Sahyadrica

The clouds lie still among the hills. As if placed there. Not by the monsoon winds that never stop in their path – these seem to be held there intentionally by the trees. We were looking up at the hill from an opening in the woods. The essence of evergreen forests of the Ghats during monsoon is enthralling. The sheathed hills grow ever more mystical. I told my friend – my silly imagination taking over – of how I wished to see King Kong come bustling down the hill, or at least see trees swaying briskly by some giant’s movements. Trampling in the great undergrowth abound with leeches, we ducked whenever the sinuous arms of giant lianas straddled across our paths, hopped over rain-soaked logs, and skipped over polished boulders in gushing streams. The forest was dense and damp. Not a bird sang. Only a few yards in I noticed the forest path riddled with footwears, from sports and soccer shoes to chappals and heeled sandals. A curious thing to find in the forests. As we ventured de...

It does not take long for a murmuring river to turn into a raging cascade, yet it is no match to the prowess of the tall terraces of northern Western Ghats. The rapids are strong to make crossing the river difficult, but not enough to complete the journey to the foot of the mountain. It falls, only to rise in countless little fractions of its former self as mist, dancing to the tune of the winds orchestrated by the mountains themselves. It is only when the waters rage on, fueled by the south-west monsoons, do they spill down the amber facades of the Ghats, touching their feet as they reform their ancestral channels. Walking the leopard's path, with an inverted waterfall to the left, and other two forming Kalu river downhill The range officer pointed to a high precipice from where a river came crashing down, and he said, that’s where we’re headed. Under a shroud of torrential rains, we could glimpse at the full glory of the fall whenever the clouds dispersed. To the right of...

Looking at a tract of forests, I hardly believed that this was once an open, degraded patch of land reminiscent of a rainforest that stretched beyond the mountains. The photographs we saw, and the photographs we took, showed a stark contrast: in the beginning, it was a bramble of invasive herbs and shrubs, suffocating native trees and forbidding their growth. Fifteen years on, a canopy of tall trees races skywards in a thunderstorm-like profusion, chasing the heights their ancestors once achieved in another age. What began as a story of lost faith appeared to be rising in hope, and the plot of the story we missed in between, of upheaval and invasion, resurrection and renewal – a crucial mass of any story – we were fortunate to listen to from the caretakers who helped revive this story. The forest, to the left, was restored 15 years ago to create a contiguous patch of corridor joining the rainforests beyond. The stalwarts have now passed the quill to nature, and this fragment wh...