Environmentalist Arefa Tehsin hones her listening skills in the forests of Dandeli
In 2013, as we deliberated on the following family vacation, my uncle Rafiq recommended this quaint town in Karnataka, one of his frequent escapes when the city grew too tight around his wild soul. My husband Aditya and I picked my parents, aunt and cousin from the Goa airport and drove down to a forest river resort on the banks of Kali. Greeted by a Malabar giant squirrel, the riverine spot immediately endeared itself to my father, a born wildlife enthusiast. 'Who needs mattresses?' his expression said, 'when one can sleep on rocks in such august company!' Wisely, he didn't voice his thoughts to my mother who believes every shadow is a snake until proven otherwise.
A strapping guide, who had dabbled in city life but had come to prefer conversations with hornbills, ran us through the activities we could undertake. 'I hope you haven't forgotten to pack your swimwear,' he asked. I looked at him with respect. Only he could dare make this statement to my mum and 70-year-old aunt. While the two Kalis shot him grim looks, he went on undeterred. There was the touristy coracle ride too, but we gave it a pass. We had done that in Tungabhadra by Hampi and had no desire to go spinning again in a giant frying pan, reconsidering life choices.
Though the preferred time for a Dandeli visit is the winters, we had chosen May, a hot month, best to see wildlife. The river had a lightness of touch to it, unlike the wild monsoons, and swayed like an old jazz tune. Since the season was not ideal for white-water rafting, you could indulge in boating instead. Depositing my aunt and mum in it (sans their swimwear), we rowed through the brooding forest with whoops of curious langurs, pied kingfishers suspended in air and a chorus of amphibians and cicadas. The oarsman paddled with the serenity of one who has accepted the futility of resisting rivers or relatives.
Afternoons and early evenings were perfect for my father testing his luck with angling, swimming or kayaking. Aditya and Himalay's canoe capsized once on the rapids. I stood on the bank shouting instructions. Isn't this how family dynamics work? Everyone is paddling, no one is in control and somehow you make it through.
Often, I just let myself be in the ancient currents, sinking in the moment; a vertebrate in suspension with a desire to dissolve in the womb-warm waters. Late evenings were spent trying to spot a flying squirrel as we had tea by the river.
Away from mobile signals and Amazon's thoughtful messages about their summer sale with discounts on fat-loss tablets, I sat gazing at the elemental river from the nightly tree house. Crickets struck their maracas. Time lost its sharp edge. Frogs cleared their throat. Was the scratching behind the wooden wall a civet or a ghost from an unwritten manuscript?
We stepped out one day to visit the forest office and sanctuary. Though the black panther didn't reveal itself, we did spot the Indian bison (gaur) and crocs sunning themselves — a bunch of aimless retirees. But the showstopper was the forest-run guesthouse; the Old Magazine House was a birdwatcher's rhapsody. The thicket of bamboo seemed to be painted by a sugar-high child with access to all green crayons. Birds flaunted their punk hairdos and Bollywood soundboard voices, judging us by our deodorant and politely ignoring our lens pointing at their butts.
On a sunny morning, we went across the river to witness a Malabar Pied hornbill's nesting. The place is called Thesye Hornbill Resort, after all. The nesting phenomenon of these birds is intriguing. The expecting couple finds a suitable tree hollow. The lady seals herself leaving only a small hole to breathe and feed. And yes, poop too! The gent spends days taking care of his darling by bringing food for her and the little ones, once they hatch. When the chicks are ready to face the world, signora breaks the seal. The lady sounds a bit like moi who'll go to lengths to avoid cooking and avail room service.
So, if you are expecting amusement parks for your kids or multi-brand showrooms and cannot handle peace, Dandeli is not for you. Rivers are mothers, warriors, goddesses. They are not there to entertain you. But if you are all for lying on your back in the shallows and letting the current decide your itinerary, Kali will surround you with her song.
I often wonder what rivers remember. Do they recall the first fish that leapt in joy? The civilisations that sprouted on their skin? The dam that broke its back? We carry the rivers with us after we leave them. But how do they remember us? A floating log with opinions?
With her multiple arms, Kali is the quintessential woman, multitasking, tackling all (pollutants, sand miners et al) that is thrown at her, while also finding the time to wet her feet. She's the one who knows when it is time to flow and when to flood.
Parallels are drawn between Kali and Sekhmet, the goddess of war and healing in Egyptian mythology. The sun god Ra sent the goddess Hathor to finish his enemies. Hathor took the form of Sekhmet and went on a rampage. Unable to stop the bloodthirsty goddess, Ra created a lake full of red booze. Mistaking it for blood, she drank it till she was tipsy and forgot about wiping out humankind. It is believed that while on a similar killing spree, the uncontrollable Kali left the Devas in swargaloka biting their nails. It was the quick thinking of Shiva, her consort, who threw himself at her feet to contain her rage
The take-away philosophy here? When goddesses rage, even gods must kneel—or pour the wine.
