Roaming in the Jungles of Koraput

 View of River Saveri from one of the hills

A VISIT TO BADUDI PAHAR

When I joined my first job as an electrical engineer in Lower Kolab small hydroelectric project situated near the border of the Malkangiri and Koraput district I was really elated at the prospect of working in an area having the best forests in the region. ‘Love at first sight’ is the right expression to describe my instantaneous reaction when I came to this place. Surrounded by hills covered with dense forest, this place is no less than heaven for any nature lover like me. Out of my curiosity to know about the forests and the places near by I started to enquire from my colleagues and the local people and came to know of a place they called ‘Badli Pahar’. I heard many people mentioning to this place as a place of tourist interest. Attraction of this place is the cave temple. Hidden deep inside the forest, on the bank of Saveri river this cave is only accessible by forest foot paths. Owing to the inaccessibility of this place by any motorable road, only a handful of tourists have visited the cave over the years.

Badli Pahar- actual name of this place is Badudi Pahar, which means the cave of bats. Gradually over the years the name has come to be pronounced as Badli Pahar. I wanted to visit this place from the very day I came to know of it. But due to some or the other engagement I couldn’t do so. In the month of December I determined to pay a visit. I asked one of my colleagues named N.K.Panda working in Middle Kolab project to accompany me. I opted for him because he was involved in the survey before the construction of our project and has a fair knowledge of the area. He readily said yes to my summon. He suggested that we should take a local (as a guide) with us as we might need him in case of any emergency. So he contacted a local tribal for this. Another young man named Balia, an electrician from my site also was willing to join me. I borrowed a digital camera from one of my friend exclusively for this purpose. I threw some snacks like biscuits and namkeen into my back pack. So thus went the preparation and finally four willing souls were ready.

I zeroed in on the 5th of December as the date for my trip. Nothing can match the delight that a walk in the jungle on a chilly winter morning gives. My colleague Panda thought that the cave must be 12 to 14 kilometers distant from the place where we had planned to start our walk. However from the map of the region I estimated the distance to be not more than 10 kilometers. And later I found my guesstimate to be more or less correct. I wanted to start as early as 5.30 am when it is still dark. But our guide, a villager from Tentulligumma, was of the opinion that we should give a breadth to the nocturnal animals that might be returning to their lair after a night away. Though my plan to start early was just because I might be lucky enough to come across any wildlife, but finally I gave in. The reason-it was the month of December and the season for the she sloth bears to bring out their young ones of the lair and introduce them to the surrounding jungle. And a mother bruin with cubs is the most wary creature in the Indian jungle and attacks without provocation, any man or animal that ventures close enough.

It was half past six when four of us started our walk. Fog had settled heavily on the jungle and a chilly gust of wind was blowing from the hills and down to the river. There was still enough time before the sun could rise above the hills. We crossed the river just below the weir dam of our project. Here the river has reduced only to a small trickle as rest of the water is diverted for generation of electricity. Our destination was on the eastern side of the river and this is the only place where we could have crossed the river with out the aid of a ferry, as there was no ferry anywhere in the next 15 kilometers up the river course. Our ascent started right after the river crossing. I was wearing a black resin jacket and was carrying my back pack that weighed nearly 5 kgs. It was not even 10 minutes into the climb and I started perspiring profusely. It was after a long time I was climbing a hill. The first hundred meter climb proved to be most difficult for me as my legs and joints needed some time before they could get accustomed to the steep terrain. It was much more strenuous than what I had anticipated it to be. I took out my jacket and tied it round my waist when I couldn’t bear the perspiration any more. 

