A homecoming to Iruppu Falls

A chance trip to Iruppu Falls at the foot of the Brahmagiri peak in southern Coorg brought back a rush of old trekking memories

The falls, not yet at their most splendid, are captivating

In 2006, a little after my broken humerus had regained its sense of humour, I ventured on a drive to Iruppu Falls from Bangalore with my still rather newly-wed wife and camper extraordinaire Sahastrarashmi, whom I'd known for about a year. Along with us were four others.

The Lakshmanatheertha flows towards the temple after descending from Brahmagiri at Iruppu Falls

We freshened up at the rooms behind the very serene Rameswara temple at Lakshmanatheertha (Rama's brother Lakshmana is believed to have meditated here) and passed the falls, after which we began our climb to Brahmagiri with great aplomb. Having driven all night and having stayed up sleepless with excitement for unnumbered nights before that, I was pretty blown. A kilometre into the steep climb I realised with anguish that the five heavy bird books that I was carrying in my backpack were an unnecessary and foolhardy choice of reading material, especially considering the fact that there was not going to be any electricity up there at Narimala. 


Behind every ambitious but unsuccessful climber is a woman who knows better. Anitha propped me up by my divine behind every time I skidded back under the weight of my burden. When I reached Narimala, we pitched tent. I passed into a deep, snoring slumber and woke up only just before sundown when dinner had been cooked. That was that (read more about that trip here).


In March this year, I happened to visit Iruppu Falls again quite by chance on a writing assignment for Outlook Traveller with photographer Jyothy Karat. 


It was a strange sort of homecoming for me, though this time climbing the peak was not on the agenda. On my last visit the temple wore a serene, old-world charm. Five years later it had been given a concrete facelift of which the management was doubtless very proud. The temple office even controlled our access to the falls. Though we reached there at 7 AM, we were turned away and asked to return an hour later. 

The Rameswara temple  at Lakshmanatheertha in Iruppu has got itself a concrete makeover though the old temple looked far more tranquil

Returning as appointed, we lingered about the falls, taking pictures and marvelling at the butterflies mud-puddling beside the rock pools -- Jays, Blue Mormons, Paris Peacocks, Malabar Banded Peacocks, Bluebottles... Nabokov would have run amok! 


A few men enjoying a pounding shower under the falls began to perform for the camera (or the cameraperson, I imagined). After humouring them for a few shots, Jyothy got down to business, trying to click women bathing (fully dressed, of course) under the cascade. One of those splendid shots made it to Outlook Traveller's May 2011 issue along with my travelogue. 

An ant-mimicking spider (Mymarachne) overwhelms a cricket nearly five times its size

On the steps leading up to the falls, a great breakfast battle raged on -- an ant-mimicking jumping spider (Myrmarachne) was overwhelming a brown cricket with its venomous bite. The encounter must have lasted a good ten minutes until the dogged little predator beheaded the immobilised cricket, which was at least five times its size.


Around us the day warmed, though we were still ensconced in the cool comfort of the forest. A Crested Serpent Eagle whistled from high above as it soared on a thermal. Great lianas hung like enormous pythons over the stepped walkway. Wood spiders sealed the gaps in the canopy with giant, invisible orbs.

Ancient lianas cleave the view

An Asian Fairy Bluebird's chirrupy gurgle sought me out but the bird itself was a shadowy presence concealed in dense foliage. Racket-tailed and Bronzed Drongos flitted in the glades. Malabar Whistling Thrushes hopped on the path ahead, unruffled by our presence. Punch-drunk sunbirds brawled over blossom nectar while peaceable White-eyes cheeped feebly from the tender, sun-drenched treetops. 

Bright red Coral blossoms dropped spent from the canopy in the aftermath of a morning feeding frenzy as mynas, sunbirds, orioles and starlings tucked into a nectar binge. On the earthy path black ants with piercing bites (as I discovered with agony while trying unsuccessfully to photograph them) marched in steady lines. 

