Huan Tsang, the famous Chinese traveler once said – Traveling a mile is more knowledgeable than reading ten books about that place.
I always cherished sharing the adventures (or sometimes misadventures) of my journeys but somehow never bothered to pen them down but mind you this one was more than a roller coaster ride to let it go-“Jungle all the Way”.
I got a call from Tension asking whether I will join them to tour Bhadrachalam. Bhadrachalam is located in Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh. It is a pilgrimage place where people go to worship Lord Rama .It is believed that He lived the last years of his “Vanavasam” here and the place became all the more important when in the 17th century a great devotee of Lord Rama, Ramadasu, the Thahasildar (tax collector in those days) of that place, built the famous Bhadrachalam Temple for Him.
Few days before the call it happened that Tension, Pammi and Genghis went to stay in Subbu’s house after a 2nd show movie where they had the pleasant nostalgic experience while they were watching our Kerala tour photos (one more thriller tour that we had but I was lazy enough not to write about this tour –sorry folks).All of a sudden they realized they wanted to see Bhadrachalam and in a day or two things around them, including me gained momentum in that direction. As usual, the eternal CAT aspirant, Vinod had very reasonable reasons not to join us. Meanwhile Subbu spearheaded the logistics department, Tension and Pammi assisted him and Dada was saving money for the tour as he decided not to pay anything less than Rs 150 to the auto driver for traveling to the station.
The train started at around 9:15 pm, on Friday, 14th July 2006.As usual I was the last to reach the station. We had some time to settle down, mean while on the platform Subbu was already into form, cracking Tension-Centric jokes. As the train left the out skirts of Hyderabad we already had our hands on the packed food packets. Early in the morning we got down at Nididivolu, got into a Sumo and headed directly for Subbu’s aunt’s place.
The house happened to be a quarter provided to the employees of the nearby sugar factory –Subbu’s uncle was a senior employee there. The ambience was of a calm country side house, full of trees within the compound and surrounding it. We had hot-hot Upma and Pesarattu on the terrace after a refreshing bath (of course after a never-ending Dada’s bath).Subbu’s aunt had packed us some sweets and buttermilk for the journey on the river Godavari. We were thankful to her and bade her good-bye as we started for Pattuseema . Just as we got down from the car we could see the huge river Godavari (it was not even flowing half to its capacity).Someone interrupted our engrossing look into the nature before us. At that point we never knew that this person’s presence would be of immense importance for reasons both good and bad. This person was the person in charge of our travel on the launch. His name was Thathaji. We went in the boat across the river to visit a temple on a hillock. The launch stopped half way through because the width of the river at that time was just half of its full capacity. We walked across the river bed to the hillock, on the very soft alluvial soil, all the while taking photographs of each in that very rear instance. The temple had deep mythological significance attached to it (this was narrated to us by the priest of the temple).By the time we got back onto the launch it was already 11:30 and we were all alone on the river with Thathaji and his two assistants. Breakfast was served to us after which got onto the roof of the launch. We had good time taking innovative photos, munching on things we packed for ourselves. By afternoon we reached the famous Papi Kondalu. On the way we visited a local deity’s temple on the banks of the river. Our lunch was on a mountain resort adjoining Papi kondalu and it was already late by then so we started off at around 3:30 pm to our destination –a tribal village called Pochavaram. We reached that place a little late in the evening at around 6:30 pm .The village was a located on the banks of the river surrounded by mountains, full of thick forests. As we climbed to the village (it was on an elevated location just touching the river bank), to our utter astonishment, it was one of the remotest location ever visited by any one us. There was not even a single pakka house in the whole village let alone the bus stand, the auto stand and the transport facility we were dreaming of. The tribes, their dressing, their lifestyle everything was pretty evident from things around us. One thing that was striking to me in the midst of that confusion was the features of the tribes. They had a very short built, relatively long limbs-they were expert hunters, their large eyes below a thick line of eyebrows, short noses and short curled hair.
