Jussst missed the elephants

I decide to have a Kodaikanal holiday that isn’t ditto my dad’s 25 years ago. Since then, I hear, too many honeymooners and rowdy boy gangs have taken over. But surely there must be more to Kodi than just a repetitive line of rocks giving different views of blinding white mist. Surely it isn’t already explored out.

If you’re desperate enough for something new in this old, old place (since 1845), look behind the rocks the guide’s pointing at; demand to turn left when he turns right; look at the little cottages hidden from view by the mammoth holiday home. It takes a gritty kind of tourist to outfox the local travel guide. But when you manage it, you’ll find a door into the Kodi that is only for special guests.

But first, promise you won’t stone the monkeys. Or etch your eternal love or turbulent lust for someone on a tree trunk.

All right now we’re ready.

On the winding drive from Kodaikanal Road Station to Kodi at around 5 a.m., I try not to make a list of things to do. A list means structure and itinerary, which means asking someone for directions, and that means going where everyone’s been and is still hanging around. Instead, I talk to the driver. “So many tourists spoiling your town, no?” By the end of the three-hour drive, I’m armed with ideas and a determination that will keep me away from anything that has an attached shopping street. Or a bellboy.

I drive to Cinnabar, literally my home for three days. The man of the house, Bala, has two rooms and his entire home (always filled with delicious smells) to offer. After Kodi’s first cold wind has frozen my nose, it’s a relief to walk into a room that’s warm, delightfully distant from the overcrowded Kodai Lake area, and only two steps away from the kitchen. Breakfast is wholesome, and reminds me of something that will definitely only happen at home. Being cajoled to eat more because it’s good for you. Bala inducts me into family. I’m to say hello to the canines sprawled on the grass: the three-legged handsome Hero, and the slightly cynical Cookie. Then I’m packed off with a bottle of water to go find my own Kodi.

If you look a little lost around Kodai Lake, you’ll have at least four people walking up to you chanting names of ‘points’, ‘sights’ and ‘treks’. I say I don’t want to see touristy places, only directions to a certain Guna Cave. Shock, awe, disappointment: It’s a place that’s fenced with barbwire ever since 12 boys decided to go too deep into the caves five years ago, and didn’t come back. The crowd disperses, except one man. Selvam is a driver-cum-guide, and once I’m in his Ambassador, he fishes out a little book of 28 must-see sights. Published in 1975.

Guna Caves is the local name for Devil’s Kitchen, a deep bat-infested chamber between three naturally arranged imposing boulders (Pillar Rocks), a sight that is listed in Selvam’s book. It’s now called Guna Caves after it was turned into a romantic kidnapper’s lair for a Tamil movie. Loud teenagers stand just outside the fencing around the cave, screaming angstful “Abiramiiiii!”s (name of kidnapped in said movie). Selvam and I go around the base of the pillar rock. Me, petrified about being the potential thirteenth ghost in the cave, and Selvam, looking for a certain hallucinogenic ‘magic mushroom’ that gets him a good price from “Keralites and foreigners”.

We find an entry, veiled by bramble. “It’s a path only some of us know about,” says Selvam. The rocks are loose and wobbly, the fluorescent green moss making everything slippery. Bats are shrieking from somewhere really south, and we, errr… are heading in the same direction. Someone is haggling for a kilo of carrots somewhere far above and it sounds warm and safe there. Inside Devil’s Kitchen, however, the air’s muggy, the walls smooth, with little shelves that look perfect for a perch. Selvam chucks a pebble that’s instantly swallowed by the darkness. We hear the plonk only after about 10 seconds, and a crash of wing flapping (of bats we jolted awake). We’d discovered fresh country by simply stumbling on it. This is the kind of place that teaches you to how important it is to have a firm footing.

It’s almost four p.m., and Selvam goes off for a trippy omlette garnished with chopped magic mushroom. I grab a muffin and glass of hot chocolate at Pastry Corner, where you can hobnob with the old and famous from Kodi. Prasanna and his sister have run this cosy little bakery for years, dishing out heavenly Chickoo icecream, pizza, and whatever else you see in the store.

The streets near Kodai Lake are unusually deserted. Either it’s naptime, or the punctual afternoon rain has driven everyone indoors. I find The Art Gallery that’s spot on for penniless idlers. A dramatic Lotus theme quilt hangs on one of the walls. Differently sized canvases fill the two small rooms. Adam Khan, Cristina, J. Nath, Richard Pike. Not very local sounding, but the creator of every piece of art in this gallery has a home in Kodi, and each work of art is a sketch of the everyday life of the town’s people.

