Beyond Munnar
We are still 30 km away from Munnar, travelling in a bus from Thiruvananthapuram, when my friend’s mobile phone rings. “It was from my college,” says the friend, the newly-appointed principal of a college in the tea country, “they say my house has been burgled.” I’m shocked, but he isn’t. “There was only an immersion rod, two blankets, a monkey cap and an air pillow,” he says. He is lucky: he was planning to shift the entire household stuff from his old house.The bus stops at Munnar and we hire an autorickshaw to the college. The theft still dominates our conversation. “In Munnar, if you are not home for two days, your house will definitely be burgled on the third day,” informs Selvan, the rickshaw driver who has obviously been eavesdropping. “Why so?” I ask him. “The border with Tamil Nadu is only a few steps away, and once they cross it, no one can catch them,” he says. It is tourist season in Munnar, as in the rest of Kerala, as is evident by the number of Qualis’ and Indicas that overtake us. A group of five men and a woman — all Westerners — speed past on their Royal Enfields, one of which bears a Delhi registration number. The road now climbs up and Selvan slows down the rickshaw. We pass by the local office of the Communist Party of India, functioning in the ground floor of a posh hotel. Banners in Malayalam and Tamil invite cadres to join a conference in December. Above them is a hotel banner soliciting rich tourists. I wonder at the unity of the two classes.
It’s 7 pm and we come out for a walk to the market. We also have to buy pillows and blankets. Shoppers in this town seem to be as laidback as the shopkeepers. Only the booze shop has a long queue. Reason: there are only two booze shops in Munnar. One remains closed on Tuesday and the other on Wednesday. Today is Tuesday.
The next day after breakfast we hire a taxi and head for Marayoor, a rain-shadow village 39 km from Munnar on the Udumalpet road. Marayoor is famous for sandalwood forests, ancient stone coffins and cave paintings. On the way, we halt at Rajamalai to spot the famous Nilgiri Tahr (mountain goat). We trek to the top of a hill and spot two.The road to Marayoor, flanked by lush green tea estates, is almost empty. We pass an occasional waterfall. Then we hit the sandalwood forest. First, the trees came one by one, and then they turned into a sea. We get out of the car at a point where the fence, which prevents people from entering into the forest, is broken. We touch the dark bask of a sandalwood tree and squeeze the leaves. The air is cool and we soon come under the rain shadow. There are boards set up by the forest department, “Help us prevent forest fire.” This Sandal Regeneration Experimental Plot comes under the Marayoor Range of Kerala Forest Department. Poaching of sandalwood is still active in the interiors and Suresh, the driver, tells us a number of stories. Like how one man was recently caught at the border smuggling sandalwood in a minibus. To destroy the evidence, he burnt the vehicle with the wood. One story follows the other and we reach Marayoor. Our destination is Muniyaras, or the stone coffins, which date back to the Neolithic period. We get down in front of the Government Higher Secondary School and climb up a hill which has two names: Kurishu Mala and Murugan Kunnu. You can see one white cross painted on the northern side of the hill and a Hindu shrine at the summit.The stone coffins are everywhere — they are stone slabs resembling crudely-made boxes, resting on vertical rocks. While taking pictures I go near one and peep into it. There’s nothing inside except some stones. “A mad man used to live inside one of them till recently. He would gather food in the day and return in the night. He is gone now,” says Muniswamy, a local. “This place needs excavation,” says Prashanth, a teacher in Marayoor. Descending the hill we see cane crop dancing in the wind. Below, a blanket of fog is waiting for us. Our visibility is barely six feet — something that our driver takes as a challenge and we are back to Munnar, safe.
The next day I take a bus to Top Station, 32 km from Munnar. It is the highest hamlet in the region from where on a good day, they say, you can even see Kochi. On the way I pass the Mattupetty Lake and the Kundala dam. Kundala is one of the three mountain streams — the others being Mudrapuzha and Nallthani — which originate in the high ranges of the Western Ghats and confluence at Munnar, giving the town its name (Munnar means three rivers). As the bus negotiates the curves, fog seeps in through the windows. It’s very cold. Passengers, one after the other, pull the glass panes. The bus stops at one bend and the conductor shouts, “Top Station, Top Station...” It is a bad afternoon to be there. The fog is so thick I can barely see beyond two feet. Confused, I start walking, not knowing where to go. The handful of people who had got down along with me have already melted into the fog.I come across a tea-shop. Three women are sitting inside and chatting. “Where is the view point?” I ask. “It’s close by, but you can’t see anything now because of the fog,” one of them replies. As I wonder what to do next, I hear a soliciting shout, “Munnar! Munnar!” It was a public transport — in the form of an old Mahindra jeep. I hop into the front seat. As the road turns downhill, the driver switches off the engine. “I will save fuel at least for eight kilometres. What to do, they have hiked the diesel price,” he explains. More passengers join us along the way. The topics of their conversation — tea estates and their labour problems. I get down at Mattupetty Lake for lunch, which is rice and omelette at a roadside joint. From there I take another jeep to Munnar. While negotiating a curve in Korandikkad, barely seven km from Munnar, the jeep stops. A blue Indica in front of us is reversing and the driver, with his head out of the window, cautions us: “Elephant! Elephant!” I get down to take a look. The elephant stood at the bend, massive and furious, stopping traffic on both sides. Elephants are an unusual sight on this stretch so people are tense. It takes about an hour for this elephant to decide it is time to move and find his way into the forest. And for us, it’s time to go home.