At the top of the first hill we climbed was relatively flatter ground. Nearly two kilometers on such land brought us to the foot of another hill whose top was not visible to us as the canopy was dense and there was fog on the hill. So far we had been following a well beaten forest path and at the place where we stood it was joined by another such path coming from east. This path coming from the east, I was told, comes from a place called Kumbhikhari. This is a small hamlet inside the forest which used to be a saltlick once. The term khari itself stands for saltlick. Now we headed due north and uphill. While walking I was scanning the ground for any possible track of wild animals but to no success. Hoof or pug marks are too soft to get registered on the hard ground on these hills. Soft sand of the various Nullahs and dusty foot tracks are the only place where one can look for them, though the nullahs also dry up by this time of the year and making them redundant for animals to visit and dusty tracks are far fewer. Except for a few scratch marks by jungle fowls I found no other signs of wildlife. But I would also like to mention here that if the local people are to be believed these forests still abound with wildlife such as Cheetal, Sambhar, and Barking Deer etc. Here around a bend I heard human voices. First thought that came to my mind was Naxalites, as these forests being remote and inaccessible are home to them. But when we came around the bend we saw four people standing on the middle of the path and had beside them a few bags full of some material. At first look I thought it to be charcoal. N.K.Panda whispered to me that the material in the sacks is Ganja and the four were peddlers. As we neared them they said to us “Namashkar Anna”. It is amusing to explain why they did so. Well, Anna is a telugu word which means big brother or elder brother. As most of the naxal leaders operating in this region hail from Andhra Pradesh they are addressed as Anna by tribal people. Thus the four men before us mistook us to be naxalites and saluted us out of fear. In fact their reaction at finding us in the middle of the jungle was all but natural as no outsider other than naxalites ever goes so deep inside these forests. We had a few words with them. Panda asked them questions like where were they coming from and where they were heading to etc. One of them told us that they were coming from some place near Chitrakonda and were going to Kotpad. We proceeded wondering how come they must be covering such a long distance through deep forest and that too with fifty to sixty kg of load on their shoulders. But the real surprise was ahead of us. After some half a kilometer I saw few more men with similar loads climbing the hill ahead of us. Then a few more of them and a few further. Since loaded with burden they were walking at a very slow pace. So we caught up with them easily and went ahead of them. As we did so I counted heads and in all there were forty men. To my utter surprise I found, amongst those forty men, five to six lads were there who can not be more than sixteen years old.

Reward for a 400 mtr Climb 

At the top of the hill we reached, bathed in our own sweat despite the temperature being less than 15 degree centigrade. We sat down to normalize our breaths. The ganja carriers also reached the hill top in groups of four and five. Now the sun was visible in the eastern sky. It didn’t take long for our sweat to dry because a strong and chilly wind was blowing past us and in minutes we started to feel the cold of the high altitude. From my map I learned that we were standing at a place 750 meters above mean sea level and from the river we had climbed nearly 400 meters. All those forty men congregated at the hill top. I was wondering as to how hard they must be toiling to carry all that illegal stuff up and down numerous hills that they must be passing. While chatting to them we came to know of the dark side of the ganja trade. The peddling route is as follows. Bhejangwada, Chitrakonda, Janbai, Jantri etc are the places of Malkangiri where ganja is grown abundantly. The hikers carry them through forest routes all the way to the border of Chattisgarh state. From here it is smuggled to various parts of the country. Growers get anything between hundred to two hundred bucks per kilogram. When it hits the city markets its price by then might have snowballed to one grand or more. As those people said all that they get for carrying fifty kilos of ganja is a wage of fifteen hundred rupees. The delivery of the consignment takes eight days of arduous walk through dense forest and steep hills. They could have worked as daily laborers instead and earn nearly same amount to lead a respectable life. Not only are they violating the law of the land but at the same time risking their own lives. This is how ganja which can worth in crores is trafficked. God save this country from these misdemeanors. 

