Travel: Surrendering to the quiet of the forest

The crested serpent eagle perched on a branch scanned the entire jungle, with the concerned look of a guardian. It was like a soldier standing on a rampart, with an alert eye on his territory.

The bird however was interested only in its breakfast as it stood there, its bright eyes searching for prey.

The jungle was so dense that we could hear the langurs and yet could not see them.

I was looking for the lion tailed macaques, the endangered species that are known to live in these forests, but the trees created a dense canopy that they seemed to shut them all out of view.

It was a bright beautiful morning and I was in interior Tamil Nadu driving through the pristine evergreen patches of the Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve.

My journey took me through the hot biodiversity reserve with endemic flora and fauna, the home of several rivers, rivulets and reservoirs, into the land where ferns grew in abundance.

A Project Tiger Reserve, KMTR as it is referred to included wildlife sanctuaries that formed part of Kalakad and Mundanthurai in the hills of Western Ghats.

Rich in culture and heritage, Agasthyamalai was at the core of the reserve, while several temples and teerthams set deep inside the wilds added a mystic touch to it.

Obtaining a permit from the nearest town, Ambasamudram, we were the only travellers driving up the Western Ghats, around the forests.

Our journey for the day was to take us up the Manimuthar Dam towards the falls, into Manjolai, Kudrevatti and Upper Kodayar Dam.

Another route was around Papanasam that would take us to Agasthyar Falls and Bana Teerthan, but that we saved for the following day.

Pockets of sunshine filtered through the green corridor and the trees gently swayed, welcoming the visitors as we slowed down.

No tigers or leopards crossed our paths, nor were we looking for them.

And then in a little clearing, I saw it. With the mountains of the Western Ghats bordering it, the Manimuthar, that has its source in the hills flowed here and cascaded down as a waterfall and filled up a reservoir.

Driving along KMTR, we found eager, young streams tumbling down the rocks, rushing to tell their stories as they charted their own courses.

KMTR we are told formed the catchment area for more than ten rivers and streams. Driving up the hills, waterfalls escorted us to greater heights as we saw them plunge and form dams.

Tirunelveli’s perennial river Tamirabarani was joined by smaller rivers like Manimuthar which cascaded down the rocks.

There are other dams like Papanasam, Kodayar, Karaiyar besides Manimuthar, offering scenic views, but not all of them were open to the public as they were hidden in the dense habitat of the KMTR.

The landscape slowly changed as we head to Manjolai. Small settlements sprouted here and there as vast tracts of tea plantations greeted us.

A bus ferrying a handful of workers to a cluster of villages suddenly made its appearance. We got off the vehicle and walked around, watching several sparrows and starlings chirping away.

Sipping some hot tea, we spoke to the locals who told us about their recent tiger sightings.  We continued to drive uphill until another dam interrupted us – the Upper Kodayar Dam.

And then the jeep came to a halt, in the middle of a meadow that lay intoxicated by the winds.

The birds were barely managing to fly as their wings fluttered, even as they tried to balance the breeze. All around us was just open grassland with a small tower in a corner.

We climbed up the steps and waited for the mist to clear. We were at Kudrevattii - one of Tamil Nadu’s best secrets which would give any hill station a run for its tourist tag.

A wind swept region, it literally blew us away. The skies were a distinct blue and the clouds came down to touch you.

But it was not just the beauty of nature or the invisible presence of the wild that fascinated me; it was the absolute silence that greeted me everywhere.

The grass rustled beneath our feet, swaying to and fro, lured by the breeze that  blew around with gay abandon.

As the entire canopy of the forests spread itself below us, we saw in the middle of the green cover, a sea of blue.

While Manimuthar dam was clearly visible Karayar dam seemed to be in a veil of clouds.  We could not see the others as the mist suddenly tip toed upon us, covering almost everything in sight.

All we could see was the thin outline of the forests that lay carpeted around the dams hiding many a secret in the dense undergrowth.

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