The Journey

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We travelled along a river bank all the way up to Kabilitha and it took us two days. There was a track made through the dense forest by previous pilgrimages. There is a myth that Kabilitha was first recognised by the Vaddhas. They are the aborigines of Sri Lanka and long before any foreigners visited this country it was the Vaddhas that inhabited this land. The Vaddhas just as the aborigines of Australia, although primitive to our way of life are first consciousness beings. They are able to communicate, know and be on a level that is incomprehensible to most of us. This I am sure is because they are connected to the cosmic laws and nature. It appears that the Vaddhas during ancient times treated Kabilitha as a spiritual courthouse to settle their differences. It was known to them as a place where the leopard settled their disputes. If two Vaddhas had a disagreement they came to the Syambala tree and paid homage to the Gods and explained individually the basis of their disagreement. Having fulfilled their rituals they would spend a night in two caves situated some distance apart on either side of the tree. At night a leopard would visit one of them and eat him—the dispute now settled the other would go home.

It’s not too different to a courthouse today. If you put it into perspective; I am sure that the Syambala tree then was like the high court of today where the more serious offences are settled with grave punishments. I am sure even the Vaddhas had sense not to seek such retribution for minor disputes such as traffic offences. I was told of this story when we were settling for the evening on our first night by the river bank. It had been a hard day’s travel which started at 11pm the previous night and we were on the road and through the jungle up to this point. We all felt very tired and were looking forward for a nice swim in the river. But Manju, our team leader insisted that we set up camp and cook dinner before we do anything else as it was getting dark. Two of us cooked while the other two set up camp— I helped to cook. The river water was used for cooking rice and washing vegetables etc. The bonnet of my jeep was used as the worktop and we lit a small gas fired store. Manju’s assistant had thought of almost every culinary delight you would find in a Sri Lankan house. (By that I mean the spices) Before settling down to a scrumptious meal of rice, dhal and a sambol, at about 8pm we jumped in for a swim. The water was unbelievably fresh and cool and a hard day’s fatigue was washed away with the downward current. We must have been there for ages talking about myths such as the Vaddhas story. Chintaka, the fourth member of the team brought a flashlight and pointed it towards the opposite river bank carefully observing the quiet dwellers of the night. At one point he lowered his voice and showed us not too far from where we were a luminous marble like cat’s eye just above water level. “Crocodile!” he said.

I was already out of water thanking my lucky stars for the right choice I had made replacing the blond with him... when I noticed that they were crossing the river heading right towards it. “What! Are you insane?” I hadn’t done enough of that purification stuff to be spared by a Croc let alone a leopard, that I was sure! Such are times when one can separate the boys from men—that is to say, I was the man who thought wisely! Pausing for thought like a fish out of water I stood there long enough to recognise the cowardice in me. “Oh well!” I thought it was best to follow them. They were nearing the Crock by about twenty feet, leaving no margin for error I calculated that the Crock would have to pass them to get to me. It is after all the survival of the fittest; the shrewdest as in this case. But then, this was the Croc we knew about. I was never tops at maths and momentarily failed to calculate the probabilities of a Croc approaching from behind—the ones we didn’t know about. The Croc saw us coming, as we weren’t the most jungle savvy soundlessly approaching our subject. Waddling our way through the strong current making the only sound in the jungle at the time, we approached him leaving that safety margin of twenty feet. Wildlife can never be a threat to humans. It is simply that we are a threat to them and in our infinite wisdom disturb Mother Nature and provoke their defence system. We humans must unlearn our existing knowledge so that we can live with Mother Nature in harmony. Wild animals are higher conscious beings as well and they can read our energy. They would know whether we are a threat or not. The Croc saw no threat from us but simply inquisitiveness. He lowered his sparkling eyes in to the water and disappeared leaving us all to return to our base with both legs intact.

The jungle sky at night is something to wonder about. The galaxy seems so near and mesmerizing. That night I lay in my tent listening to the sounds of the wilderness. The tent which had a net opening at the top enabled me to gaze at the stars.

Manju’s assistant Sumith lit two kerosene lamps and hung them on branches on either side of the camp. This was to avoid any elephants from walking over us. We were on an elephant corridor and it appears that at night they pass through this way. Some people light a fire for this purpose but Manju insisted that we must not leave behind any signs that we were here. So the kerosene lamps were the best option. Whilst it warned the elephants not to come near us it wouldn’t deter them from using the river to cross or to bath if they so wished.
Interestingly, all this information kept me up for the better part of the night and I only fell asleep in the morning. I witnessed the winds change almost every hour and the various noises I heard outside got me wondering. Whenever I succumbed to tiredness and fell asleep I would dream that a Crock was rubbing shoulders with me just outside of my tent or that an elephant would be standing near amused by the odd pyramid shaped mushroom like objects that had popped up during the day. Apparently there is another friendly beast that the elephants rarely attack—the jeeps. They see no threat by the jeeps but are nervous of humans. So long as the humans are in the jeep, they see no humans but this quietly purring and friendly beast, the jeep. And it appears that they always leave it alone unless of course provoked. It is no wonder that they see us as a threat. In our total ignorance we have harmed many of them. On our way to this spot we passed a carcass of an elephant that had died a month ago. It was disheartening to see this sad site of that magnificent animal. Apparently some locals break the law and hunt for wild boar. Their method of prey is to leave a fresh cabbage with an explosive inside it. When the wild boar eats the cabbage the explosive will rip his head off leaving the body for human consumption. On this occasion however, the wild elephant ate the cabbage and the explosive ripped his jaw off. The poor beast suffered in pain for over a month before he died. The park rangers have a policy to leave nature to take its course. On this occasion I was angered by this policy for it was not nature that destroyed the beast. They would have done well to have ended his month long suffering. I have attached this shocking picture on this blog.

The picture on my previous blog named ‘Elephant corridor’ was what I saw in the morning when I woke up and peeped out of the tent. Please enlarge this picture and imagine the infinite melodies of billions of birds. There is in fact a heaven on this earth.

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Photos

Wild Buffalo
He came to the river side for his morning bath. Then stood there for some time observing.