Iruppu is still fairly wild despite the rush of pilgrim-tourists and sundry merry-makers. Yet, the odd plastic bottle still bobs in the stream and the rocks are slippery with effluent soap, shampoo and oil from the bathers. Trash appears to be collected regularly, for we did not see too much litter on the path. 


Everywhere, the forest department has erected signs persuading tourists to be on their best behaviour. Despite the noble intent behind them, most were hilarious. And since those are best seen to be believed, I'll leave you to enjoy them. 

Tigers on honeymoon are perhaps on a meatless diet, eh?

Shikari Shambhu redux

Perhaps the macaque ought to wear its loins in the right place

Thanks to Jyothy Karat for her picture of the ant-mimicking jumping spider
Text and other photographs by Beej

Pachydermophobia!

A few things to remember before you are battered to death by a wild elephant


There are two opinions on elephants with respect to their behaviour. Some say they are foul-tempered creatures while others contend that they are the gentlest of animals that resort to violence only when left with no option. Whatever be the case, elephants have to be respected for their bulk and what they can do with it.


Hailing as I do from Kerala, a land famous for elephants used to bear temple idols in ceremonial processions, I have heard of instances where elephants have turned rogue and killed their mahouts. Numerous videos have been shown on television of mahouts picked up, pounded and thrown around like ragdolls. There have been instances where motorists on national highways cutting through forests have been chased and often killed by elephants. Even before I became interested in birding and wildlife, elephants have given me a slight weakness in the knees.

The big one from Nagarhole with the broken chain

My first close encounter was in Nagarahole National Park, Karnataka. I was driving with three friends along a narrow road just outside the sanctuary when we saw a tusker (with easily the largest tusks I have seen on an Asian elephant) coming right towards us along the center of the road. We put the engine in neutral and waited. It was a domesticated elephant and trailed a broken chain from its front leg. To make things worse, it appeared as if this elephant was in "musth" - a mating urge due to which they go near-berserk, more so if it has not had access to a female elephant (in Africa male elephants in heat are rumoured to mount rhinos in desperation with fatal results for the rhinos, of course). 

We switched off the engine and waited for it to pass and noted that a tractor crammed with people had stopped behind us. We held our breath, having rolled up the windows as the elephant stopped right in front of us. After what felt like eternity, it passed our vehicle. We switched on the engine and, as silently as we could, moved ahead and stopped a safe 50 metres away and looked back. The elephant started walking towards the tractor. Every single person aboard it jumped off and ran helter-skelter. The elephant observed the tractor for a while and walked off, much to everyone's relief.

A mother and calf crossing the road at Chinnar

The second instance was in Chinnar, Kerala. We had overtaken a Kerala-registered car with a group of noisy guys who appeared to be drunk. Ahead we saw a a group of elephants, mostly cows and calves. We stopped at a respectful distance as they crossed the road and once they had passed, we went past them without making any noise. We could hear the noisy group coming along behind us and we were pretty sure they would vex the elephants, so we moved further ahead. 

As expected the noisy group's car came tearing through the forest road and a few minutes later the guys, seeing us drive slowly, screamed, "Hey... Elephant elephant, danger danger!" What could have happened with them is anybody's guess.

Elephants can either mock-charge or charge for real. The mock charge is a warning, an indication of the animal's irritation at being disturbed. The elephant does everything to make the charge appear authentic: Pounding footfalls, kicking up dust, ears fanned out, trunk raised... 


The real charge is a lightning-quick strike relatively devoid of show. The elephant runs up to you - if the ears are not fanned out and if the trunk is held down, you can tell it is not a mock charge - and would continue running over you. You need a miracle to survive. A mock charge can turn into a real charge any time. You can read (and see) more on elephant charges here in an encounter by my friend Dhaval Momaya.

Little ones like this might be cute, but never try to approach them as momma will be around

Both these encounters were experienced in the relative safety of a car but the the ones in Parambikulam, Kerala was more unnerving because we were on foot. Beej , Sahastra, Rohit and I had started our 18 km tramway trek along with a forest guard. Barely half a kilometre into our trek we saw an elephant herd with females and calves beside the road. 

