stressful experience for her, with the fear that all three of us would come
tumbling down.
Every time
Subba Rao opened his mouth, I asked him a queation.’”When do we reach the
terminal point of this tour?” Rao would make a face and deflect the question. In the later stages of the tour, he pointed
to the fat goats grazing so contentedly on the slopes,”Relax, Sir! A jeep is
waiting for us and it will carry us back.”
The promise
of that jeep sustained me over the track
which seemed to become steeper, muddier and more and more hazardous with every
step. At long last Rao stopped and made his final peroration. He revealed that
we would be greeted with a hot steaming cup of coffee when we reached the
starting point.
Everything happened as planned. The jeep came
just half an hour late, we were shipped up that steep climb and the cups of
coffee were there, though tepid and sweet. But one should not be ungrateful. It will be long before I shall forget that
sojourn in the woods
. Especially
the fat ruddy leeches who made their bloody appearance in the hotel room when
we took off our shoes and socks.
