A Child of the Forest

by Shaswata Kundu Chaudhuri (India)

Making a local connection India

Have you ever roasted your own shoe? I was not so much roasting it as drying it after an unsuccessful attempt to cross a tiny stream separating the forest from the farmlands – a direct consequence of offbeat exploration. The previous afternoon I had gone off, alone, in search of a village which lay across another forest. Not only did I not find the village, I also got lost for a heart-pounding twenty minutes. However, when I was with Shambhunath Mura, I had nothing to fear. The soft spoken, sure footed villager turned out to be as good a guide as he was a cook. “We will go into the forest after 10 a.m.,” he said solemnly. Pressed further, he said, “I don’t want us to be the first to enter the forest. There might be elephants.” His expression meant only one thing – death. Trekking uphill through the forest, the sun burning our backs, distant sounds of axes hitting trees were reassuring. We met a villager coming down with an enormous stack of firewood, weighing over 30 kg, balanced on his head. He signalled that there were no elephants. We picked up our pace with renewed vigour. Shambhu even replied to bird calls at times. The path was rocky, with little debris getting dislodged by our shoes. Small limestone particles in the sand shone brightly when the sun fell on it. This soil favoured the growth of medium sized shaal trees, whose wood was excellent for fuel. Our destination was the crest of the hill from where we could see the entire expanse of the wild forest that stretched for miles around. This part of Purulia’s Ajodhya Hills in India is one of the last virgin forests that is yet untouched by humans. “This is the first time I’ve taken a tourist this deep into the forest,” said Shambhu, hacking away some leaves to clear the view. Unending green hills rolled into each other till the end of the horizon where they resembled blue triangles floating in the mix of white fog and blinding light. My eyes beheld Mother Nature in all her primal glory. “We used to hunt here before,” he said, lighting up a beedi. “With what?” I asked. “Arrows, spears and a gun.” Here was a man who was used to procuring his necessities from the forest but the increase of his race had reduced the population of his prey, driving him into the hands of other odd jobs. The emergence of capitalistic market mechanisms ensured that self-sufficiency was not enough anymore. More was required, and it was coming at the cost of the forest, the erstwhile source of villagers’ livelihood. Numerous species of flora are also lost forever to the conquering armies of sand and concrete. Plastic chokes their streams. Forests get thinner due to more demand for wood. All this weighed heavy on my mind as I sat by the fire in the courtyard of his mud house that evening. My shoes were nearly dry. “People tend to forget where they are actually coming from. Living in cities is like living in a bubble. We don’t know any of this,” I said, gesturing to the open sky above me, where a thousand stars winked. “I would go crazy if I have to live in a city. Too much noise and dirt. I like living here,” he said. Indeed, it is not a bad place to be. The produce is fresh, the mountain air is clean. There is no dearth of firewood, mud or cow dung. One would only have to put with the occasional bleating and the cooing at dawn. While returning to my hostel, I turned to look back at the sight of villagers practising a tribal dance on a field by the light of a lone bulb. The rest of the village was cloaked in darkness. A few feet away, the trail that led to the forest invited me to its black folds in the night. Crickets buzzed continuously. I was right on the village’s perimeter. Suddenly, a queer heaviness struck me. I did not want to leave! In that shivering darkness, I realized that I, too, am a child of nature.