COORG ODE TO NATURE

Deepika Belapurkar is overwhelmed by nature as she soaks in the lush green serene clime of Coorg

Coorg tribals

The genesis of River Cauvery in Coorg, says the legend, begins with a promise when Goddess Cauvery, wife of sage Agastya, metamorphoses into a river and vows to return each year to nourish the land of her birth. And so she does, trickling into the sacred tank at Talacauvery in the Brahmagiri hills to clasp her 'children' to her bosom.

We are chased up the temple steps by a recalcitrant cloudburst to Shiva's abode, from where we watch the elusive Cauvery and her followers clasped in an eternal bond. The tank water is adrift with a flotsam of flowers and coconut shells, and its surface tinged a blood red, the deepest shade of vermilion.

From near this ancient shrine we slug it up to the Brahmagiri peak. Pardon the conclusion, but the seven sages who had meditated here at 4,500 feet many eons ago must obviously have chosen this spot for its views, a tumbling vastness of blue hills. Their soft beguiling contours frame thickly forested valleys and the lushest of fertile fields in a swirling haze.

A few kilometers apart, yet another set of faithfuls prostrate in front of a Shivalingam under carved wooden awnings. The Bhagamandala temple's pillars depict stories from the Puranas. At her sacred sangam here, with rivers Kannike and Sujyothi, we too reunite with the self-willed Cauvery, before driving off towards Orange County in Sidappura completely cured of our myopic vision of a life on the fast track. Evening brings with it comforting warmth and unbelievable cheer; the snug Tudor-styled cottages are enormously private and that night we leisurely indulge in a supper befitting a king before the languor of sleep takes over. Haunting images of the mist-laden meadows return unbidden: a sweet chorus of cowbells...a shepherdess and her wayward charges, wet willowy figures pervious to the merry song of the ebbing rain.

Old-world rituals

Who cares about night-long showers as long as the morning is sun basked? Obviously then, a plantation tour at Orange County is a foregone conclusion. The sweetly perfumed flowering coffee bushes huddle beneath silver oaks towering to a height of 80 and 100 feet. Amongst the delicately spiralling pepper vines, jewelled woodpeckers are busy as hell while hornbills noisily flounce in the top canopy. It's easy to lose oneself in the fragrant cardamom bushes and fruit orchards.

Go on and dribble away the hours at the ideal getaway of your dreams. Unless a visit to an ancestral home (Ain Mane), is on your agenda as well. We discover in Devangiri a mere handful of homesteads quietly basking among spindly palms and shady tamarind trees. Nature has, presumably with great joy, bared her womb to the seasonal swing and received in turn a shake-over of lustrous greens.

From a deep verandah fringing Nanda Pemaya's four-winged, red-tiled Ain Mane we watch young paddy on his ancestral land rhythmically swishing to the whims of a truant wind. Indoors, the poorly lit rooms wear raftered ceilings, verdigris pillars and beaten earth floors, and their walls sacred brass wall-lamps. While most erstwhile okkas (joint families) have fragmented into nuclear homes, deceased members still live on in Coorgi rituals of ancestor worship. In fact, there is a certain earthiness to these rituals, a kind of endearing quality to their absorbing faith.

Lush green, fertile, intensely picturesque, South Coorg is indeed a soubriquet to eternal beauty. By the time we cover the six kilometers to Virajpet at the foot of Maletambiran Hill we are reeling over with unopposed appreciation. The township is very easily Coorg's pulse and home to the gentry as well to crazy traffic snarls. This is not to say there aren't any unobtrusive homes – plenty, all flaunting without reservation the famous Coorg hospitality.

Beyond imposing gates and past sweeping driveways, a perfect foil to the inquisitive stares of outsiders, sprawling estates recluse across Coorg. Families with pedigree lineage reside within the ivory-castle isolation of these whitewashed bungalows. Most are very old structures residing among even older trees, seemingly as old as the earth itself. The lawns are bursts of inspiration: the reds and whites of poinsettias to the myriad hues of roses and anthuriums. There's space for leisurely walks and might the foul weather persist, the strollers repair to their English style verandahs to nurse, er, stronger beverages. (Drinking has always been the collective vice of Coorg denizens.)

Nature unveiled

Cottage in Orange County Resort

Many drinks, a delicious local meal and countless hours later, we begin to unspool the well-woven threads of Coorg's ecological tapestry starting with devarakadus, a rainforest-like setting aptly called 'forest of the gods'. These six-hectare patches of dense virgin land allow you to breathe in the purest possible air in sunlight shyly tiptoeing over the animistic figures squatting on the ledge of a crudely built temple. "Devarakadus are protected for ecological reasons apart from religious sentiments, and here nothing can be disturbed from its natural state," observes Nanda Pemaya.