It’s 7 pm and we come out for a walk to the market. We also have to buy pillows and blankets. Shoppers in this town seem to be as laidback as the shopkeepers. Only the booze shop has a long queue. Reason: there are only two booze shops in Munnar. One remains closed on Tuesday and the other on Wednesday. Today is Tuesday.
The next day after breakfast we hire a taxi and head for Marayoor, a rain-shadow village 39 km from Munnar on the Udumalpet road. Marayoor is famous for sandalwood forests, ancient stone coffins and cave paintings. On the way, we halt at Rajamalai to spot the famous Nilgiri Tahr (mountain goat). We trek to the top of a hill and spot two.The road to Marayoor, flanked by lush green tea estates, is almost empty. We pass an occasional waterfall. Then we hit the sandalwood forest. First, the trees came one by one, and then they turned into a sea. We get out of the car at a point where the fence, which prevents people from entering into the forest, is broken. We touch the dark bask of a sandalwood tree and squeeze the leaves. The air is cool and we soon come under the rain shadow. There are boards set up by the forest department, “Help us prevent forest fire.” This Sandal Regeneration Experimental Plot comes under the Marayoor Range of Kerala Forest Department. Poaching of sandalwood is still active in the interiors and Suresh, the driver, tells us a number of stories. Like how one man was recently caught at the border smuggling sandalwood in a minibus. To destroy the evidence, he burnt the vehicle with the wood. One story follows the other and we reach Marayoor. Our destination is Muniyaras, or the stone coffins, which date back to the Neolithic period. We get down in front of the Government Higher Secondary School and climb up a hill which has two names: Kurishu Mala and Murugan Kunnu. You can see one white cross painted on the northern side of the hill and a Hindu shrine at the summit.The stone coffins are everywhere — they are stone slabs resembling crudely-made boxes, resting on vertical rocks. While taking pictures I go near one and peep into it. There’s nothing inside except some stones. “A mad man used to live inside one of them till recently. He would gather food in the day and return in the night. He is gone now,” says Muniswamy, a local. “This place needs excavation,” says Prashanth, a teacher in Marayoor. Descending the hill we see cane crop dancing in the wind. Below, a blanket of fog is waiting for us. Our visibility is barely six feet — something that our driver takes as a challenge and we are back to Munnar, safe.
The next day I take a bus to Top Station, 32 km from Munnar. It is the highest hamlet in the region from where on a good day, they say, you can even see Kochi. On the way I pass the Mattupetty Lake and the Kundala dam. Kundala is one of the three mountain streams — the others being Mudrapuzha and Nallthani — which originate in the high ranges of the Western Ghats and confluence at Munnar, giving the town its name (Munnar means three rivers). As the bus negotiates the curves, fog seeps in through the windows. It’s very cold. Passengers, one after the other, pull the glass panes. The bus stops at one bend and the conductor shouts, “Top Station, Top Station...” It is a bad afternoon to be there. The fog is so thick I can barely see beyond two feet. Confused, I start walking, not knowing where to go. The handful of people who had got down along with me have already melted into the fog.I come across a tea-shop. Three women are sitting inside and chatting. “Where is the view point?” I ask. “It’s close by, but you can’t see anything now because of the fog,” one of them replies. As I wonder what to do next, I hear a soliciting shout, “Munnar! Munnar!” It was a public transport — in the form of an old Mahindra jeep. I hop into the front seat. As the road turns downhill, the driver switches off the engine. “I will save fuel at least for eight kilometres. What to do, they have hiked the diesel price,” he explains. More passengers join us along the way. The topics of their conversation — tea estates and their labour problems. I get down at Mattupetty Lake for lunch, which is rice and omelette at a roadside joint. From there I take another jeep to Munnar. While negotiating a curve in Korandikkad, barely seven km from Munnar, the jeep stops. A blue Indica in front of us is reversing and the driver, with his head out of the window, cautions us: “Elephant! Elephant!” I get down to take a look. The elephant stood at the bend, massive and furious, stopping traffic on both sides. Elephants are an unusual sight on this stretch so people are tense. It takes about an hour for this elephant to decide it is time to move and find his way into the forest. And for us, it’s time to go home.
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