Every time I pass through the road leading to the Reserve, I see the old man sweeping the toilet yard with a broom. With his back bent low and eyes focussed on the ground, never looking up. Nagaraj, that's his name, says he loves his job as the janitor of Parambikulam Tiger Reserve. “I'm happy, I'm happy,” he says in Malayalam when asked about his job. He belongs to the Malasar tribal community and is a member of the Eco Development Committee of the Reserve.
He doesn't remember his age. “I must be over 70,” he mumbles. He is one of the oldest members of the hill village of Sungam. He was born there and never steps out of it, except for festival shopping in neighbouring Kerala. “I love my forest. It is home,” he says.
Nagaraj has seen the forest change from an untouched haven into a wildlife sanctuary and then a tiger reserve. He has worked for the British in the teak plantations for a salary of two paisa, has watched them ride on horseback along the mountains. “Kari dhorai used to oversee us at the plantation. He would be on horseback clad in khakhi shorts. He had a gold-coloured moustache. His skin was almost transparent. You could actually see the food travelling down his throat. He used to talk to us in Tamil,” he recounts.
Nagaraj did odd jobs to earn a living. “Back then, I was also a forest guard, an elephant trainer and a firewatcher on and off.” Rice was expensive. Nagaraj and his tribe lived on fruit, vegetables, tubers and honey. “I would strap my son to my chest and go looking for food in the forest with the other men. We ate a lot of kaatu kizhangu (wild tubers). It was widely distributed in the forest. The seeds would be soaked in water overnight, dried in the sun and powdered. We would make puttu with the flour.”
To the tribes, animals were like shy next-door neighbours who kept to themselves. “I've lost count of the number of times I've come across a tiger. The majestic creature would turn the opposite direction and walk away if encountered,” he says. “Once, I walked right into a coiled python on the forest floor. I jumped backwards like a spring!” he laughs.
Nagaraj recollects encountering a leopard when he went to bathe in a spring with his family. “He was crouching inside a bamboo bush. The instant he saw us, he made a run for it.” Nagaraj was also chased by an elephant for two km. “I ran and ran till I came across a burrow in the ground. I hid myself there till the elephant walked away.”
Tigers, leopards, bears, ant-eaters, porcupines, gaurs, spotted-deer…Nagaraj has been on nodding terms with animals on his many forays into the forest.
“There's no place in these mountains that my feet have not touched,” he says simply. “I've walked alone, bare-foot through every nook and cranny.” But wasn't he ever afraid of the animals? “Animals like to mind their own business,” he retorts. “They never attack unless provoked. And besides, this forest is our God.”