Back at Cinnabar, Bala introduces me to more family—Vasu, the lady of house, and Vidya, their 17-year-old daughter. We sink into the sofas in the fireplace defrosted living room, and agree with lethargy-softened passion that city life is for slaves. Why doesn’t everyone move to the hills? Defiantly, we proceed to the Middle Eastern dinner, in which every single vegetable, exotic or not, is plucked from the garden. And dessert, an affable cheesecake, too is thanks to a cow milked in Bala’s farm, and cheese made in Cinnabar’s own kitchen. Seriously, it’s like a Ukrainian folk tale.

The next morning, after another solid breakfast, I’m packed off with a bottle of water again. Today’s Kodi is one of the fugitives; people who ran away from the belittling enormity of cities to lend their paintbrushes some colour. People who found a town that gave them enough room to breathe.

J. Nath is a sprightly Punjabi artist who gave up Bombay’s pace 25 years ago for Kodi’s unpaved roads and potato farms. The plot next to his, Senora Garden, is a failed attempt at tempting the city-weary into a cottage on the hills. It has to be done right, like J. Nath’s home. Full of daylight shining in through large glass windows, the ceiling low enough to touch. Brushes and palettes strewn about; canvases at different stages of completion. And two little cushioned chairs. One for the white-bearded storyteller (him) and one for the enamoured (me). Nath tells snaking stories of travel; getting lost in the characters memory throws up. Once in a while, his wife Jaya points out to him that it was in 1983, not 1982 that he lost his graphic printer job at Dubai, and Rs.340, not Rs. 350 was the price of the first painting he sold.

Nath doesn’t waste paint on anything sad. Nothing can make him paint a tear, or the violence of rage. “Why not just brighten our walls and our lives?” His pointillist style and vigorous colour scheme adorns every wall in the famous Carlton Hotel of Kodaikanal. For superb tales about old charming Kodi, changing Kodi, and masala tea, Nath is the man to meet. He won’t care if you don’t even look at his artwork, but you won’t be able to help it.

Just a few minutes away from Nath’s home is Bharat Bakery, the only place in Kodi for incredible ginger biscuits. I munch them on the way to the ‘quilt lady’— Jayshree. The architect of the Lotus motif quilt in The Art Gallery. In a house next to hers, five women work with needle and thread, carefully sewing each puppy, jungle scene, and butterfly into the intricately designed quilts. They came to Jayshree from broken homes, and now they’ve together built their lives around the income and warmth the quilts bring. Jayshree had learnt quilting in London, before she too came away for a quieter life. Many visiting Kodi step into Jayshree’s little factory to learn a little quilting, and to sew personality into an otherwise rug.

The rain’s back again, and so is my excuse to laze. The chai chat with Bala roams around the valleys of Kodi, and stops at Joey. This man’s address could say: A. Joey, No.1, Kodaikanal Shola forest. Joey’s grown up bathing in waterfalls, watching elephants saunter by watering holes, and panthers slumber in his farm. Before the rural road connectivity project half a decade ago, Joey trekked up 20 kms of hill to buy his month’s supply of rice. Today, he’s a family man with a Maruti Omni. And anyone’s welcome to his wild home.

Bala takes me to Joey’s early next morning. The 45-minute drive of anticipation ends in an unbelievable house right in the Uthamapalayam range. Joey waves at us, and immediately wants to show off his backyard: the jungle. Throughout the four-hour intense trek, not once does 51-year-old sit to rest, or glug down water like one of us half his age did. He instructs us to not lose it if we saw an elephant, and do exactly what he does. Scramble up a tree. “You can climb a tree, right?” he asks, and I’m not sure he’s joking.

“Look, rosewood tree”. “You have a wound? This herb is a coagulant”. “A bear’s been at this beehive”. “Smell this. Wild lemon”. Joey enjoys the forest and its details. Things we can only gape at, and try to cram for an article. A fat bison runs noisily across a stream and Joey’s after it in a second. “Come, come! Bison! See it!”

The elephant valley, however, is Joey’s forte. Trees they’ve rubbed up against, the age and contents of the dung, the herd’s mud bath locations. Niceties only love and a long relationship can teach.

When we return (several kilos lower, I’m sure) to his home, there’s a hunter-gatherer lunch. Papaya, beans, drumstick. “Oh, it was just growing in my backyard.”

I did what I set out to do after all. I found the Kodaikanal I wasn’t looking for.

-------------------
For Outlook Traveller, September 2006.