Arefa Tehsin is a Colombo-based writer and environmentalist
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This muggy afternoon, a profusely sweating man is spray painting a sequence of words on the slats of a bench's backrest. Using large stencils, he is painting in white, ostensibly intending to give the bench a name. The first letter is B. The brown bench is plonked outside Madan Café, here in backpackers' Paharganj. (HT) The brown bench is plonked outside Madan Café, here in backpackers' Paharganj. The man at work is Aditya. His father had founded the café in the 1970s, just as the Delhi locality was starting to get its first hippies. Indeed, the café used to be packed with hippies. What a thing it was, per the old timers, to be in the community of those vanished people. Their hair long, unwashed, tangled and often beaded; the arms tattooed and pierced; the ringed fingers stained with cigarette ash. The hippies gave the café a bohemian character that persists to this day. The café, however, acquired this bench much later, in 2018, Aditya says. As he executes rendering the letter O, he recalls Paharganj's golden era. During the 1990s and early 2000s, it teemed with a mix of (ageing) hippies and young foreign backpackers. 'Our streets had more foreigners than Indians.' Make no mistake! Most of those travellers had zero interest in smoggy crowded Delhi. After landing at the international airport, they would stay in Paharganj's economy lodges for a day or two max, before escaping to getaways in India, boarding their trains at the nearby New Delhi railway station. But for those couple of days, the backpackers would congregate in Paharganj hideouts like Madan. Here, they would exhaust hours chatting with fellow backpackers, exchanging tips on Pushkar, Shatabdi Express and Delhi belly. Paharganj's appeal among backpackers began to wane around the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, says Aditya, when the accompanying renovations in the hotel district turned it into a dusty zone of dug-up streets. The Covid-19 years inflicted a more profound setback. These days, backpackers are rarely spotted 'because of wars in West Asia and Ukraine, and political tensions across the world.' Painting the letter Y, Aditya says, 'Our café is struggling big time. We are in a bad shape. I miss the old days.' Back in the old days, one evening at Madan, this reporter met a New York photographer. He showed a book he had authored on the Uttarakhand Himalayas. Another evening in the café, a couple from Zagreb discussed the Balkan situation over glasses of masala chai. Aditya finally finishes the job. Gazing at 'Bob Dylan's Bench,' he says: 'Bob Dylan's songs used to be much loved by our customers. He represents the hippie generation that we no longer see in Paharganj.' Ah, the times they are a-changin'.
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The origin of the word 'safari' lies in Kiswahili, which built upon 'safar', the Arabic word for travel. For a late riser like me, who hasn't seen sunrises for many years, it can equate to 'suffer' too. Still, Aditya, armed with his cameras, and me with my SPF50, decided to do all the five ranges of Kaziranga National Park. We had three days to spot elephant herds, hornbills with their magnificent beak-dos and of course, rhinos — bouncers ready with their horns to topple your jeep. It's no wonder that they'd like to do that. Unbridled poaching for the rhino's horn is what resulted in Kaziranga being declared a sanctuary in the mid-1900s. A magnificent rhinoceros in Kaziranga National Park (Shutterstock) From the very first morning, as we rode on an elephant's back, it turned out to be a 'safar' of lessons. 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Once we returned to Mumbai, where the trains are so spacious you can always fit one more person (horizontally!) we showed the Hoolock gibbon pics to friends. The gibbons have sexual dimorphism ie they are dissimilar in appearance — the males are jet black with two prominent white eyebrows and the females are light brown. The most stunning of the animal kingdom are males. In response to this statement, a friend who couldn't tell the sexes apart, stated that the brown one must be the male — because it was 'fair'! Before I could react to this 'matrimonial ad' analysis, the last lesson from the Kaziranga trip flashed in my mind — we are the ones who need saving, not the wild. Arefa Tehsin is ex-Honorary Wildlife Warden, Udaipur and author most recently of The Witch in the Peepul Tree.
