Phulkumari
By Arnab Mukherjee
11 Jul 2009
We stepped out on to the platform at Shahjahanpur early one Christmas morning. It was dark and very cold. Nevertheless, it was a considerable improvement over the agony we suffered the night before in our sleeper class compartment where, even after the combined effort of 6 people (all of whom were full grown adults), the glass shutter on one of the windows wouldn't budge an inch! Hopelessly under-prepared to defy the chilly winds that thus swept through, we were forced to resort to a bottle of Scotch to survive the ordeal. We hauled our luggage to the entrance of the station and boarded a bi-cycle rickshaw for the only bus stand in town. A pinkish hue had just started to color the eastern sky when we commenced on the 100 kilometer or so of freshly laid road, on a shabby, derelict jeep, that separated Dudhwa from Shahjahanpur.
Phulkumari stood near the entrance of her mud hut, weary of approaching strangers. We paused and smiled hoping that she would smile back and the ice would be broken. She didn't. We took a couple of measured steps towards her. She didn't seem to mind. Sudeshna, my wife, went forward and introduced herself. She reflected on what she heard for a few seconds and eventually smiled and mumbled back in broken Hindi. She turned and called out loud, apparently to her family, for, in an instant, a couple of kids, an elderly woman with a toddler hanging on her back fast asleep came from nowhere and the whole family stood queued in front of us as if awaiting marching orders. This was our first visit to a Tharu village.
True to her name Phulkumari stood with the demeanor of a queen, in front of her sprawling fields of mustard and other wild flowers. The flowers were beautiful and the beds were neatly arranged one after the other. We were ushered in to a courtyard bounded on three sides by mud huts with thatched bamboo roofs. Huge stacks of hay brought up the remaining side. The courtyard was neatly arranged with a charpoy placed under an asbestos shade and earthenware pots stowed away to one side. An incessant drone at one corner revealed a small quaint pig sty with chickens fluttering about while a parrot kept pecking at the small metal door of its cage.
We took our seat on the charpoy and sipped on to the cold water which was served to us. As we were unaware of their tongue and their Hindi being broken at best, conversation was limited to a few words here and there and sign language wherever applicable. So for example, phulkumari pointed at the pig and made a sign of eating with her hands and mouth to ask us if we wanted an authentic tribal pork preparation. We politely shook our heads, pointed at our tummy and smiled to indicate that we were not quite up to it!
The village is located very close to the Dudhwa National Park in the terai region of Uttar Pradesh near the Nepal border. The Tharu are a primitive tribe engaged in a number of activities typical of village folks like agriculture, rearing animals, as well fishing in the Sarda River that flows through the jungle close by.
Dudhwa is a prominent tiger reserve near the foothills of the Himalayas in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is an important yet lesser known eco-system of the country. The reserve spreads across acres of dense forest and sprawling meadows lined in the north by the Shivalik range of the Himalayas and occasionally dotted by lakes and swamps. It consists of the Dudhwa National Park and the nearby Kishanpur Sanctuary. The closest town Palia is about 10kms away and the nearest railhead for most tourists is Shahjahanpur. Bungalows run by the forest department inside the forest can be rented at nominal prices and the only place outside the forest but close to it is a very ordinary hotel run by the UP Tourism some 5 kms away.
The reserve is structured uniquely. The forest begins way before one enters the National Park, almost half way through the road joining Palia to the park. This road is infact a highway which cuts through the forest and passes by the Tharu village and heads towards Nepal. All along this road on both sides are marshy lands – an ideal scene for an action packed drama. The swamps are brimming with fish, snakes and hundreds of different smaller reptiles and insects. This obviously leads to a variety of water birds either in the water or perched on the lower branches, sitting dead still, and waiting patiently for movement below. Some of the branches are so crowded that they look either spotless white or brownish black depending on whether it's a flock of heron or commorant perched on it! Often one can spot a royal blue kingfisher, suddenly swooping down at full speed, scooping up a small fish from near the water surface and settling on another branch close by – all in one action. And all along, the higher branches remain occupied by the king of the skies – the eagles. One may find the dark brown Serpant eagle, Pallas' fishing eagle and the white feathered crested hawk eagle. They invariably remain perched on the bare branches of some dead tree often appearing like a mere extension of the branches, moving only to make a smooth, calculated descent with their huge wings flapping regally.
We spent around three days in Dudhwa. The mornings were usually cold and foggy with the fog gradually dying down by mid-morning. The foggy jungle in the early mornings was a breathtaking sight with the trees, the moss, the grass, the leaves all seemingly conspiring to create a mystical atmosphere - reminiscent of the woods of the fairy tales. One felt that at any moment Little Red Riding Hood could jump out onto the jungle path, with her wicker basket heading towards her grandma's place. The afternoons were pleasant – we would laze around Banke Taal and spot Barasingha's and black necked storks basking on the small islands on the lake. The Barasingha population is larger in the larger lake at Kishanpur, though – no wonder therefore that the banks of the lake turns out to be a favourite haunt of the tiger with pug marks visible all around.
The fog that picked up again by late evening was very dense and almost created zero visibility at certain stretches. It was in similar conditions that we had to drive back to Shahjahanpur for our night train. Through out the four hour stretch everyone in the car was dead silent – some sleeping, some praying, some too scared to even think. Eventually, after at least 4-5 narrow escapes and almost certain that we had missed the train, we reached Shahjahanpur only to find that our train hadn't even arrived – its arrival uncertain because of dense fog! There was a passenger train on the platform heading for Delhi. We ran to catch it. As luck would have it, we missed it!
The soft pink light at the rear end of the passenger train paled out and eventually disappeared as the thick white mist gradually engulfed the whole station. The few waiting passengers, wrapped in their shawls and huddled together beneath a single shade of the desolate platform, appeared like ghostly figures under the yellow halogen lamp illuminating parts of the platform. It was one-thirty a.m. Weary after a whirlwind few days at Dudhwa, and rendered numb by the frosty winter of northern India, we yearned to be home.