Aadhan, the forest guard, whispered to us to be silent and told us that elephants don't like human noise and are likely to be provoked into attacking if they heard us talk. A tribesman who was with us tapped a nearby tree trunk three times with his bamboo walking stick. The sound carried in a forest that had barely woken up. The elephants looked back, saw us and began moving away from the road. It was evidently an exhibition of mutual respect and understanding. I let go of the breath I was holding and raced off after the others...

The herd at Parambikulam

On our return, we heard loud noises of bamboo stalks snapping about 10 metres ahead to the right of our path. Our second guide Manoharan asked Aadhan to wait with us, motioning us to stay silent. He tiptoed to the source of the sound, peeped into the woods and came back looking grave. He then veered off the trail into the bushes and asked us to follow quietly. Bewildered, we entered the forest in the opposite direction of the noise, off the road, and walked parallel to the road for almost half a kilometer, after which we joined the road again. Back on the road, Manoharan said the elephant was an "Ottayan", referring to a lone tusker. These animals are known for their foul temper. Tapping the tree trunk would have only earned us a charge!

Here are a few things to keep in mind when you encounter an elephant or a herd:

1. Keep your distance, always
2. Avoid white and other bright colors as seeing this attracts their (unwanted) attention
3. Avoid making noise and refrain from conversation
4. An elephant that means business can outrun the fastest of humans, so never assume that you can beat these bulky beings by fleeing at the last moment
5. Be it a mock charge or a real charge, both mean that you have encroached into the elephant's comfort zone. It wants you out of there. Obey. 

Text and photos by Sandeep Somasekharan

All rights reserved

Still in love with elephants even after reading this post?! You might want to read: 

• When Stumpy almost cost us the World Cup
• When the elephant played peekaboo

The next time you see a leopard in your town...

If you took the city of Tokyo and turned it upside down and shook it you would be amazed at the animals that fall out: badgers, wolves, boa constrictors, crocodiles, ostriches, baboons, capybaras, wild boars, leopards, manatees, ruminants, in untold numbers. There is no doubt in my mind that feral giraffes and feral hippos have been living in Tokyo for generations without seeing a soul." 
- Yann Martel, Life of Pi 

As the horrendous impact of the earthquake that hit Japan last month has shown, "shaking" a city is none too far-fetched an image. But when Martel wrote these lines, his metaphor was perhaps figurative. Either way, there are incidents time and again where you run into leopards, jackals and foxes in open yards, farmhouses and city outskirts. And this troubling reality is reinforced further by the leopard that ventured into the Mysore campus of Infosys in February. 


We are slowly being enlightened to the reality that the description of wild animal doesn't necessarily suit animals that are confined to forests. Leopards can survive in suburbs and cities by hiding in abandoned buildings and preying on stray dogs. This January, fellow-Ogre Bijoy and friend Rohit saw a leopard that had been run over by a speeding vehicle at dawn on the NICE road on the outskirts of Bangalore city. While the leopards of Mumbai have made headlines repeatedly, Mysore has seen several leopard-man conflicts in recent years. The worst was perhaps in 2008 when, in the presence of police and forest officials, an assembled mob surrounded a leopard that had strayed into the city and beat it to death. Media spread rumours that it was a man-eater, as it had desperately lunged at some of its tormentors with the fury typical of a cornered wild animal. 


The morning of March 8 saw forest officials, police and CISF at the Infosys campus in Mysore after a leopard had been spotted at night in one of the buildings under construction. This time the leopard was tranquilized and subsequently released 90 km away in Nagarahole National Park. Some amateur photographers got too close to the cornered leopard, completely disregarding security warnings. As these heroes attempted to photograph the leopard from close quarters, the cat charged them. On the basis of this incident, media reports announced shriekingly that the leopard had "mauled" the photographer. Mercifully, being amid a more "aware" group of humans, the leopard was not immediately branded a man-eater and bludgeoned to death. 


Leopards are all around, especially in a city like Mysore. Chamundi Hills, a well-known leopard habitat, is being encroached by the city from all directions. Naturally, running short of food, opportunistic leopards will take to the suburbs for easy pickings in stray dogs and livestock. Rarely do we get instances where they attack humans, and when they do, it is either when they are cornered or trying to protect their young. 


