Finally, I obtain some advice that if I want to find a more natural area of the Godavari region, I have to go to Papi Kondalu. At least, there I will be able to contact the Forest Department. So away I go on the first bus that heads north, where I meet a most congenial Forest Officer. Satyanarayan informs me that I still have to travel further north to find the natural beauty that I seek. He intrigues me with the news that in Maredumalli, although it is not on the Godavari River, I will find a paradise. What is more, there is a guest house where I can find a room to stay. Good enough for me, away I go on the next bus heading north, for there is only one road north.

Since Maredumalli is quite small, I find the Forest Guest House without any problem. A young man manages the guest facility; his wife will cook meals for me. Immediately, he intrigues me by telling me he can take me to find wild peacocks. Oh, I surely am in paradise. We walk through the village, then through a tract of land where the Forest Department has planted with some spindly evergreen trees. Sure enough, soon we hear peacock cries. I am quivering with excitement as we slowly creep toward the sounds. Finally, I do spot one female. At that same moment, she spots me, so she disappears in a flash. I continue to hear their cries on many of my hikes, but I never see even another flash of one. I am beginning to think that they have peacock “plants” for the tourists. Well, maybe not… there are no tourists here at all.

The next day Satyanarayan arrives to prepare for an important Official of the Forest Department who will be visiting the following day from Hyderabad to inspect the plantations. Here they grow bamboo, a timber pine, and coffee, which has not done very well. Two days later, the Official, whom everyone has been awaiting, finally arrives. At noon, Satyanarayan and his assistant invite me to have lunch with them, a special lunch because of the visiting Officer.

“Wait a minute; something is not computing. There is a special meal because of the Officer? Aren’t you going to eat with him?”

“The lunch is only special for us. The Officer eats well every day because he always carries his own cook and groceries with him in his automobile.”

“But why aren’t you eating with him?”

“Oh, no. We are underlings; he won’t eat with us. He’ll just send his cook over with some food for us.”

“That is really strange. You are not exactly underlings; you run the operations here. It seems to me the director would want to be in contact with the managers.”

“Not over here. Believe me, the British Raj has been only replaced by the Indian Raj. There’s no noticeable difference for any of us—except those on the top rung of government, of course.”

So I eat lunch with these two fine young men on the verandah of the guest house on a tiny rickety table. Meanwhile, Mr. Official eats alone at the long dining table in the main guest house under a whirling fan. But I will have to say the spicy vegetarian dishes are the best I have eaten in a long time, so who am I to complain?

While talking to the officers, I find out there is a small village of the original indigenous tribal people in the nearby forest. The mountainous areas are dotted with these aboriginals, who were never bothered, or exploited, by the civilized society. Living in isolation, they maintain their own cultures and unique languages. However, in the past one hundred years, overcrowding on the traditional farm lands has prompted migration by the town folk to these areas for clearing and cultivation. This impact with civilization is changing their idyllic world.


Inevitably, the next morning, following Satyanarayana’s directions, I take off early to find the village. As I approach the village, I encounter what must be several of the poachers the officers were complaining about. (Of course, I will never tell.) About three-quarters way to the village, up ahead on the path, I spot a small band of hunters crossing the trail. When they spot me, they stop and stare, definitely with puzzled looks across their faces. From their scant apparel—bare breasts with loin cloths—and appearanced—dark skin and uncombed hair, I could be right on the Amazon. However, I do notice that they have very streamlined looking steel points on their arrows. I smile and greet them with the traditional palms together and “namaste.” This seems to satisfy them because they nod and disappear into the cover of trees.

Finally, I reach the small village, some twenty houses. Interestingly, none of them are made of the natural mud and thatch indigenous to these people. I find out they are government-issue: cement blocks with red-tiled roofs. These cottages will definitely be hotter in the summer and colder in the winter than their traditional mud and thatch huts.

Today the residents are out and about because a government agent is dispensing their monthly ration of free rice from a shed under a sprawling tree. They are quiet curious and friendly, but mostly concerned that I am walking through the forest alone. With minimal English, one man virtually commands me not to return to the forest because of the danger of tigers.

“Tigers? Have you ever seen a tiger?” I question him.

“No,” he shakes his head in a way that clearly says, “and I do not want to.”

“But if you haven’t ever seen one and you live here, it’s really doubtful that I’m going to find one.”

One thing is definitely noticeable: no garbage dump. There is no garbage dump because there is no garbage. No tin cans, no worn out shoes, no plastic bottles—nothing. The occasional plastic bag brought from town is used and reused until it actually disintegrates. Anyway, they always carry cloth bags on their infrequent shopping trips into town. In contrast, I spot a barren hillside nearby, a result of their slash and burn farming. I am amazed at difference from the Soligas who I encountered in B. R. Hills, who had meticulously preserved the vegetation. I do not understand why vegetation does not come back over these fields when they are abandoned. But it clearly does not, even after decades.

Since I have my general bearings, I strike out down a tiny foot path. Soon I am walking, wandering and watching through a wonderful shady forest. In my trekking about, I have see more song birds in this area than anywhere I have been, even in the Himalayas. I spot several unusual ones that I have never seen before and probqbly will never see again. The best one is the Malabar trogon, a medium-sized rusty colored bird with a long white tail; its red breast is topped with a thin white necklace. Several times I spot a bright red bird, but only in flight. It looks solid red, like a summer tanager, but I never find it in my bird identification book. Frequently, I see several varieties of blue birds, wagtails, bulbuls, kingfishers, doves, woodpeckers and the ever-present jungle myna, the only one that can be taught to imitate some human words and whistles.

