The Story of Javara the Redeemer

by V.R.Srikanth 

An enchanting glimpse into the fascinating world where the Eastern and Western Ghats meet - the Biligirirangans!! Thanks to V.R.Srikanth for introducing us to the area. He writes about Javara with love and gentle humour, and has woven some interesting plantation history into this story. As always, Sri has embellished the piece with some excellent photography!!

The Biligirirangans are a stand-alone mountain range of about 524 sq.kms to the east/south-east of Mysore and to the north/north-west of the Nilgiris. The range is literally the meeting point of the Western and Eastern Ghats. It is a wildlife lover’s dream comprising of five forest zones, viz. scrub, deciduous, riprarian evergreen, shola sand and grasslands. In truth a highly heterogeneous mosaic of habitats.

The magnificent mix of endemic Shola forests with grasslands in the Upper Reaches of the Biligirirangans.

The hills rise from a basal plateau about 600 metres above msl to over 1800 metres above msl. This splendidly isolated range is inhabited by the native Sholinga tribe. The range was first pioneered by Randolph Hayton Morris of Scottish descent who ran away from home at the age of 18 to work on a ship, and later landed in India in 1877, during the year of the great famine. Initially, he became a coffee planter in Coorg during the coffee boom, and later shifted to the Nilgiris.

As he gazed upon these inviting hills from the northern edge of Nilgiris across the northern side of the River Moyar that separates these two ranges, his urge to explore this elephant infested terrain overcame him. As he set across the Moyar Gorge with his hunting team hacking their way across dense impenetrable tropical rain forests, his infatuation with this virtual heaven was complete. After a few more hunting trips he secured a grant from the erstwhile Government of Mysore and started cultivating coffee by living in tents and clearing forests around the 1890s. Over time he and his family planted over 1600 acres of this magnificent mountain range which is a crossing point of animals between the two Ghats.

Gaur numbers are prolific throughout

During one of his hunting trips with his wife Mabel and a couple of friends in 1895, Morris was gored by a Gaur which charged at him and tossed him in the air . One of the Gaur’s horns pierced his chest and removed one of his lungs in the process. 

Quick patchwork by his wife ensured that that he kept breathing through the six inch gaping hole amidships until medical help arrived. Although he didn’t recover fully he lingered for quite a while and died of pneumonia in 1918. He was buried at the top of his favourite hill at Bellaji where they were to build a rather commodious hunting lodge replete with servants' quarters and the lot. From their bungalow at Garstead in Gorrayhatti, the Morrises could view game moving on the opposite hill at Bellaji where they could either ride or drive up by means of a road they built between the bungalow and the lodge. 

Which brings us to the subject of this story.

The last of the Morrises exited India finally in the 1970s and out of their four coffee estates, two were purchased by the Birlas, one by my wife’s late uncle and one by my own late uncle who was a first cousin of my dearly departed late mother, during various phases preceding the departure of the Morris family. Sometime after the death of my wife’s uncle, my wife and I moved to Bedaguli Estate to manage it for her family. Bedaguli was a splendid 330 acre speciality Arabica coffee property located in a valley bowl, with rich soil and perennial streams flowing through it. It was also bang in the middle of the range and a crossing point for all the fauna between the western and eastern flanks of the range.

Now our Hero Jawara was in his late 50s in 2006 and had served the Morrisses as a worker. He had by now become a ‘maistry’ and led a team of labour in assigned field operations. He was every estate owner’s dream, fiercely loyal, a model worker who led by example in performing any field risk, a habitual volunteer for any contingency and ever cheerful. He would on many an occasion on Sunday mornings follow me while maintaining a respectful distance as I walked along our entire estate boundary checking on the state and integrity of our fences as elephants frequently damaged them. Jawara would do this voluntarily without my ever asking him. Often, along the path, he would recount experiences that either he or the Morrises had encountering animals at specific locations.

Sloth Bears are plentiful during the day too. Can be very dangerous if one is isolated and lagging behind.

The odd boar can launch a surprise attack and cause a lot of damage.

We had some guests from Chennai staying with us and they expressed the desire to go on a long trek. I had always wanted to trek up to the now abandoned hunting lodge and visit the grave of Randolph Morris at Bellaji. As it entailed a good eight to ten km trek one way traversing a couple of hills, and as nearly all of the route was outside the estate and within the forest area, I had to obtain the necessary permission of the Forest Department. They were quick to grant it and rather graciously deputed two unarmed guards to accompany us. Jawara, on hearing about this, volunteered to show us the way and lead the party with one guard at the head and another at the tail of the group.