The Ministry of Environment and Forests has come up with very elaborate guidelines on how to deal with human-leopard conflict. When there has been no deliberate attack, and no straying into thickly populated area, the manual says it is best to leave the leopard alone, the reason being that the animals may make every effort to keep away from people. But if the leopard ends up in a populated area, there is a chance that human presence can agitate them into acts of desperation. In the rare event of it being a child-lifter or in case of deliberate attacks on humans, the officials are permitted to euthanise the animal in a humane way. 


Apart from this, several steps may be taken to minimize public fury due to such conflicts. The manual provides guidance to build leopard-proof cattle sheds, educate villagers who are compensated for any livestock taken by the animals, and to leave the livestock kill alone to prevent further attacks. Also, providing proper sanitation and waste disposal in villages near forests is important to check pig and stray dog activity as these animals attract leopards. In some villages in the Himalayas, we have noticed dogs with spiked metal collars to deter leopards (the cats are known to kill their prey with a fatal bite to the throat, severing the jugular vein).

A Bhotia dog in Chopta, Uttarakhand is fitted with a spiked metal collar to deter predation by leopards

Man-animal conflicts are a reality we have to live with given the increasing rate of habitat fragmentation. Sighting a leopard near human habitation does not warrant pressing the panic button -- it might be a passerby on the lookout for stray dogs. Alert the local wildlife warden rather than raise a public alarm. 


Download this informative manual [PDF/ ZIP] on human-leopard conflicts. You never know when you may need it.

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Text by Sandeep Somasekharan with additional inputs from Bijoy Venugopal
Photographs: Leopard image by Philip MacKenzie/ Stock.xchng; Other images by Bijoy Venugopal


Thanks to Kalyan Varma for the conversations that inspired this post and to Vidya Athreya whom we have never met but whose important work at Project Waghoba we have followed from a distance. The Green Ogre had earlier written about Kalyan's stirring photo-essay on the capture of a leopard in Valparai. 


Also read Arun Menon's account of a suspected leopard presence in Bilikal Rangaswamy Betta.

Blossom Showers and Bamboo Famines

Coffee in full flower

Early this week I travelled to Coorg on assignment. Mild spring showers had triggered a riotous explosion of coffee blooms. Planters depend on these early rains, known locally as Blossom Showers, for the next year's coffee crop. The dark-leaved boughs drooped under the weight of the clustered white blooms, and the air was redolent with their jasmine-like fragrance. 

The blooms emit a pleasant fragrance redolent of jasmine

The blooms last only a few days before they wither into dark thready puffs and then expose the incipient fruit buds. These turn into the cherries that are then picked and pulped and dried and roasted and ground before they are packaged into the various brews that become your morning cuppa.

The bloom is an eagerly anticipated event and dictates the prosperity of the year ahead. Interesting, since coffee is a major cash crop, that it also coincided with the last days of the financial year. 

Tree coffee in flower

It was a picture of striking contrast at Nagarahole National Park, where I went on a side-trip. The great bamboo forests, which had stood in tall, dense thickets for over a decade or so, had turned into a ghost landscape of desolate desiccation. Browned by death, the clusters had withered from the inside out and stood like creaking skeletons along the highway that runs inside the forest.

Dead bamboo makes the forest look haunted

Despite their enormous size bamboos are grasses and, depending on the species, they flower at intervals of every 60 or 120 years. The inflorescence is an amazing mass phenomenon and entire forests flower all at once. The fine seeds scatter on the ground providing a rich source of food for a large number of creatures, and are also harvested like rice by humans. 

An Indian roller in the forest

Despite the spectacular plenitude of food that it brings, the large-scale flowering of bamboo is believed to herald the onset of famine. While some people have dismissed this contention as superstition, studies elsewhere have indicated that the sudden transition from a cornucopia of seed-food to a profusion of sprouting shoots in fact leaves nothing for the seed-eaters (primarily rodents). 