The British legacy lives on in the elephants and the barking deers, in the palm-sized butterflies and moths, in over 300 species of birds...in the life-affirming Cauvery. Forests and plantations cover roughly three fourths of Coorg. In the tangled heap of Coorg's deep jungles, grow ebony, eucalyptus, rosewood, sandalwood and teak. Various spices too flourish wild in these parts. Although its valleys remain richly forested, miles of emerald green coffee estates have taken the place of once-luxuriant bamboo thickets.

We see little else on our way to the awfully dusty town of Kushalnagar, a descent to 1,300 metres. Were it not for the golden Buddhas in the Tibetan monastery and the chance to see India's foremost Tibetan resettlement project at Bylekuppa firsthand, we are sure we would not be here. Yet within a noticeable chaos, thrives a settlement that's genially prosperous. A jaunt around Medikeri on the other hand restores our balance. We are fortunate; on a clear day like this, it is possible to see the Tadiyendamol peak at 5,724 feet. A walk down the Mangalore-Medikeri road rewards us with sights of cavernous forested ravines ringed in by towering hills, mellow with a glow that only monsoon can bestow. If you prefer getting involved in Coorg's bedevilled history, consider visiting the fort palace, a 17th century work of unremarkable art, associated with the 200-year-old blood-shod reign of the Lingayat rulers. It is now the Commissioner's office, with the exception of a library, a chapel and a prison.

Sacred tank at Talacauvery in the Brahmagiri hills

Whoever did imagine that some day cricket lovers would dissipate the sombre mood across town, at the Islamic-styled gilded tombs of Doddaveeraraja and Lingaraja? Outer embellishments include gilded balls and weathercocks, Nandi bulls on minaret like towers, carved window frames and pillars with Shiva's manifestations. Unquestionably, the more appealing of the views lie beyond this high grassy ridge, amongst a muddling configuration of Coorg's eternal blue hills.

We rather fancy the winding drive along a switch-backed road to Abbi Falls. In this compact leafy enclave, everything is mossy, moist, natural and scented with the aromas of heaven. Everyone is quiet; have to be, for the sound of the crashing waterfall is the loudest. Simply, one just enjoys the delicious sensation of spray showering one's face. It's really fine to publicise the area as a picnic spot, but it would do a lot of good to drive home the point that these falls are located on a private plantation. Maybe then, the crazy revellers in the pool would take home their dirty laundry.

Paved with peace

Panorama of Coorg

Next morning I am desperately trying to be one with my Atman. There surely can't be a more tranquil setting than the lakeside at Orange County to explore one's inner self (and hear the moorhens in the marshes protest at the start of another 'slack' day)?

There are nature lovers, who care figs about leech-bites and the like, and the bio-diverse Dubare Reserve Forest skirting the resort welcomes such free spirits. Never mind the fact that chances of spotting wildlife are even slimmer than the lissome pepper vines. After all it's a while since the British annexed Coorg in 1934, when its dense forests were alive with wild things. Now, what's left is lots of natural beauty.

Elsewhere, the resort lawns offer so much privacy that you can linger for hours amongst the white coffee blossoms and giant sheltering trees. Cauvery flows close by; there are chatty tribals who live on her bank. If it's fishes though, and not tribals, you are passionate about befriending, a license from the Coorg Wildlife Society permits you to do so at Walnoor 30 km from Medikeri. Verily a haven, quiet enough for even the Carnatac carp, Murrel and Mahseer that you are promptly supposed to throw back and say well done. The surrounding plantations more than welcome tenting (preferably foreigners) on the fringe of their paddy fields; such is Coorg life.

On a lighter note, the terribly pretty local womenfolk are awfully friendly (flirtatious?). The warrior men-folk are on the other hand formidable, perhaps less so having swapped their traditional Kuppia (with a striking resemblance to the Arabic Kuffia) with the boring trouser and shirt routine. Could their forbears really have been Alexander the Great's soldiers? Or, as some proclaim, the Roman traders in the reign of Augustus and Tiberius? It doesn't really matter, the Coorgs are great lookers anyways.

Our last evening at Orange County sneaks up on us as the boat sweeps the length of our favourite lake. We watch the last of the laggards fly home to roost and it's time to say goodbye. To freedom in the magical blue hills...to a rare place called Coorg.