Soldier from the Sixth Bend

Charles Dickens would start his tales of two cities thus: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness….” Often, I used to wonder whether we too are living in such times, especially when I used to spend the moonlit nights at the Sixth Bend.

Yes, Sixth Bend is a purgatory…half way between heaven and hell…pure Havana Cigars.  You have the warmth of nature undisturbed, and not at stone throwing distance, you have the mad rat race and commotion, through the night.  Irony of controversy, man has become 

Off Sixth Bend, a small hamlet of 50 cents is owned by a retired solider, Mr. Gangadharan, who is presently a farmer who tries to cultivate nutmeg.  Retired twice, first from the army and then from a bank, our man decided to call it a day.  He retired and saw a place for himself (literally) amidst what is left over of the greenery of the Coonoor slopes.   The nutmeg saplings are planted time and again, to be trampled by elephants or the gaurs.  Still, Gangadharan doesn’t budge, he keeps planting, on the hope that he will one day succeed, while the priority and right of way is that of the wild animals.  Whatever is left over of their feed, he happily accepts.  By the way, Gangadharan’s property, unlike the nouveau rich apartment dwellers, is not a gated property, with electric fence or compound demarcated; it is just an extension of the once well sprawling semi-evergreen patch of the southern slopes of the Nilgiris, and now what is little left out of the native vegetation.  

Communication with Gangadharan is next to impossible in the present context; he still lives in an age where the smart phones were not invented.  With luck one can get his number, and communicate.  The routine is that he goes to Then Tirupathi, a temple off Mettupalayam on all first Saturdays, when one can easily contact him and request his availability.  Gangadharan is also an herbal doctor of sorts, with many proven positive records.   His believers come to him from far and wide and get cured too. 

My relationship with him is that of a friend, a human to the core, a conservationist, a philanthropist, a kind hearted person in a nutshell.  He too has had his ups and downs in his personal life; still he takes life as it comes, and at times which I observed was with a saintly magnanimity.

My birding and butterflying days started at Sixth Bend way back in late 2012 by introduction to Gangadharan, by my good friend Krishnamurthi.  I used to go there very often, early in the morning to capture the early morning birding activities.  Slowly the bond thickened and I used to stay overnight during weekends, when I fully understood my DSLR as well as birding.  That was the same time when I started my butterflying too.  I enjoyed the evenings lying down on the rocks just looking up at the moonrise, early morning presented me with the songs of the Whistling School Boy (Malabar Whistling Thrush), followed by the chirrups of vernal hanging parrots, parakeets of all sorts, doves, Fairy Blue Birds to check on my bath close by.  The mid day raptor visitors like the Black Eagle and more often than not lying on my back at the rock I enjoyed the visits of gliding lizards and at one odd occasion the helicopter rotor swivel thundering rattle of the Great Hornbills  on the silk cotton tree. So were the mammals like barking deer, gaurs, and elephants.  At the Sixth Bend, elephants are considered as holy visitors; in fact they are expected day and night, round the year, especially during the fruiting season.   Elephant stories of Sixth Bend will require a blog of its own.

At the Sixth bend I discovered the world of the flying jewels.  I almost saw all my jewels for the first time from there.  The beauty is that I didn’t see them in isolation; I saw them along with bees, birds, reptiles and mammals.   Just to highlight, all my common sightings, like the tricky Common, Dark and Metallic Ceruleans; many a flat, Rings, Grass Yellows and Evening Browns, I’ve sighted from the Sixth Bend.  I had the privilege of watching the Common Jezebel in bloom, the Blue Admiral basking, the Sunbeams ovipositing from Sixth Bend.  The rarer Plane and Banded Royal were sighted from the property of Gangadharan for the first time.  Many a contemporary butterflying enthusiasts like M/s, V.K. Chandrasekaran, Ramesh Veera, Ramasamy SRK, Vinod Sriramulu, S Jeevith, Charles Nathan and my erstwhile boss and an eminent bird photographer Col. Antony Grossy had the privilege to visit the place.

Though Gangadharan doesn’t boast of his place and sell it online and public media, he is content with his hamlet, his true friends who share his vision, once entered you become his guest.  He treats you with whatever he has and lets you enjoy his property, which is whatever that remains of true nature.  

He had accompanied me willingly, without much ado in almost all my butterflying trips throughout the Southern slopes, more so during my walks at Kallar.  A personality with a difference, he is a true conservator to the core.  Gangadharan has to be emulated by all at this juncture.

Story courtesy - Manoj Sethumadhavan, Wellington, Coonoor