Anyway lets move on with our own hiking. Some twenty minutes of rest and we were on our way again. It was 8 in the morning. Nearly five kilometers of uphill walk covered in little more than one hour- I think that’s a pretty good pace. Now it was all the way downhill. The fog had started to disappear now, giving a clearer view of the surroundings. We could see the river deep down in the valley to our left. I can never forget that vista. Lush green and luxuriant forests, a trace of mist around with the rays of the young sun shining brightly over them creates a sight reproduced directly from paradise. The view I was admiring is worth the difficult climb it takes to reach that place. We kept walking down hill for another four or so kms. Huge sal trees have risen high to the sky and bamboo clumps are scattered all around. Fallen bamboo leaves form the carpet of the forest. Jungle around us was bustling with the multitude of the sound made by our avian friends. Especially the valley to our left was replete with the call of peafowl and jungle fowl. At the end of our descent we came out to a clearing in the forest-a man made meadow. Three to four huts were visible and some crops were growing all around the huts. The patch of cultivation may not be more than twenty acres in extent. Stunted sal trees had dotted the landscape. On one of such trees I spotted a huge bird. Careful observation revealed that it was a Serpent eagle. I stalked as close as possible to the tree. The bird discovered my presence and flew away spreading its huge wings but not before I could capture it in my digi cam. These birds are becoming exceedingly rare. These predatory birds live on snakes and other small birds. They prefer tall trees and high rock cliffs to build nests. Habitat destruction has pushed them to the brink of extinction.

A man-made meadow in the middle of the forest

We reached the huts and were once again greeted as Annas. The Pujari or priest of the cave temple lives in one of these huts. So we sent for him. In the mean time I began a conversation with a man from one of the huts. I told him the purpose of our visit and enquired about the fauna of the jungles around. Wild boar and barking deer are regular visitors to their farms at night. Spotted deer appear occasionally as their number is less on our side of the river. Apart from these Peafowl foray the field in the afternoons. The presence of deer and boars also raises the chance for the carnivores like leopards and tigers. Leopards are spotted often but tigers are not, however their presence cannot be written off keeping in view the presence of their prey. One fact I learned from the man is the occurrence of wildlife on Odisha side of the river is far sparse in comparison to the other side of the river. Reason is the forest on the other side lies inside the Kanger Valley National Park of Chattisgarh and is being guarded jealously against tree felling and poaching and the result is for everyone to see. It has turned a relatively safer resort for wildlife. On the contrary the forests on Odisha side are being ravaged mindlessly. Clearings, like the one I am standing in right now, have come up at various places leaving the forest fragmented and degraded as well. It leaves the animals no choice but to flee or confront human beings and ultimately losing their life to the most intelligent of animals i.e. Homo sapiens. As I was in the middle of my conversation the party of men we had left behind arrived. They had plans to take rest nearby, have their meal there and start once again at mid day. Once or twice I overheard them talking. Few of them could speak four to five languages such as Hindi, Odiya. Telugu, Bastari, colloquial Koraputia and probably Koya. 

The priest was ploughing his field when we sent for him. He sent back the word that we should wait a little longer for the sun to shine brighter since it is too cold to take a dip in the river now. So we waited for another half an hour. The priest arrived and greeted us with a humble Namaskar and I can say that it was the humblest gesture that I have ever seen. May be this is because of the simple life these folk lead inside these forests and their ways still so primitive. Only occasional contact with outsiders has not corrupted their primitive ways. They are miles away from any medical assistance, their children have never been to a school, they have never cast a vote in any election nor have they ever benefited form any governmental scheme. In spite of all these things these people appear content with what they have and we modern and educated men can only dream of that feeling of contentment. He asked us if we have brought any torch with us. I had a torch with me. But he said we may need three to four torches. Thankfully he had two more and he burrowed one from his neighbor. Five of us proceeded. Half a kilo meter and we came near the river. The pujari asked us to take bath carefully. He said there were a lot of crocodiles in this part of the river, though they didn’t harm human beings. A cold bath, in fact an icy cold bathe in the river rejuvenated me.

