In the remote Kumaon mountain ranges of Uttarakhand, Steve Lall and his wife Parvati live on the Jilling Estate with very few amenities, relying only on their own survival skills to make a living. It’s a secluded 140-acre estate with no roads leading up to it. They do host a few people on their property, so those willing to rough it out have to trudge up a two-kilometre trek to reach the Lalls. Their guests are afforded the same luxuries with the promise of absolute silence and seclusion. Ben Fogle broadcast this Himalayan secret to the world as part of season two of his television show, Where The Wild Men Are . The fourth season of the show premiers on December 25 in India.
Picture shows: Ben with Gareth and Julia with dog outside their house sitting on an armchair.
The show’s lure lies in not just showcasing gorgeous unknown locales to the world, but also tapping into human sensibilities. Fogle attributes it to rural-urban migration, zeroing in on the phenomenon in India. “You’ve got huge mega cities, and people have left the countryside to try and find happiness there,” says the reality television host, who fell in love with the wild when he was 18, exploring the Ambis mountains in South America after a particularly fraught time with his exams.
Jungle tales
With Where the Wild Men Are , Fogle travels far-flung locations across the world, meeting over 40 families who are living away from civilisation in the most primitive ways possible. In season four, viewers can look forward to getting a glimpse of Mekong island in Laos where an Englishman has adopted a fisherman as his mentor, a couple who lives on a yacht in a French Polynesian island, and a blacksmith who left civilisation at 18 to live in a cabin in the Tennessee woods.
The 44-year-old believes it’s these people who have discovered something important that’s inherent to human beings. “The people featured in the series have gone back to nature and we’ve discovered in all of them a different kind of happiness,” says Fogle. “They are far more content than anyone I have ever visited in any city.” The wilderness has, in fact, healed Fogle as a person. As a child, he didn’t have much confidence but it was his time outdoors, in mountains, jungles, deserts and oceans that made a lasting impact on him.
Picture shows_Ben Fogle standing outside the commune's kitchen in Marshall, North Carolina
Tryst with BBC
A few years ago in 2011, Fogle found himself in India as part of another show with the the BBC: TheWorld’s Most Dangerous Roads. “I travelled across the Ambis and Peru. While we were out there, we met an English family who had a remote lifestyle,” he recounts. “I had an idea of the show then, and I spoke to the production company about perhaps making a series following similar individuals all over the world.” In 2013, Where The Wild Men Are came to be yet another show in a long career with adventure reality television. But being an environmentalist, this outing is particularly close to Fogle’s heart. “Especially in the developed world in Europe, our wastefulness is just appalling. The amount of single plastics we use, the amount of food we throw away. You would never do that if you were on an adventure. Every little bit of water becomes important to save and value,” he says, harking back to his own adventure travelling across the Atlantic Ocean and trekking across Antarctica to the South Pole where he had to be very careful about his resources to ensure survival.
Best of the rest
It’s been six seasons now, and Fogle has met over 40 families in every possible unfathomable location in the world. All of them have been special in their own way, but a special highlight was the Lall family. “I also did a peaceful show in Canada this year [season six] where I went to a place called Freedom Coves. A Canadian family had built an amazing floating island and I hadn’t seen something like that anywhere else. I think it was truly magical.” Another memorable episode in season five was when he lived with a family in a remote corner of Tanzania who make a living conducting walking safaris. “There is no vehicle, no physical protection and you have to be by yourself,” he says. “We actually were within a couple of feet from wild African elephants who were about to charge at us and that was pretty exciting. Arguably, it was quite dangerous and it was the first time I was out with a wild animal, but I felt quite comfortable since I’ve been around plenty of wildlife over the years.”
The fourth season of Where The Wild Men Are will première on Sony BBC Earth on December 25
