A Night in Tholpetty Wildlife Sanctuary (Upper Waynad National Park)

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'There's nothing called Waynad Forest’,The Forest Ranger said.



I was completely stunned by this statement from the Forest Ranger of Waynad himself. ‘Has he gone crazy?’, was the question buzzing on my mind. How could it be possible? The board here clearly says ‘Waynad National Park’. I was more inquisitive and finally decided to counter his statement with my little but in depth knowledge about this zone.



‘Sir, are you busy?’, I asked.



‘No friend, come in, what happened? Anything wrong?’, The Ranger asked.



‘Everything is fine, but Sir how could you say there’s no forest called Waynad where each and every magazine in this world speaks about Waynad National Park. I am really sorry to digest this statement. If you could help me Sir’, I countered his statement.



‘Well, how much you know about Waynad? If you would have come to this place, you would have got your answers too. I have an official round to make, joining me?’, he smiled and threw the ‘best deal’ in this world I could have ever asked for. But still, somewhere down the core I was thinking about his statement.



It was May,2^nd and after spending a wonderful night in one of the coffee estates in Coorg, Karnataka, I landed up in this place early in the morning around 7am. Couple of months ago I managed to make a trip to the ‘Lower Waynad National Park’ mostly known as ‘Muthunga Forest’ to locals however this part of Waynad or ‘Upper Waynad’ which is also known as ‘Tholpetty Forest’ , was unexplored to me still. When I landed up in Coorg, yesterday, I had a clear plan to make a trip to Tholpetty and that’s the reason I was there on that day. As planned, the ‘Auto Guy’ dropped me at the Tholpetty Forest’s main entry point which barely 5km from a small town called Kutta in Karnataka. You have guessed it right, Tholpetty is on the edge of two states, Karnataka and Kerala. Whatever, travelling in public transports in this part of India is always as good as travelling in your own vehicle. So, from Kutta to Tholpetty, hardly took 10 minutes for me to reach.



I was not ready to spend a day here, moreover my plan was to take up a ride to Tholpetty , return to Kutta and then proceed towards Kochi as I had some prior appointments to attend. When I reached here, I found a couple of ‘early birds’ were there before me and as per the rules by the Forest Department, only 10 vehicles are allowed inside for specified one hour safari. The safari starts from 7am early in the morning and continues till 9am and again starts at 3pm and continues till 5pm. And the most stunning part was only 10 vehicles are allowed to go inside the forest at a time. I was shocked after knowing this as there were more than 10 families were waiting much ahead in the ’queue’ for this safari. I tried to ‘roll all my dices’ as nothing seemed to work here as the guy was acting too strict. So with no options left I requested to meet The Forest Ranger. The Forest Ranger seemed to be a ‘smiling person’ and after a couple of ‘innocent requests’ he seemed to have considered my ‘wish’. The deal was to join him on his official ‘round’ and I were as lucky as ‘Ian Wright’, I could spot a few wild animals posing for my camera.



All thoughts apart, I joined him in his ‘Kerala Forest Department’s vehicle. From his information this season was not supposed to be ‘the best’ to spot wild animals because of excessive heat at the plains, most of the animals prefer to hide deep inside the forest till sunset. I knew this way ahead but I was really a ‘lost spirit’ that I landed up here in this month. I was telling him about my experiences in ‘Muthunga (Lower Waynad) and how we were chased by the ‘Wild Elephants’. He was listening moreover he was cautious about any movements visible. Driver, Saeed and another guard Praji, who was a local tribal fellow, were watching left and right to spot any sort of ‘movement’. The road was just like any other bumpy forest road and I was struggling to ‘get a grip’ to my Canon DSLR. I knew that I might not get a second chance if anything would have been ‘spot on’. Common Indian Monkeys (Bonnet Macaque) were everywhere and I was rest assured that their presence were more like an indication that there were no Tigers nearby. We drove for about half an hour then we spotted a Herd of Bison crossing by. I took a few snaps and Bisons were least bothered on our presence. When asked, Mr.Ranger answered that was because of the ‘young ones’ in the herd. Bisons acts differently than the elephants, if they have calfs(or cubs) in the herds they tend to be least bothered on what happens around while elephants remain more aggressive. Forest was getting dense and he pointed a small temple on the right which was supposed to be for the tribals. I wanted to take a snap but he was a bit strict on un boarding from the vehicle and walking around. We crossed past a watch tower and he mentioned that two forest guards were allowed to stay up there for 24 hours on rotational basis. I was surprised rather more excited to climb up and get a ‘view’ from there but that was against the law so with ‘due respect’ to their laws, I adhered the same.



