The Valley News
Mysterious Man in Deep Forest
14 August: A mysterious forest dweller has been sighted by a team of environmental researchers who have been visiting the interiors of Pullothikkadu, 20 kilometres from the valley, to conduct the feasibility study for a dam. The stark-naked man was seen in an obscure and deep part of the forest uninhabited even by the tribal population. With his straggling long hair and beard, the primitive man resembled someone from beyond the Stone Age. Although the team searched long and hard for the man, who vanished into the deeper parts of the forest on sighting the researchers, their efforts were in vain. The search is continuing, as per reports.
Special update: The office being closed today on account of Independence Day, there shall be no print edition tomorrow.
On reading the news enclosed within the rectangular box in the newspaper, I sat dumbfounded. It had been eight months since we had lost Freddie Robert in the forest. Quickly emerging from the restraints of the rectangle, I dialled Sudhakaran’s number.
“Could that be our Freddie, Sudhakaran?”
I did not have the patience for a preface.
“I think so too.” Sudhakaran sounded exhausted. Caught on the slippery slope of random memories, he was silent for a while before he spoke again.
“That day, though we searched all over the forest, we could not find him either. . .”
The great emptiness left behind by Freddie’s disappearance entrenched itself between us, filling our poignant pauses. Certain desolations have the depth of unpaid debts. They can drag you into the past and sadistically reopen the wounds. As I stood enduring that blistering hurt, I asked myself: who was Freddie to us?
I could conceive him only as a physical manifestation of his self. Beyond the outward appearance of the body, the owner himself remains unaware of its inner workings. Just like the bearer of the heart never sees it with his own eyes, all the members of our gang failed to recognise what was at Freddie’s core. Whatever it was, it went on throbbing, never revealing itself. When it went missing, we felt bereft of our own heartbeats.
Even though we were his most intimate friends, how come we had never understood Freddie?
We were short-sighted and saw his trips to the forest as the mere hobby of a student. But the faraway forest was his obsession and the time spent there his intoxication. When Freddie purchased high-end 30*30 Vanguard binoculars, costing $85, to observe the distant beauty of the forest and its birds, we had mocked him. He carried the binoculars always, strapped around his neck – a beloved organ like the heart. His innocuous curiosity about birds had slowly morphed into an obsession, and he joined the birdwatching club that was undertaking a census of birds.
We too had tagged along, keen to be part of any new adventure. We had playfully referred to those forest trips as the “vanavasa” of the Pandavas.
A guide came along with our fellowship of five as we trekked across the deep forest frequented by rare birds. Freddie would question him about the history and geography of the forested areas. Soon, he became a repository of all knowledge about the forest. His was a strange union with the forest that none of us could comprehend. Freddie never perceived anything forbidding in the deep. That was how a fearless nature developed in him to venture out alone into the mysterious forest.
Freddie entered the forest like a formally appointed envoy. He hugged the Bodhi trees, surrounded by termite hills, as if they were close relatives. Through the lens, he watched the birds and animals that reigned in the forests. And he showed us the swiftness of the twite, the crown of the red-whiskered bulbul, the diving prowess of the darter, the headstand of the short-nosed fruit bat. Once, he waxed eloquent on the idiosyncrasies of the red-wattled lapwing.
“The haughty fellow thinks that he is the one holding the sky in its place! Even when he’s asleep, his claws are turned towards the sky, preventing the sky from falling on our heads! He protects us even in his sleep.”
Thus, Freddie would unravel the freaky habits of birds whose names were unfamiliar to us. It was not just birdwatching that captivated him, but the architecture of nests. His view was that all branches of engineering were inspired by nature. Once Freddie discovered a great Indian hornbill’s nest inside the hollow of a tree trunk. It was a rare find, a treasure, and it made him ecstatic. Using the balls of earth the male bird brought, added to her own body wastes, the female had shut the entrance to her home. Only her bill extended out through a slit. We observed, from our hiding places, how the male bird fed the female who was busy hatching eggs, bringing her food frequently. Love for the unseen partner reflected in the male bird’s eyes.
“Did you eat something?” “Is it going to rain soon?” “What shall we name our children?” Perhaps that was the gist of their chirpings. Freddie did not have the heart to turn his back on that innocent love. Though he wanted to stay another eight days to watch the female bird break open the closure and peep out from her nest, we persuaded him to return with us. However, unknown to us, Freddie did return on the ninth day and was witness to that exquisite vision. That was the first evidence we got of Freddie’s unalloyed nature. It was also an indicator of how deeply touched he was by sights that the majority of people shrugged off as trivial.
Freddie would whoop, like a sailor discovering a new continent, whenever he discovered a rare species of bird. In the intermediate period, when he could not visit the forest as he wished, Freddie once confessed to me that he heard the haunting call of a bird, as yet undiscovered in the Sahyadri
ranges, beckoning him regularly. I found the idea of a forest bird calling out to a city man inexplicable.
“Bird-crazy fool!”
Though I ridiculed him for his strange proclivity, Freddie continued to hear the invisible bird’s invitation. “Perhaps it took flight from within me and proceeded to the deep forests,” Freddie quipped. “One day, I shall seek it out myself.”
What was that birdsong that he heard which was not audible to us? I do not know, but it was true that Freddie would never lie. He strove to do every deed – even those which were not entirely decent – with utmost sincerity. He was never lackadaisical and was extremely alert even in conducting the bird census. The charts were meticulous and denoted how many times a bird species had been sighted in the forests. We were not too impressed by his methodology of categorising birds as per sound, colour and behaviour. But Freddie was adamant that the charts be as accurate as possible, even if they included superfluous information.
In Freddie’s perspective, it was easy to exhibit honesty externally and tough to be truthful to one’s own self. Only then could one be honest with nature. And that was the lone way to the first or primary phase of nature.
Excerpted with permission from Dattapaharam: Call of the Forest, VJ James, translated from the Malayalam by Ministhy S, Penguin.