We set out after breakfast on a brilliant cloudless day. As it was an uphill path until we negotiated the traverse sections the going was slow as we stopped to drink water, take in the sights, enjoy the shade of the sholas and grasslands and look at the animals whenever they appeared. As it was during the day, there were thankfully no elephants but plenty of gaur, sambur, the odd barking deer, civet and leopard cats and Malabar squirrel sightings along the way with the usual langurs. Jawara was also able to extract honeycombs within hollows of shola trees. There were still a few left after the sloth bears had extracted their due share. The honey was very tasty with distinct scents and flavours thanks to the rich flora in the vicinity.

We reached our spot a little after noon and having partaken our picnic lunch we we took turns exploring nearby sholas, resting, taking in the sights of the eastern plains and the craggy mountain landscape in our immediate vicinity, an ideal habitat for raptors like like hawk eagles, serpent eagles, and Shaheen falcons. We didn’t realise that time had passed so quickly that it was nearing half past three in the afternoon, when elephants and gaur would start to emerge from the sholas. The prospect of running into either a single or a herd of elephants either within the sholas or the exposed grasslands was really scary and daunting.

After repeated exhortations by Jawara and the guards to leave at once, we set out reluctantly at nearly four pm. Jawara insisted on going in advance to track the movement of animals in the upper grasslands from where we we were supposed to commence our final descent into Bedaguli. The grasslands covered a span of nearly three kms in length, about a third of the trek that was completely exposed in between the sholas surrounding it. It was not unusual for herds of gaur and sambur to stampede through them while fleeing predators. Herds of elephants too, would be found grazing in them so crossing it was always a tad risky.

The Upper Reaches are blessed by the Southwest and Northeast monsoons. Waterholes are plentiful.

Being fleet of foot despite his advancing years Jawara built up quite a lead on us as we stooped to take pictures, gaze longingly at the trees, birds and small game within the shola, and as we emerged from one of them we could see that Jawara was positioned perfectly at the top and at the point from where were to begin our intended descent a bout a kilometre ahead of us. However there were sholas on all three sides of where he stood except for the south where there were still a couple of kilometres of grassland behind him. No sooner had we observed him a herd of gaur started to emerge from the shola on the eastern side tour left and to his right. Jawara was quick to point to the herd. 

Meanwhile we advanced rather cautiously keeping our eyes peeled on the herd who were grazing quite contentedly on the fringe of the shola they had emerged from. But they were about a dozen strong with a couple of young calves and a huge alpha male which was always going to be risky. By now rain clouds had started to build from the south west and were heading in our direction.

A few minutes later an alarm call emerged from the shola on the right and a small herd of sambur emerged and stampeded eastwards from the shola on the west a few hundred yards behind where Jawara was standing. There must have been a predator in the shola from where the sambur had fled. Jawara now stood facing us with arms held out to both sides and nervously kept turning back and looking behind him from where by now a couple of elephants emerged in the distance on the southern extreme behind Jawara and directly in front of us. 

They must have been at least a kilometre and half behind Jawara. Meanwhile it had become cold and misty with Jawara disappearing from our view in the thick mist, his body facing us and his arms held out to the sides. I quickly knelt and said there’s Christ the Redeemer in the form of ‘Jawara’, rather like the statue of Christ that towers above on the hill facing Rio de Janeiro. That was our last and enduring image of the day.

 

By now it had started to rain and visibility had reduced to a few metres. As we trudged slowly and cautiously talking loudly, hollering out names, breaking into song, Jawara was nowhere to be found. He had clearly ditched us and fled. We reached our bungalow by seven pm, wet, terrified yet considerably relieved, as to add to our problems there was plenty of lightning around during the final phase of our descent. A change of clothes, a warm fire and the comfort of good scotch and coffee composed us in no time for all of the group to relate the day’s and in particular, the last few hours’ experience to my wife who had wisely stayed at home.

Jawara was never the same again. He never attempted to meet my gaze at muster despite my assuring him that he had done all that we had asked of him until he had to ensure his own safety as a wage earner and head of his family. He was still an able maistry who continued to follow me voluntarily on my routine Sunday walk along the estate boundary but hardly ever spoke a word. I gave him a hefty Diwali bonus that year from my own money but even that would not break his embarrassed reticence. There were tears in his eyes as I shook his hand when I took his leave for the last time after we sold the estate. I will relate the tale to Randolph and Ralph Morris one day.

Another picture to bring the setting of this story to the reader's eye

 

Meet the writer: V.R.Srikanth:

I am a resident of the Nilgiris. I am a retired Corporate Management Professional having done two brief stint as a planter, nearly thirty years apart, mainly in Coffee. I live on my estate growing timber, organic herbs and vegetables.

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My name is Gowri Mohanakrishnan and I'm a tea planter's wife. I started this blog because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always), maybe a tall tale, long, or short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. 
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