Nelliampathi was our land of attraction again for the family trip with maternal relatives. We were 41 and were visiting the place after a span of 4 years. The idea behind the trip is simple – men can drink freely and women will get freely. I have cousins who didn’t come for my brother’s marriage a week before but reached for the trip from abroad. The trip is on weekend, have booked a stay almost 12km from road, no sight-seeing or outing.
I was the one to reach at Thrissur by 8 in the morning. Soon after taking a bath, I boarded the bus to Nelliyapathi. When I entered the bus, it looked bit funny to me – a thermocol box for ice-cubes, 2 kilos of peanuts, 2 kilos of onions and couple of bags for liquor!!! Are we going only to drink? I did not spend much time saying hello to all as we were all together last weekend. We had packed cricket bat, cards, chineese-checkers and so on suiting people of respective age group. Soon the music was on, bottles started emptying and trip was gaining momentum. But God never let us over joy, so he made a small accident, nothing serious, a window glass has broken. After 5-10 minutes stop, the trip continued.
Misty Valley
Misty Valley, as I mentioned is 12kms off the main road and jeep was the only mean of travel. 12km in 1hour and 15minutes, such good was the road!!! My cousin even asked the driver, “upto what angle does the jeep withstand; haven’t we reached the limit?” But I can tell you it was such an amazing experience. There were rocks all over, sometimes steps, quite often the road is not even as wide single jeep, but you can always a jeep from other side and so on. And the best of all, you can expect an elephant or a wild boar or a harmless deer anytime on the journey. But we were not lucky except for a wild boar while returning. After the long drive once we reached the resort by 2pm, we were all tired and hungry. We soon had the food. Soon everyone went for a nap. I have a bad habit, if a sleep in the after-noon, I will sleep for atleast 3 hours. So trying to resist that, we tried to fly the kite. All of us have tried our luck, but could not get the kite even 10 feet high. All to blame our inexperience. Finally I too gave up and had a sleep.
In the evening, we all went for a walk by 5:30pm. It was getting dark early and as we saw to snakes on the way, we had to return soon. We decide to explore more next morning.
After usual chit-chats we camp-fire was ready. The couple dance was the ‘item of the day’. Couples had to dance with the song we sang. The dancers included 68 years old uncle to recently married brother. Even though none of us had any taste for music we all sang and the next event was the limit of destroying the art of music - ‘Idea star singer’ . ‘If you cant sing , keep your mouth shut’ – is something which never works on these trips. Meanwhile I had omelettes from the kitchen and chicken was served to all. Dinner was soon served by 9:30 and was the end of the day. I did not know why people are sleeping so early during these days, but had to sleep by 10:30 -11. And that was then end of Day 1.
Stories revealed
On the second morning, as we went for a walk after second trip of black-coffee. Almost everyone was there and it looked like a procession in the middle of the forest. We started to walk with not much plans. Unlike most of the trips to hill stations, there weren’t many leeches – hardly 5-10 for the entire crew. We saw monkey and some were black too. There were mooing of deers but could not see them.
The day-before we had located a coffee-shop too. So last destiny was coffee-shop. It was proper filmi style shop. Long back, it was granary to store coffee seeds. Seats were made of cane and seats on one side holed from half-way. The shop – I doubt whether it could be called so- had opened only with our arrival. The shop had nothing much than tea and coffee and some left-over snacks of previous day. There were people for tea, black-coffee, black tea and the snacks. So we had almost half an hour to hear the stories from the man in the shop. And I was the one who entered the shop first.
He was an employee in the coffee plantation. There was an elachi factory downhill as well. The place was heavenly accoding to him those days. Even Ambassador - the only car in Indian roads those days – could easy drive through these routes. They had 10 employees round the year to clean the road during these days. But the wage for coffee-estate employees was 2 Rupees less than tea-estate employee which was again 2 Rupees less than drivers. So he was the least paid among the wagers.
As usual, there comes the twist in their happy life. Some 12 years or so ago Govt declared is as forest. So no more plantations and you can’t even cut the grass that was growing into the roads. Soon the well maintained estates were converted to real forest. The owners of the land were least interested to help the wagers and they gladly closed the factory. So people like this man, has to get atleast his gratuity fund before he leaves from here. He says, they owe him 50,000 plus interests for all these 12 years.
His life was even miserable. He lost his wife in the past. His two daughters are married and youngest is still with him. His one son is at his native place – Kottayam. His other son is in “Persia” and don’t know much about him. He believes the astrology, and says he son is very rich though he doesn’t have any contacts with him. He might be relieving himself by saying so – his son is prosperous now. And as the estates are closed, he don’t have much sales too. He usually opens his hotel only by lunch.
Then we were more curious to know about the animal life around. It was for the first time I was hearing elephants were less harmful!! According to elephants will stay around for some time but will leave. And sound and fire are usual weapons for them. Wild gaur was considered as more harmful and had killed 2-3 peoples there. Porcupines, mongooses, deers were other common visitors. Life is never that easy. And there are frequent checks by forest department to make sure no wild animals are hunted.
Then the stories started to repeat. As the people inside the room kept on changing, the same questions popped up. Unlike the films, you can’t expect a saviour who will solve all his problems. Its always nice to hear others’ problem but how often do we help to solve them? We were not different either. On the way back to room we met few more natives and everyone had similar stories.
Day inside Misty Valley
Once we reached the back, beak-fast was ready. It was now the time for all games. I started off with cricket. The ball was having fantastic movement that I could not how I bowled some deliveries. Then I had time for cards too. Kids had Chineese checkers. Attempts to fly the kite made a few busy all the day.
Soon something unusual and unbelievable was boiling in the bar-room. My brother wanted to dance after having some drinks, so did my cousins, but what about the song? So and they wanted nattan-pattu (local traditional song) to dance. Finally my only non-alcoholic cousin lit up the party. None could believe what was coming. He was making lines instantly about the people and was delivering at the pitch of his sound. It was so loud that we, ladies started to peep though the window. After more than one hour show we decided to give a change to all. The agenda was to take everyone from the room and end up the procession in the courtyard. Oh!! That’s was simply the best time I had with my cousins. Shouting, cheering, dancing and what all we could do were done. Last procession itself was about ten-minutes video with a single person singing throughout – “Ente koodae vayyo thankammae” or “Aadaadu pamabae.. Aadaadu pamabae” . I cant say how great it was, you have to be there to feel it. The procession ended up in the lunch hall.
After the quick lunch, we had to pack-up. We were suppose to start by 3pm. Again I was the one who wanted to reach early – I had to catch my bus to Bangalore too. But as some elephants had blocked the way the jeeps reached by with a slight delay of two hours. During the two hours we had time for another session of loose talks and to roam around the rooms.
I missed out say about their communication media. They had a table which had a look like ham devised on it. A triangular white box out of which a cable looking like a telephone wire was kept on the table. The table had a speed-o-meter kind dial at the centre. When I went near it, the person asked me to move a bit as it was blocking the signals. I could not resist myself, what was that device behind that triangular box!! Any guess? Yeah, a CELL PHONE!!! Box was to prevent it from rain and sun and the signals was very weak over there.
Once our jeeps reached back, we soon started our journey back. And reached back by 9:30pm. We didn’t stop anywhere during the return drive. And I managed to reach for bus in time. But as usual, if you are early, your bus is late. I had to wait for another 1 hour for my bus to reach.
I am not sure that was my best weekend in life, but it was certainly the best with my cousins.
The BEST of course..