Bamboo seeds are also included in the diet of the Malabar Giant Squirrel

Paucity of food forces rats out of the forest to pillage larders and granaries, as well as standing crop fields. A rodent invasion of this scale can (and has, in the past) cause huge losses in traditional storage silos and granaries. Famines of this nature have been documented in northeastern India, where bamboo grows in profusion. 

These contrasting landscapes presented themselves to me within 20 km of each other and I wondered that would happen if bamboo-dependent species such as elephants, driven by the depletion of one of their favourite food sources, turned on crops instead. Conflict alert!

Text and photos by Beej

When a tiger couldn't bear it

The tiger and the sloth bear are two major predators of the Indian jungles. Between them, it's clear who's boss. Some people know that tigers hunt and eat bears. Others don't. And then, there are people who can't bear to think about either possibility. The acclaimed wildlife filmmaker Shekar Dattatri has captured an intriguing and amusing interaction between a tiger and a sloth bear in Nagarahole, Karnataka. Looking into a patch of forest from a watchtower, the filmmaker and his companions (one of whom was wildlife biologist and tiger expert Dr. Ullas Karanth) saw a large male tiger pursued by a sloth bear. Knowing well the equation between the two animals, they expected a bloody confrontation resulting in the end of the bear as we knew it. Instead, what followed was comedy. The tiger lay down, yawned and regarded the bear's threat displays with apparent amusement. Once finished, the bear went away. And the tiger returned to his nap. Grand stuff. And lucky are those who witnessed it and caught it on film. The insight: Tigers, we are led to believe, are not interested in their prey when they are not hungry. That's a good lesson for little children: Eat at mealtimes and never in between. Text and pictures here

Mumbai's trash flows from urban jungle to national park

There's a good reason to keep humans out of forests: Trash!

Some people stood here to enjoy the scenery, and left behind evidence of ample enjoyment

At birdsofbombay, Sunjoy Monga posted about a cleanup drive in Sanjay Gandhi National Park. A tireless team comprising schoolchildren and other volunteers recovered a large amount of trash from the national park, which is a virtual ghetto inside the city. 


And guess what most of the trash consisted of? Booze bottles - some half-full, others half-empty. Empty foil packets of wafers and gutkha - that awful-smelling stuff that some people sprinkle into their mouths from an elevation of half a foot. Now, this is must be a truly amazing way to celebrate Wildlife Week, no? 


When the Forest Department wakes up from its stupor, maybe it will give us some sober answers. I've seen this happen in every national park that I have visited - Bandipur, Mudumalai, Nagarahole, Bhadra, Periyar. For most of us urban chameleons, national parks offer a perfect hideaway from the city. But what some people do when they go there is unpardonable. 


Most national parks have effete, unconvincing signboards emblazoned with some weak cliche about saving our forests. Few of them offer the real reasons why you should not travel with stuff that tends to become trash. And if you do, why you should take your trash home. Most forest department workers are not educated about this aspect in the first place, so enforcement is not even on the horizon. 

Was it illiteracy or plain insensitivity that led people to litter below a signboard entreating them not to do so?

I once travelled on a safari in Bandipur with a bunch of engineering college students. One of them was playing music on a Walkman so loud that all of us could hear the screech of the playback singer's sibilants and the thump of jhankaar beats. I'm sure the animals heard him, too, a mile away. And, helped ably by the rattle and trundle of the diesel van that took us on the safari, we saw nothing but jungle fowl and the backside of an elephant. 


At Muthodi, my friends and I came across a group of surly drunks at the Shegekan Guest House. We hoped to stay here in order to have convenient access to the sholas. The Forest Department put us up at the dormitory downhill, denying us permission to stay at the guest house because someone connected to a minister had booked the place. Driving up, we heard the tinkle of bottles even before the guest house came into view. 


And, even as we stood watching Crimson-backed Sunbirds in that horrible garden planted with many exotics including a Christmas Tree, a couple of unsavoury characters argued loudly on the balcony, their beers and rums having gotten the better of them. We grumbled to the caretaker but got nothing except a helpless smile. And steel tumblers of coffee, at our expense. I stepped close to him unwittingly, and - sniff, sniff - my nose discovered the reason for his nonchalance. Booze makes quick friends. And if you have a quarter bottle to spare, rules melt like an ice cube in a glass of neat double malt.

