BY PRAGYANSHARMA POLAVARAPU
PART ONE
MY DIARY DATED 3-3-04—DURING A LONG MYSORE
TRIP TWO DECADES AGO.
WE STARTED FOR OOTY ON THE MOUNTAINOUS ROAD
Next morning (i.e morning of 3rd March 04 ) we woke up by 4am. We switched on TV and simultaneously started our journey preparations. Our journey to Ooty was to start around 7-30am . On 3rd March our tight program did not include Mysuru but a road trip to Ooty through jungle and mountainous roads . The distance from Mysore to Ooty --for travel by the winding mountain roads with about 35 hair pin bends---is about 150 kms. It takes about four and half hours only for the up trip and another four and half hours for the down trip.
At
7am we ordered light breakfast and coffee upstairs into our room. We quickly started off to the bus stop. We also took our sweaters as per
advice of the travel operator when we talked to him on phone. It may be very
cold at Ooty even by 3pm or 4pm, people in the van also said. By 7-30 the Swaraj
Mazda van was at the bus stage already filled
with passengers. There were in the van a Maratha family group, two Gujarathi couples, a
couple from Kerala and two European women. In addition we were four. The
weather was cool and pleasant at start
of our journey ( 7-30 am). The journey started
and the van soon picked up speed. When out of curiosity I smilingly asked the European women as to which country they belonged they
said they were Swedes .
The
driver said that we will travel through Bandipur
wild life sanctuary and Mudumalai forest sanctuary before climbing to the higher levels on way to Ooty. My younger daughter expressed her joy
about chance of seeing the wild animals in their natural habitat .She took out the electronic camera
and checked it and made adjustments focussing it on the jungle scenery around.
The van sped through the outskirts of Mysore on straight
and wide roads and we soon reached the
outskirts. Mysuru is famous for its straight roads. It was an endless
hours long journey through villages and small towns. We passed through vast and seemingly
endless rural scenery with thousands of coconut trees all around . We passed through many big villages and
bustling towns and calm rural areas. We passed through Srirangapatna, Chennapatna
and Nanjangud towns.
(2)
THE VAST FOREST AREA ON THE PLAINS
Now we were about to enter forest area after
we passed the long inhabited areas. But
we were still in the plains and not yet
entered the mountainous road . The vehicle was moving at good speed and after
an hour we will be in the higher
altitudes. The guide told us that we were entering Bandipur wild life
sanctuary and that we can see lots of
wild animals like deer and elephant . He assured there is nothing to fear from
the animals moving so near to the
vehicle and that seeing them at close range makes people very happy. Soon a few
spotted deer with light yellowish brown skin and of small size and speedy movement and the sambhar
(large bodied dark brown skinned deer with big antlers) came near to roadside as if eager to see us
humans. Groups of monkeys too came to road side and were slowly crossing the road. Some were sitting on the
branches of roadside trees watching our vehicle.
The
weather was hot but we did not feel discomfort. We could see only two or three elephants.Small herds may be moving deep inside the forest . All
around there was endless forest full of lean long trees of brownish trunks, brownish branches with
decaying old leaves. The driver said
that deep inside there would be leopards and some tigers.My daughters were busy
taking photos of the animals.
I pictured in my mind that in the months of heavy rain these same dull
coloured trees will turn gorgeously
green with branches bearing thick bunches of green leaves. The entire forest will turn into
a green heaven with birds, animals and insects with busy movements. Though a
few evergreen trees with dense leafy branches were there ,many trees in the forest did not have much leaf
cover .
We travelled through such vast area for an
hour or more . Now our van crossed into state of Tamilnad from the state of Karnataka. There were check posts and the
forest police checked our vehicles. After a few minutes our car stopped near a
small temple in the jungle. It was a temple for Lord Hanuman. A priest came ,uttered hymns in
low inaudible tones and blessed the vehicle. He then entered the vehicle and also gave “prasad” to us all. We felt so
happy at this unexpected arrival of a priest and giving us holy prasad. The
foreigners saw with smiling countenances . what I wrote above the entrancing
forest scenery is a general description
for general reading pleasure and may not be geographically quite accurate.
(3)
THE MANY HAIR PIN LIKE ROAD BENDS AS WE
CLIMBED UP AND UP
The van sped at top speed through the jungle
for one full hour. At heart I felt really
overjoyed to travel through the jungle .
it was such a very rare trip to be travelling for hours through a deep jungle. Others
too were sitting silent entranced by the
endless jungle scenery. Surprisingly there were human habitations even in this jungle area and this speaks of
the rural folks. We saw a person walking alone on the nearby jungle road . A person in the van said that the wild animals too feel frightened seeing the human beings residing in forest areas when they lit big
fires and occasionally loudly
beat drums the sounds of which reverberate in the forest. There was a small and we could not but feel
surprised.
When the rains start the forest would turn into a green heaven with
trees full of thick green leaves and there would be bird song everywhere. The middle sized trees (with trunks not too
lean or not too fat) were there in their thousands. Some trees here and there
had surprisingly dark
green leaves! We journeyed in the forest
for perhaps two hours.
We now found that we were climbing to very
high places in this seemingly endless journey
on this winding road through the thick jungle.
The deep gorges appearing on our sides were
proof that we were now entering a new
section climbing to great heights.
In the distance on the right, high above the
forested hills, we saw two very huge treeless rocks as high as two or three
storeyed buildings. They looked like some precipitous portion of a hill near the road which we were travelling. Our
van travelled near the foot of those rocks skirting them .
Our
van was moving upward in the hilly region. The weather too was changing and it was
becoming very cold. Here we saw surprisingly that all the trees had green leaves. We understood we are now entering a new climatic region with a different vegetation
and even slightly different animal and bird life after reaching the high altitude. The bus was now travelling
slowly travelling along a steep upward
path full of many hair pin like sudden bends . While negotiating the hair pin bends we see again the same trees
,boulders etc which we passed a few minutes ago .It is a strange experience. We
gain height after travelling every hairpin bend . The driver told us that in this section we would travel through about 35 such hairpin bends!
We felt a little uneasy but the guide laughed and said that travelling
through the bends with a little care is
absolutely safe and that the roads are so constructed that we can travel through the bend without
the least difficulty. He said he drives through this region carrying lots of
passengers.
(4) WE REACH OOTY IN THE HIGH HILLS-A
DIFFERENT CLIMATE AND DIFFERENT VEGETATION
All the road bends through which we already travelled
were visible below us as we climbed to greater heights. This journey in this
challenging jig jag section took about 1 to 1 ½
hours ! Soon we reached the area
of very deep valleys . The road led to
beautiful picturesque Ooty town which was visible in the distance through the
greenery of tree filled meadows.
Ooty is a district headquarters town of Nilgiris
district of Tamilnad. The weather
changed and it became gradually very cool . It was so different from the hot
weather of two hours ago! The sun
completely lost its power. Here all the trees were of different kind and
majority were of the type found in cold European lands—the fern type trees with
downward pointing branches. The downward branches had long smaller branches
with green leaves and appeared dark green from a little distance .Two hours
back we were travelling amidst an endless forest of trees with sparse leaf cover. But
the picture here at a
higher level was so very different.
The trees are straight and high like long pillars and had drooping branches with green leaves of a new type.
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