Jog Falls

---

Our Jog Falls Tour

9-1-2011

Jog Falls was The Destination of our trip from Belgaum but this was one trip where the Destination was thoroughly disappointing while the Journey itself was extremely pleasant, soul-satisfyingly enjoyable.

I mean, we were told by friends that there is not much water in the Jog Falls now-a-day, but I did not expect it to be SO less.

As is my habit, I had tried to gather as much information about the route to Jog Falls from Belgaum as possible. This was no easy task.

As I told Avi, “It is much easier to plan to visit Victoria Falls than to plan to visit Jog Falls. After all, there are two International Airports to cater to the tourists to Victoria Falls, but there is not even one, itsy-bitsy, domestic airport serving Jog Falls. The alternative traveling options, i.e. railways and road transport, are equally dismal for journeys from Bengalore to Jog Falls.”

Belgaum is my own ‘native place’ and it is where we 12 school-friends had a get-together at our friends’ place in Thalakwadi in January 2011. (Now Thalakwadi is renamed as Tilakwadi but we old-timers still referred to it as Thalakwadi. Originally it was named Thalakwadi because prominent i.e. ‘thalak’ people used leave their homes in Belgaum and stay in the open spaces there during the Plague epidemics in the early part of the 20th Century.)

Avi and I wanted to visit Jog Falls from Belgaum because it is much nearer from Belgaum than from Bangalore. However, all the information available on the Internet, about ‘how to reach Jog Falls’ assumes Bangalore as the starting point. Moreover even from Bangalore, the KSTDC tour to Jog Falls is so atrociously planned that I promptly veto’ed it. Imagine travelling by KSRTC bus to Jog Falls through the night, using common toilet and bath facilities at Jog Falls in the morning, then seeing Jog Falls during the day and travelling back to Bangalore through the next night, a whopping big 450+ kms.

After reading about another equally atrocious one-day tour of Belur-Halebeedu-Gomateshwar tour from KSTDC, which leaves Bengalore at 6:00 AM and returns at 10:00 PM the same day, I have come to the conclusion that the long form of KSTDC must be Karnataka State Tourism Discouragement Corporation.

Oh, God, and how they DO try to earn that name!! They have even built special dams to divert water AWAY from the waterfalls, so that tourists should not come to Jog Falls or Gokak Falls and mar the serenity of the surroundings. Who wants noisy crowds at a place of scenic beauty?

However, the hardy tourists are not to be discouraged so easily, so they have put in extra efforts. Special, large-sized mosquitoes are bred near the tourist facilities and the outlet from the common toilets is routed to near the view-points so that the whole atmosphere has become urine-scented.

They have shut down the ‘deluxe’ hotel near Jog Falls and now make the tourists suffer in ordinary rooms with noisy fans and a noiseless TV. The tourists are NOT entitled to a towel or soap or clean bed-sheets to line the dirty blankets.

The tourists automatically get hot water for bath because the Sun blatantly and disobediently heats the Solar Panels.

Despite all these precautions, busloads of tourists, school-loads of children and truck-loads of black-lungi-clad Ayappa devotees still mar the tranquility of Jog Falls with their shrill cries during the day. Only when they leave at the end of the day, does one hear the faint murmur of the ‘Roarer’ waterfall.

Out of the four waterfalls of Jog – Raja, Rani, Rocket and Roarer – Raja and Rani are practically dead, the ‘Rocket’ is a ‘dud’ and the ‘Roarer’ reminds one of that famous ‘Strepcils’ ad where a lion says ‘miaw’ instead of roaring, due to a sore throat.

{Here I am reminded of one of our friends who had visited Windsor Castle and was very disappointed with it. After all, he had seen huge Indian forts. When somebody asked him ‘How is the Windsor Killa?” he had replied disgustedly, “Killa? Why, it is just a ‘killu’. (Baby fort)}

Our first glimpse of Jog Falls with its meager water was so unbelievable that I actually asked Avi ‘Are you joking? Is this the famous Jog Falls?’; to which he replied with a straight face “No, this is the Joke Falls’.

However, the Jog Falls are so pathetic that even this joke fell flat.

That evening and the next morning, we ‘enjoyed’ the Jog Falls, cursed the Karnataka Govt., called it ‘My Sore State’, questioned the intelligence of its politicians and left, totally disillusioned about the Jog Falls.

Perhaps, if I had not visited the Victoria Falls so recently, I would have been satisfied with Jog Falls as it is, but the contrast between Victoria Falls and Jog Falls is too sharp and it kept on intruding in my mind.

Victoria Falls still retains its pristine beauty because it is not interfered with.

Zimbabwe and Zambia DO have Hydel power projects on the Zambesi River but care is taken to see to it that they do not ruin the Victoria Falls.

Kariba Dam is built below the Victoria Falls, unlike the Linganmakki Dam, which is built above the Jog Falls.

The short-sightedness of our politicians is unbelievable.

Alas, Jog Falls has become a victim of the political will.

However, as soon as we left that caricature of Jog Falls, our mood improved. Now we were looking forward to Belgaum.

---