Iruppu-Brahmagiri on foot

The trail begins at Iruppu, a picturesque waterfall where pilgrims to the Rameshwara temple are eager to strip to their barest and enjoy a shower. It is also perhaps the noisiest place in a radius of about 10 kilometres - and not because of the cicadas. Mercifully, as we begin the trek to Brahmagiri, 1350 m above MSL, the human voices fade behind us. Butterflies with startling blue wings sail past, while turquoise dragonflies dip their pointed abdomens in the limpid pools. As we round the bend in the hillside, the shrill crescendo of cicadas hangs in the air like white noise. Birdsong is patchy - an occasional Hill Myna or White-rumped Shama calls in the canopy. The climb is steep but steady, and soon my lungs balk and my heart pounds in my face, my jugular pulsing like a bass drum. The forest transforms suddenly, turning into dense groves of that monstrous grass, bamboo. The tall, ancient stalks creak in the wind. Far away, really far away behind us, we can still hear the waterfall's ghostly whisper. But it's a memory, and its place is in the past. As for me, I must only look ahead, and climb what's left of the trail. Which, dauntingly, is most of it. Four kilometres to go, announces our guide Lakshman, named mysteriously after the holy spot of Lakshmanatheertha that we have just passed. It is warm in the bamboo forest, and the exertion pumps the water out of me. I have driven most of the night without a moment's shut-eye and the strain begins to tell. Our guide has loped ahead, and soon I can't even see the backs of my fellow trekkers. Only Froggie sticks by me, faithful but equally exhausted. The bamboo forests give way to thin deciduous forest, the leaf litter paving the path with a mosaic of red, black and russet brown. My shoes slip on the smooth leaves. The climb is steady. Cicadas screech around me - I can see them clasping the tree trucks, crying to bring down the rain. Robber flies buzz about my ear, while its several smaller cousins are already gorging on generous samples of my blood. My backpack feels heavy - weighed down by the two 2-liter water bottles. After the hardest stretch, the trail begins to level out. Not discernibly, but my thighs and lungs can feel the easing strain. We hear the gurgle of a stream but it disappears from earshot, like a mirage. The trees are larger here. Strangler figs are wrapped around some of the older forest trees. With sunlight hidden by the canopy, the woods are dim and cool. Butterflies cavort in the glades. Brilliant red stink bugs swarm the leaf litter. The earth is moist. I look about for signs of the promised lion-tailed macaque, one of the most theatened primates in southern India, but there are none. We reach a pool under a tree. A spring, with water bubbling into it from some source beneath the ground. Pond skaters walk its surface. The water is cool, clear and sweet. The forest ends after an abrupt 20-foot ascent. Then the grassland begins. This is the great wide open that Tom Petty sang about, with magnificent views on all sides. Above us only sky. And stream-cooled evergreen sholas in the valley below us. The rustle of reptiles in the grass and undergrowth - mostly skinks and small lizards. And birdsong - bulbuls, woodpeckers, barbets, thrushes. Even the freewheeling song of a Malabar Whistling Thrush that must be heard to be believed. Dried elephant dung is scattered about - this region is one of the last strongholds of the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) but I am not eager to run into any just now. There is more to the trail but no climbing for a while. The track meanders through lush shola, with magnificent views at every bend. Mysterious birdsong echoes in the woods, but the birds are all well camouflaged. Revived by deep draughts from a bottle of Electral in water, I am recharged again. But not for long. At the next halt, I drink greedily from a forest stream. And the group wolfs down methi rotis with pickle. We pause to examine a beautiful Bronzed Frog by the stream. It sits still, flecked with droplets, as we scramble to photograph it. It is some 26 degrees here in the forest. Air-conditioned. And the sweat drying on your skin makes it cooler. The air is fragrant with the fresh scent of green foliage. Can you get high from too much oxygen?