In this helm of happenings here came our great Thathaji saying sorry for not informing us about our strange destination. Thathaji was struck by a great idea, he suggested us to walk about 6km in the forest to the nearest village so that we might get some transport from there and more importantly that he could get rid of us. It was already 7:00 pm when we convinced Thathaji that it was his mistake and responsibility of showing us the way out now lay in his hands. We got onto the launch in the dark and sailed ominously over the river to the next village-Geedikuppa. Now the time also was against us, nothing was visible from the launch top except for few lights in the distant lands and open sky with stars staring down on us.
There was this person the assistant of Thathaji, a very experienced driver, a person belonging to one of the local tribes, he drove the launch for us against all odds. The launch stopped somewhere in the dark, Thathaji flashed a torch light on the huts which were hardly visible because there was only one street light in that village. We climbed the slope again to enter the village but this time it was more dangerous since the soil was slippery and wet and the slope itself was very steep. I thought I should congratulate Genghis and Subbu for achieving that feat and also Pammi for getting rid off his stomach ache (our lingo for that kind of trouble-dikki lona). Thathaji called out for some of the villagers to arrange an auto for us so that we could jump to the nearest town called Kolavaram where we could take a bus to Bhadrachalam, hopefully. From somewhere out of the dark there stood an auto in front of us. Guess what? There was no head light for the auto and we supposedly had to travel for 10 to 15 km in the deadly darkness through the dense forest! The auto driver had arranged for an awfully powerful torch light (now you understand what I mean) for the journey. Mean while Subbu and Tension had to negotiate with Thathaji for the amount we had to pay and finally after the payment we bade him “Good Bye!”
Now we were on for one of the scariest journeys in our lives. There were a total of 11 people crammed in a single auto including the driver and his three assistants and also our luggage, heading for Kolavaram with almost no light, in a dense forest, a naxal affected area. Add some more spice to it!-that was a Ghat road which we knew only after we reached half way through. Dada, sitting beside the driver, claimed he saw a crocodile and a snake on the road. Don’t know what he saw but I thought to myself that it was surely a neuro-psychiatric effect. Finally, by God’s grace we reached Kolavaram and it was already 10 pm by then. At that time the whole town was asleep and we expected some God sent bus to be waiting for us. Subbu and Tension went into the town with a person who claimed he knew someone having a Tata Sumo only to return having lost the sight of the person in the dark. Meanwhile we waited in the auto with all our luggage. Time was running out, so we requested the auto driver to help us find some other auto which could take us to Bhadrachalam which was still about 50 km away. The auto driver went into the town and this time we could breathe a sigh as we could see the other auto coming towards us. We paid the first auto driver and he escaped into the surrounding darkness.
That dreadful night was not over yet. The other auto driver was completely drunk, he couldn’t even walk properly let alone driving the auto! I and Subbu had a little talk and decided not to get into the auto even if we had to stay back in the town as nothing was ok with the other auto driver. Mean while a trolley loaded with beer bottles arrived to nearest the wines shop which was the only shop open. We heard the driver of the trolley shout that it was already late and the trolley had to go back to Bhadrachalam. I went up to the trolley driver and requested that we would accompany him on his way back and the trolley driver agreed to it. Alas, the drunken auto driver was already getting notorious as he wanted an amount of 400 rupees paid before we could send him away and get into the trolley. He was shouting at all of us threatening to call his aides to the scene who were supposedly members of the Communist Party. Finally with help of the few locals, who were enjoying the scene, we could get rid off the auto driver with 75 rupees. Was it over at last? After all this we had to wait for more than 1 hour for the trolley to be unloaded as it had many beer bottles broken on its way to Kolavaram. Then finally at 12:30 am we got into the trolley and reached Bhadrachalam at 1:30 am in the night.
At last the next day we were granted the sight of Lord Rama’s idol in Bhadrachalam temple. By His grace, from there onwards we were able to visit all the neighboring pilgrim places without any further hick ups and return Hyderabad safely.