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07-06-2025
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Environmentalist Arefa Tehsin hones her listening skills in the forests of Dandeli
We may think that goddess Kali is named so after her dark complexion, but it is in fact her role as the goddess of time—'kaal' that gives her the moniker, as she flows through the universe like a river. The Kali nadi that descends from the Western Ghats and meanders through dense deciduous forest epitomises the spirit of the terrifying goddess. Shining her thousand jewelled eyes in the sunlight, she lets you believe you are in charge, until she pulls you into a coracle and spins you in circles of surrender. Not too far from Goa, Dandeli is the place where you can spend a few days by this river, not as a tourist but as a devout listener. In 2013, as we deliberated on the following family vacation, my uncle Rafiq recommended this quaint town in Karnataka, one of his frequent escapes when the city grew too tight around his wild soul. My husband Aditya and I picked my parents, aunt and cousin from the Goa airport and drove down to a forest river resort on the banks of Kali. Greeted by a Malabar giant squirrel, the riverine spot immediately endeared itself to my father, a born wildlife enthusiast. 'Who needs mattresses?' his expression said, 'when one can sleep on rocks in such august company!' Wisely, he didn't voice his thoughts to my mother who believes every shadow is a snake until proven otherwise. A strapping guide, who had dabbled in city life but had come to prefer conversations with hornbills, ran us through the activities we could undertake. 'I hope you haven't forgotten to pack your swimwear,' he asked. I looked at him with respect. Only he could dare make this statement to my mum and 70-year-old aunt. While the two Kalis shot him grim looks, he went on undeterred. There was the touristy coracle ride too, but we gave it a pass. We had done that in Tungabhadra by Hampi and had no desire to go spinning again in a giant frying pan, reconsidering life choices. Though the preferred time for a Dandeli visit is the winters, we had chosen May, a hot month, best to see wildlife. The river had a lightness of touch to it, unlike the wild monsoons, and swayed like an old jazz tune. Since the season was not ideal for white-water rafting, you could indulge in boating instead. Depositing my aunt and mum in it (sans their swimwear), we rowed through the brooding forest with whoops of curious langurs, pied kingfishers suspended in air and a chorus of amphibians and cicadas. The oarsman paddled with the serenity of one who has accepted the futility of resisting rivers or relatives. Afternoons and early evenings were perfect for my father testing his luck with angling, swimming or kayaking. Aditya and Himalay's canoe capsized once on the rapids. I stood on the bank shouting instructions. Isn't this how family dynamics work? Everyone is paddling, no one is in control and somehow you make it through. Often, I just let myself be in the ancient currents, sinking in the moment; a vertebrate in suspension with a desire to dissolve in the womb-warm waters. Late evenings were spent trying to spot a flying squirrel as we had tea by the river. Away from mobile signals and Amazon's thoughtful messages about their summer sale with discounts on fat-loss tablets, I sat gazing at the elemental river from the nightly tree house. Crickets struck their maracas. Time lost its sharp edge. Frogs cleared their throat. Was the scratching behind the wooden wall a civet or a ghost from an unwritten manuscript? We stepped out one day to visit the forest office and sanctuary. Though the black panther didn't reveal itself, we did spot the Indian bison (gaur) and crocs sunning themselves — a bunch of aimless retirees. But the showstopper was the forest-run guesthouse; the Old Magazine House was a birdwatcher's rhapsody. The thicket of bamboo seemed to be painted by a sugar-high child with access to all green crayons. Birds flaunted their punk hairdos and Bollywood soundboard voices, judging us by our deodorant and politely ignoring our lens pointing at their butts. On a sunny morning, we went across the river to witness a Malabar Pied hornbill's nesting. The place is called Thesye Hornbill Resort, after all. The nesting phenomenon of these birds is intriguing. The expecting couple finds a suitable tree hollow. The lady seals herself leaving only a small hole to breathe and feed. And yes, poop too! The gent spends days taking care of his darling by bringing food for her and the little ones, once they hatch. When the chicks are ready to face the world, signora breaks the seal. The lady sounds a bit like moi who'll go to lengths to avoid cooking and avail room service. So, if you are expecting amusement parks for your kids or multi-brand showrooms and cannot handle peace, Dandeli is not for you. Rivers are mothers, warriors, goddesses. They are not there to entertain you. But if you are all for lying on your back in the shallows and letting the current decide your itinerary, Kali will surround you with her song. I often wonder what rivers remember. Do they recall the first fish that leapt in joy? The civilisations that sprouted on their skin? The dam that broke its back? We carry the rivers with us after we leave them. But how do they remember us? A floating log with opinions? With her multiple arms, Kali is the quintessential woman, multitasking, tackling all (pollutants, sand miners et al) that is thrown at her, while also finding the time to wet her feet. She's the one who knows when it is time to flow and when to flood. Parallels are drawn between Kali and Sekhmet, the goddess of war and healing in Egyptian mythology. The sun god Ra sent the goddess Hathor to finish his enemies. Hathor took the form of Sekhmet and went on a rampage. Unable to stop the bloodthirsty goddess, Ra created a lake full of red booze. Mistaking it for blood, she drank it till she was tipsy and forgot about wiping out humankind. It is believed that while on a similar killing spree, the uncontrollable Kali left the Devas in swargaloka biting their nails. It was the quick thinking of Shiva, her consort, who threw himself at her feet to contain her rage The take-away philosophy here? When goddesses rage, even gods must kneel—or pour the wine. Arefa Tehsin is a Colombo-based writer and environmentalist