Cave of Bats : Badudi Pahar

                   

The cave was only one kilo meter away said the pujari. We had to ascend another hill. Here the forest was awfully dense and damp as it was just on the bank of the river. As we moved through the undergrowth I grew anxious because one can always expect to encounter animals in a forest like this. But all that was in vain. Although there were numerous caves, small and big, they were empty. Sunlight was scarce on the forest floor and this condition favoured the jungle mosquitoes. We disturbed them as we moved through bushes and shrubs. They targeted us in turn and swarmed around each one of us. These insects are very tiny in size compared to their urban cousins but their bite gives you a terrible itch along side a persistent burning sensation. Unfortunately we had to go through all this itching and scratching. All the way to the top of the hill we went and now a descent brought us down to the river and to the entrance of the cave. Though, this wasn’t as easy as the few preceding words. We had to wind through huge rocks and at one place we had to take a ladder- a lone stout bamboo pole tied against a huge rock with the help of creepers, to descend a thirty feet high rock wall. Following the entire ordeal finally we were standing at the entrance of the cave. Here we discarded our shoes, took out the torches and moved in. The cave gets narrower, darker and damper as you move in. The smell of bat refuse filled my nostrils. A cave as big as the main one has branched off to the left and fifty meters after the entrance of the cave. The priest told us to move ahead and not to take the branch. Here was the first turn to the left. Hereafter complete darkness engulfed us. The entrance was not visible now. The pujari led us up and up towards the roof of the cave only taking left turns. The way was more or less like a spiral stairway- getting narrower as we moved up. Nearly moving fifty meters in this fashion brought us to a shelf like place. In front of us was the stalactite formation- which is worshiped as the ‘Linga’. It’s a white formation- three feet in height and four feet in girth(at the base). After the colour of the linga this shrine is named Dhabaleshwar. The cave extends behind this point also but it starts to go down from this point. The pujari said no one has ever gone beyond this. Behind us- on the other end of the shelf like rock, was the roof of the cave. It must be five feet wide here and rock shelves have protruded from both sides. The cave has risen to fifty more feet I suppose. Our torches couldn’t reach the top of the roof as there were protruding shelves of rock in between and it was impossible to reach the space immediately below the roof. We offered a puja in the cave and spent around twenty minutes there. The silence inside the cave can creep on to you. Perhaps that was the sound of silence and I was hearing the sound of silence. The only sound to be heard intermittently was the flapping of wings of the bats. This minute sound also resonates like a distant rumbling of a thunder. Name of the pujari is Indra. When I asked him about the discovery of this cave he said that it was around thirty years back. Before him his father used to be the priest of this place. Coming out of the cave we stood near the entrance of the cave for a while to admire the beautiful texture on the rock walls. These textures are a result of thousands of years of leaching and corrosion by to water. Right before our eyes were the rocks which are witness of the time gone by. Carved on them is some story, in a script known only to the creator himself. Some tourists who come here paint their names on these walls and spoil the splendor of these rocks. We came to know from the pujari that two more caves similar to this one exist in the locality. One is just on the opposite bank of the river and another is situated around three kilometers downstream and near the confluence of river Saveri and Kanger river from Chattisgarh. 

No, this is no Grand Canyon :  The patterns you see on the rock is due to the contact of tubulent  water on the surface of limestone rock.

At around 11.30 am we started our retreat march. The pujari suggested that we should take an alternative route to reach the place where we had taken bath earlier in the morning. This route was along the rocky river bed. The motive was to avoid the steep climb on the rock-wall-with-a-bamboo-pole and the mosquito infested undergrowth; it also reduced the distance by half a kilometer. So ahead, we went along the river course. It was not all easy affair though as I found it later. This involved maneuvering rocks of various sizes. Hazardous as it could be, to jump from rock to rock with a rapid flowing by. A miscalculated footing can leave one shouting for help in turbulent water. The strong current in the stream can kill a person just by knocking him on the rocks if not drown him. That’s why one has to be as sure footed as a goat of the mountains while putting a step forward. Walking and jumping over rocks we reached near another place which looked like the entrance of a cave. Yes it was another cave with an archway like entrance. We went inside after the pujari. The cave had three similar looking openings further inside. The pujari told us that this cave is called ‘Singhadwara’. As he said it takes three full days to explore each dead end of the three branching caves. It is supposed to be a labyrinth of caves. Water has dug out furrows which lead inside these caves and they carry small trickles of river water into the cave. The pujari said that these trickles come out of the cave near the confluence of Kanger and Saveri river, nearly four kilometers downstream. Well it is not possible to ascertain the genuineness of the statement, yet looking at the landscape and other conditions it cannot be refuted outright either. The channels get narrower as they progress inside the cave. In my opinion it is very much possible. This is how the explanation goes. The first reason is that the river has formed a horse shoe shape here, with these caves at one end and the confluence at the other. Second thing is the difference in altitude. The river has meandered the horse shoe formation in a series of small falls. Had the river not followed the horse shoe bend it would have directly come out near the confluence. Hence these water channels still have the affinity and have over the years dug out their way through the soft limestone. These caves can draw hordes of tourists if developed and popularized.     