As I reach a grove of towering trees, I feel a contentment rolling over me from being in their presence. Yet I keep having an intermittent nagging feeling that I am wasting time. How deep can the “doing something” morality be ingrained? Sitting on a rock watching the stream rippling by or listening to the water splashing over a precipice is not accomplishing anything, but somehow it is so satisfying. Then I spread my scarf on a bed of dried leaves and lie down. A cathedral of bright spring-green leaves reach up to the sky. I used to do this when I was a child, just lie and watch clouds, unencumbered by a hundred have to’s, want to’s, should’s—just being there, watching, beholding the wonderful creation. No accomplishments seem necessary in this space.

How magnificent is the forest world. I could use hundreds of words and still not begin to describe it. You must go, you must walk, slowly and gently, sit under the wide blue sky, breathe, watch, lie under a giant tree and ask it how long it has been living there. You must listen to the bird song, the rustle of the leaves, the chirping of the insects, and feel the breeze on your face. Observe a tiny gurgling stream—its waters, the sap of the tree, the blood in your veins are the same essence—the liquid form of universal energy. When you feel these things, you can begin to become a conscious being.

However, I have to admit there is one thing I seem to want to accomplish here; that is, to explore any new landscape. That evening the manager tells me there is another, bigger village about five kilometers farther down the same dirt road I followed today. So early the next morning away I go. Again, I hear peacocks, but I do not even bother to try to follow their call; I have learned that lesson. Along the way, I notice some of my favorite palms, the fishtail; however, they look quite unhealthy. When I go over to investigate one, I find a primitive ladder, made from bamboo and homemade twine, slashed to its trunk. Suddenly, I realize I have been walking for almost three hours and have not come upon any village yet, nor a single sign of humans, except this one bamboo ladder. I am hesitant, but decide to go on because the lane must be going somewhere.

Soon, I do reach a small village where I am lucky to find an English speaker: Nageswara Rao, the school teacher. A residential school here provides education for all the tribal children who live scattered throughout the countryside. He tells me that they are quite backward. The worse problem is their addiction to alcohol, engendered since infancy. It seems the natives in this area make toddy from the fishtail palms I was just observing. This toddy is much stronger than the usual palm toddy. Here at the residential school, the children are weaned from the liquor habit, but their parents give it to them when they go home for holidays.

“Why do they give alcohol to their children?”

“To make them more comfortable, and even to warm them on a cold winter’s night. They even will give it to the babies to help them go to sleep at night. If the baby is crying, they will give it a rag dipped in the toddy to suck on.”

“This is not exactly my picture of the idyllic tribal scene, but I don’t think this habit is common among the tribals,” I interject.

“You’re right, it’s very rare. Whereas, in general all the tribal children grow up nutritionally deprived, these cases are more severe. Here we would like to give one glass of milk a day to all the children. However, we only have three goats, so only the youngest children get any. But in their homes, there is never any milk available.”

I ask about the tribals’ diet in general. He informs me that all they eat is ragi, the brown millet, that they cultivate themselves. Of course, I know they also do some hunting because, in addition to the band with spears I encountered on the trail, I have seen a dove-trapping operation and a bag of small fish caught with a spear.

“I realize that ragi is very nutritional, but wouldn’t it be a good idea for them to have small vegetable gardens to supplement their diet?”

“Oh, no, they aren’t interested in eating any vegetables. They would only be interested in growing vegetables to sell at the market.”

“So they have bought into the Empire’s commercial crop idea. They want to make extra money?”

“Sure, they do.”

“What do they want money for? They have their free homes, their free rice. They grow their own ragi and brew their own booze.”

“They want to have transistor radios, and even televisions.”

“Televisions?” I honestly had forgotten they even existed.

“Sure, of course, they want to have televisions. Why shouldn’t they have televisions like everyone else in the world?”

I do not mention the reality that they will not be able to understand a word on television since it is all in English. The one government station runs one movie a week in the local vernacular, and most of these people do not even speak their state language of Telegu, but a only tribal dialect. Previously, I had heard about the agriculture programs run on television, which I assumed were for the rural folk. However, when I viewed a couple, I was flabbergasted to find out that all these programs are also in English.

After I leave the village, I find a pleasant spot under a shady tree to sit and think. So many questions, so few answers. How can these people know that they are living in a pristine paradise? I know they have every right to investigate, travel, make their own decisions, and choose how they want to live. Yet how can they possibly keep their wonderful simplicity out in the world? It appears that when materialism meets tradition, materialism surely wins. The Hindus do say the world is in a state of grossifying and darkening—back to the black hole, I suppose.

The village turned out to be ten kilometers distance, but I was lucky to get a ride on the back of a motorcycle for the last stretch back home. When I finally reach Maredumalli, the sun has just set, leaving us with a misty evening. The distant hills have disappeared in the fog, the near-by mountains have faded to gray-blue. I harken to a sonorous voice at the tiny mosque calling the Muslims to prayer. The sky flickers crimson as the crescent moon begins to gleam above the horizon. This time of the day is enchanting for me. In Vermont, I used to watch the crescent moon: crisp clear bright against a dark velvet winter sky. In contrast, here it has a tropical quality with the red and gray backdrop of the sunset, which gradually deepens, bestowing a rose glow to the crescent before it disappears behind the mountain.