What’s this? Some dirty dusters? Or some rather dingy dishcloths? No. Despite appearances to the contrary, this isn’t washing hanging out to dry. It’s sheets of latex, recently tapped from nearby rubber trees and poured into moulds and yes, now hanging out to dry.
Latex sheets drying outside a cottage
Collecting cup on a rubber plant
I was in in India, in Kerala, at Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary. Nearby was a village, where every household was growing some kind of cash crop: tea, coffee, bitter gourds, bananas … and maybe rubber trees. One household certainly was. They’d harvested the latex as shown in the second photos. They’d have collected about a cupful from each tree, every few days, before pouring it into trays in a thin layer to set, And now it was hanging out to dry properly before being sent away for further processing
In Kerala, while I as there, the monsoon had not long finished, and I rather like the evidence spotted through an open window back in Gurukula itself that had we been there then, it might have been just a little – wet.
Spotted through the window: umbrellas resting after the monsoon
Gurukula is a special place. For the last forty years it’s been a sanctuary for the rain forest which has suffered massive deforestation in the Western Ghats, causing almost irreparable damage to the habitat of thousand of plants and animals, and to our own ecosystem. I urge you to follow this link to read all about it.
Our few days in Gurukula were special too. We wandered freely in the lush grounds, and when nature called, we found a quiet corner- toilets were deliberately under-provided so we all took a part in fertilising the soil. Meals were taken communally: we all shared the cooking, the washing up, the tidying.
We explored the rain forest, an almost meditative experience with the sounds of water, forest creatures – macaques in the trees, rufous eagles above the canopy. What wasn’t meditative was the strangler fig. It grows up its host tree, those climbing tendrils thickening into sturdy sinuous branches, which strangle and kills the tree beneath which gave it life, becoming an extraordinary hollow tracery.
We explored the surrounding communities. During the 1940s, communist Kerala obliged landowners to sell their land cheaply, so all citizens were entitled to buy at a price they could afford. At first this worked well. Families worked the land in a diverse way, growing a variety of crops for their own use and selling the rest. These days – or when we were there anyway – there is a monoculture, with families taking whatever subsidy is on offer to grow the latest crop – till the price plummets. Tea, coffee, rubber, bitter gourds, bananas have all had their moments of glory before a crash. Families no longer grow the rich variety that kept them so well-nourished. 90% literacy means people are leaving the land to get work in the cities – call centres and so on. It doesn’t sound a success story.
The highlight of every day was sunset. We climbed a vertical and rather scary ladder on the water tower near the house, and then…. simply sat. We watched enchanted as the sun set over the Western Ghats. As the moon rose, the sky darkened and the stars emerged. Silence fell. And then, distantly, we heard two mullahs from two different distant mosques chanting their call to prayer – admittedly amplified by megaphones. This, together with a cascade of shooting stars, provided one of the most magical experiences of my life.
Young vanilla pods
Potting shed at Gurukula
Sandy plans his climb of the strangler fig
Umbrellas waiting for the monsoon
Bamboo plants
Latex sheets drying outside a cottage
A farmer demonstrates his Communist allegiance
Swimming water snake.
Six Word Saturday: a series of six words before I gave in and wrote …. rather more.
You’ve had a taste of my long-gone-month-long stay in India. From here to here. But I’ve not been entirely honest with you. I told you it was a holiday I took alone. That’s largely true. But for just over a week, right at the beginning, I was part of a small experimental tour put together by my ex-brother-in-law Simon. An Organic Adventure. About eight of us travelled through rural Karnataka and Kerala, looking at local ventures into organic and sustainable agriculture. If that sounds dull … well, you can’t have been there.
I have stories to tell. But it was the wildlife that always remains in my mind … even urban wildlife is so very different from good old English pigeons and magpies. In Bangalore it was wheeling and circling eagles. In Mysore it was enormous fruit bats coming out at nightfall, to find food; and by day there were the gossiping bovva- boy hornbills.
And in rural Karnataka it was frogs. We could see them constantly in the ponds near our lodgings, burping away by day and by night . The only thing that shifted them one morning was a rat snake, slithering around and looking for breakfast .
I used to go outside as darkness fell at 6 o’clock and listen. A complex symphony played out. First, a group of frogs would start their chorus, the noise intensifying until gradually becoming quieter again: then others would take over with their own ever-swelling sound. Crescendo … diminuendo. All through the night. Quite wonderful.
One day at a tea plantation at the edge of the woods (another story for another day) we suddenly – and I do mean quite suddenly – heard cicadas in the trees. From low beginnings the sound grew and grew, peaking at a crescendo so loud we had to raise our voices to make ourselves heard.. Then, just as suddenly , it died smoothly away to nothing.
My favourite sound? This. Every morning. Just as dawn broke, a whistling thrush – just the one – broke into song. It sounded just like some contented man, hands in pockets, ambling slowly down the street, whistling happily and aimlessly. And it made me happy too, every time.
And on our very first night in the rainforest, as I was unpacking, a whirring, clattering clockwork toy appeared from behind my rucksack. Only it wasn’t a clockwork toy. It was a very cross hawkmoth, complaining vociferously about being disturbed.
The cross and out-of-focus hawkmoth who chattered and clattered round our room.
Then there was our stop off in Nagarhole National Park with its snowy-headed Brahminy kites, its kingfishers and eagles: its bison, its warthogs, its spotted deer, its mongooses and – of course – its elephants.
But more than these I remember the simpler pleasures: watching cattle egrets on the backs of cattle, benefitting from the insect life that definitely did not benefit the cattle. Glimpsing a water snake surging across a placid pond. Going on a trek across the empty paths of the Western Ghats, spotting vine snakes, parakeets, macaques, rufous-bellied eagles…. and for some of our unfortunate team – not me for some reason – leeches, which left angry red welts behind when they’d loosened their grip.
No hornbill was going to wait around for me to take a snapshot. I saw no cicadas. I wasn’t clever enough to snap a Brahminy kite or an eagle. So my pictures don’t match the text. It’s just too bad. I can enjoy both and I hope you can too: souvenirs of memorable rural India. Tales of what we actually did there are for another day.
Eagles fly above Bangalore
Rainforest
Caterpillar
Millipede
More spider’s webs
Sunset by the river
The only gecko I ever saw in India
The Western Ghats
Frog
The strangler fig climbs up the host tree: then strangles the tree to death.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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