We left the cave to itself and hurried our steps to the hut of the pujari. I was starting to feel fatigued by the exertion since morning. We had yet another steep climb ahead of us. After reaching the hut we returned the torches. We thanked the pujari for his cooperation and said good bye to him in five minutes. It was past twelve o’ clock and the sun was right above our heads. We walked for nearly twenty minutes and all of us were out of breath. We were not even half way up the steep hill. We decided to take rest for a few minutes. This is when I heard a sound. The source of the sound was somewhere in the valley to our left. It was the unmistakable alarm call of a spotted deer. It had been disturbed by some other carnivore probably. The sound gradually moved away from us. This alarm call of the deer was like good news to my ears because I was confirmed that a few of these beautiful deer are still left in these forests. A few minutes of rest and we started off to accomplish the final steep climb that would take us to the 750 meter hill top. We kept slow pace so as not to exert ourselves too much against the steep hillside because we still had a lot of climbing to do. We reached the same spot from where I had admired the vista of the river flowing in the valley below. Now the view was quite different now. The river was to our right and there was no fog to cripple our vision. In the mid day sun was visible a forest which stretched till ones eyes can see. To the west was the Kanger Valley forest and to the north was the Dandarkol forest of Odisha. It is really a rare sight these days and I think only a few lucky fellow like me get a glimpse of that right before their eyes. I felt I was falling in deep love with these forests as much as I admired them. It is high time that reserved forests adjacent to Kanger Valley National Park on the Odisha side be notified as a wildlife sanctuary so that this can turn to be a safe heaven for the remaining wildlife. 

After walking for half and hour non stop we reached the top of the hill. There we decided to halt and quench our thirst and appease our hungry stomachs. I took out the snacks and distributed it among four. No interesting discussion took place over the snacks as all of us were ravenously hungry and wanted to gulp down the few morsels as quickly as possible. A few packets of biscuit and a little namkeen didn’t take long to be consumed and washed down the throat with water. One o clock saw us striding down the steep hill with careful steps. It was the last phase of our walk. My legs had started to tremble owing to exhaustion but I managed to reach the place from where we had started early in the morning. My watch showed that it was quarter to two. 

In the course of the day we had covered nearly twenty kilometers of rough mountainous terrain, including nearly one thousand meters of climbing and descending. But at the end I must say that all the toil and sweat that it took is insignificant to match the joy and delight the trip gave me. The joy of spending the time in the lap of nature, the joy of being one of the handfuls who have visited that place and most importantly the joy of being able to roam in the deepest and densest forests of my district. But it is only a matter of time before these forests, once deep and dense, will soon vanish if they are not protected against Man’s greed. Right before my eyes I saw the heritage, passed on to us by nature, which our people distantly ever regard as a heritage. Rather our beautiful forests have come to be a cash dispensing proposition, a resource which is meant only to make money, money and more money. The forests I visited today were said to be an endless expanse of jungle as late as the eighties. Land seekers and timber peddlers are instrumental in making the forest what it is today and equally responsible are the forest department officials who, on every occasion, have turned a blind eye towards this unlawful activity of their wallet filling patrons. 

 Partha P Patra