‘Stop’, was the call from the forest guard and suddenly I came back to reality. It was a tiger pug mark and per the guard it could have been ‘pugged’ the night before. My excitement was at full throttle, so was that the ‘one look’ I had been longing for years. Everyone became a little bit more alert and so did I. We went past a few smaller water bodies and spotted a couple of more ‘pug marks’ which were about weeks old, per the guard. We saw some ‘spotted deer’ which eventually too common for any forest. A group of Black Langurs were busy with their early morning moves. This part of the forest was too dense to spot anything that surrounds so I rather focused on watching birds, if any. Time was moving as slow as we could feel every moment of it and Mr.Ranger was trying to gauge something which I was noticing for 30 minutes past.



‘Anything wrong, Sir?’, I broke the silence.



‘Nothing much, Sorry, missed the tiger by a whisker’,he replied.



‘That’s fine sir, but it seems you are bit tensed, sorry for my un dwelling curiosity’,I finally dragged the point.



He glanced at Saeed,the driver and Praji, the forest guard and paused for next 5 minutes and then replied which took me rattled for next 2 two days.



‘One of our guards has been missing for past two days. Doesn’t look like he went somewhere else but it seem something wrong here in this forest. As I haven’t heard of any ‘man hunting’ by any tiger or elephant in last 5 years atleast’, he said.



‘Could he be killed by poachers?’, I asked.



‘Don’t think so as we haven’t heard of any poaching activity in this division, not even in whole Kerala’, he said.



I rather decided not to bother him with more questions as it seemed a ‘high official’ matter to be checked upon. Meanwhile we crossed the dense part of the forest almost and reached the ‘buffer’ zone. I did notice a lot of Teak Plantation project was being undertaken by the department. I spotted one Malabar Giant Squirrel as this fellow seemed to have climbed up high on a tree and enjoying his breakfast with some wild fruits. Saeed and Praji were rather silent now and not talking to each other. It seemed that ‘The mystery of the missing guard’ was haunting them seriously. After a numerous requests Mr.Ranger allowed me to get down from the vehicle and to take one ‘memento’ shot with Saeed and Praji. And he also mentioned that I should post this in my ‘blog’ that he allowed me to get down from the vehicle where the forest was thin and safe. It was around 10am and the sun was up and high so he asked Saaed to drive back to the entry point to drop me off. For next 30 minutes we drove through the narrow lanes (perhaps a short route) and reached from where we started.



‘Stay here today, will try again in the evening’, he offered another ‘a million dollar deal’.



‘Any doubt sir? Sure, I will’, was my reply.



He asked one of his guys to arrange a room at the nearby ‘Forest Rest House’ which was at a stone throwing distance from the entry gate of Tholpetty Wild Life Sanctuary. After completing the formalities I was roaming here and there clicking around. Later I decided to pay a visit to the famous ‘Thirunelly Temple’ (will be published as a separate blog) and returned to Tholpetty around 1pm. I was thinking that everything couldn’t go right for me and that happened. It was a severe thunderstorm which became a spoilsport to our ‘evening safari’ however the experience I had spending a ‘rainy night’ in the forest was ‘the best’ one could ever expect.



I forgot to ask him about his splendid riddle, ’Why Waynad isn’t a forest, geographically’ but later I was able to crack it why he said that. Here’s the possible answer.



There were two major National parks adjacent to this area. Nagarhole National Park and Bandipur National Park (which is also a counterpart of Mudumalai Tiger Project in Tamilnadu). If you get a chance to study the maps of both the forests, You could notice that a small segment of Nagarhole and Bandipur have their arms extended to their neighboring state Kerala. However the Govt of Kerala took the advantage of this ‘natural extension’ and formed ‘The Waynad National Park’ which was further divided into two sections,’Upper and Lower’ Waynad. Lower Waynad or should I say the ‘Extended Bandipur’ is known as ‘Muthunga Forest’ and the ‘Extended Nagarhole’ is known as ‘Upper Waynad or Tholpetty Forest’. So there’s nothing core for Waynad, geographically.



Next day, early in the morning around 6am, I left Tholpetty as I had to switch buses from Mananthavady enroute Kochi, however somewhere down the core ‘The Mystery of that missing guard’ was being nurtured. I could have called him and ask but it would have been more professional to keep shut my mouth rather. Yes, I was all alone and that could have been the most advantageous part of this tour however to all the readers I would like to request to make trip to this place before it gets ‘hyped’ like other forests in Kerala.



(for administrative reasons, I refrained to post the name/picture and the contact details of my ‘ray of light’,Mr.Ranger)



Thanks a lot for reading this patiently !

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Comments

[manikandan]

stay
DEAR SIR, sir there a watch tower stay inside the muthanga forest ,iwant to stay there ,if yes RATE PLEASE.