Most visitors to Munnar head for the tourism zone of the Eravikulam National Park to view the fabled Nilgiri tahr (wild mountain goat) in its natural habitat. Few venture beyond into the core area of the sanctuary deep inside a mountainous terrain — a virtual paradise that I was privileged to visit several years ago with friends.
It’s an arduous 16km trek up a bridle path that snakes steeply, through verdant jungles and awesome cliffs, to the top of an 8,000ft plateau and then down to a little lodge ensconced snugly in a valley watered by a pristine stream that sparkles blue in the sunlight.
Eravikulam’s charm lies in its mystique — its mist-shrouded peaks, undulating grasslands, virgin forests and deep unexplored valleys where wildlife thrives untroubled by man. Here, amidst some of the most rugged terrain in the Western Ghats, the sense of total isolation is at times overpowering.
In the 1980s, management trainees in Munnar’s tea estates were required to spend a few days in the park as part of their initiation into a planting career — an eye-opener for city-bred lads, giving them an opportunity to commune with nature in all its splendour. Braving the elements and wild animals, they camped overnight with tribal guides who acquainted them with jungle craft and wildlife. One night a nervous trainee woke up to the guttural snorting of what seemed to be a leopard — only to realise it was an elderly guide snoring sonorously!
Earlier, adventurous British tea planters used to motorcycle into this remote area although the treacherous path often exacted its toll, grounding many unceremoniously. One rudely unseated motorcyclist was dusting himself off when a tusker appeared pretty close by, apparently irked by his intrusion. Shaken, he fled, abandoning his bike. When it was retrieved, he was dismayed to find two gaping holes in the tank — punched by the elephant’s tusks!
There was also the memsahib who saw a sambar race down a hillside and plunge into a stream in a desperate bid to escape from a ferocious pack of wild dogs. Petrified, she promptly followed suit — only to be told, on being fished out of the icy water, that wild dogs have never been known to attack humans!
Eravikulam is known to throw up such disconcertments but usually compensates visitors as well. Among other wildlife sightings, on our first evening in camp we savoured the unforgettable view of a huge tusker silhouetted against the darkening sky on a hilltop. It seemed to eloquently echo the poetic lines, “I am the monarch of all I survey.”
And on our last morning we chanced upon a gory but rare spectacle, a pack of wild dogs ravenously feeding on a sambar they had just killed beside a stream. The water was tinged crimson with the herbivore’s blood. It was nature at its rawest. Eravikulam had cast its spell on us.