A promising journey

When I spoke about my travel destination for this month to my friends, I received a lot of ponderous ‘umm’s’ and ‘are you sure?’ and ‘why do you want to go there and do that?’ I shrugged them all off but I did have my unsaid misgivings about the trip. The past few weeks in Bangalore have been horrendous with the clogged and water logged roads resulting in torturous commute lasting for hours to cover distances in single digit kilometres. Rains has never been a favorite with the city. It just cannot handle it. Will the rains follow me all the way till there?

Attappadi is known for its unpredictable nature but that’s its ultimate beauty too. Something which can never be said about a city like Bangalore which is ripping at its seams. I didn't think much but went ahead and plunged headlong in to my adventure. The place was rather unknown to me except for what I have read and heard about in bits and pieces. A tribal settlement, one of largest in the state of Kerala, the place has always mesmerized me by its mysterious allure; of history, culture and the sheer beauty that is nature.

The day finally dawned. I was slightly behind schedule as I kept whacking the alarm and snoozing it a couple of times. But none of it curbed the excitement and relief at getting out of the madness that was Bangalore, during the past few weeks. I boarded the day express to Palakkad at around 7 in the morning and found myself allotted a window seat to my pleasure. As we kept moving further away from the city the rains wouldn’t catch up. They left us somewhere in the middle of Tamilnadu. I almost gasped at the sight of the sun like a fish would, if it got its first gulp of water when it most needed it. The rains had engulfed us for a bit too long.

Music, reading, blank staring in to emptiness, some chatter with a live wire of a 12 year old… I got the time to do all of this and I was already well oiled to what awaited me by the time I reached Palakkad. I joined a group of friends, old and new, the new turned old at the end of the journey. That’s what experiences do to you; they fast forward time and get you where you want to be.

The taste of the wayside lunch at a very unassuming ‘hotel’ will stay with me for a very long time to come. The display of “Chinese, Tandoor and what not” drained the digestive juices that were on a roll from the time I got dreaming of a Kerala lunch. We still went inside as we didn’t have time on our side. It was already close to 3 pm and lunch at that hour was a rarity in those parts. To top that, one  among us was turning almost suicidal due to hunger pangs and we didn’t want to take a risk. I yelped in pleasure when I heard that ‘meals’ were available. What followed once the food was brought were very long moments of silence. I could hear our souls being fed. Lunch done, we ventured out. The road ahead was a dream thanks to the fish curry in coconut paste and the beef fry (oops, did I say that too loud?) which did wonders to our palates. The ascent towards our destination was enjoyable and spare some troublesome big buses carrying loads of enlightened pilgrims from a nearby Christian retreat centre there wasn’t much to take the joie de vivre from our drive.

After a 2.5 hour drive from Palakkad we reached Agali, one of the better known areas in this region. The rest houses and the few hotels are in this area. A yellow board with faded letters read PWD Rest House, Class 2, Agali. “We are guests of the State for two nights. How does that feel?” I smiled in answer. The place had a very old time feel complete with the pink paint on the walls and the iron grills on the windows. There was a parapet which marked out the rooms and provided the new gen ‘lounge feel’. The room was Spartan yet spacious. The fan wouldn’t think of going any speed lower than full on. The bathrooms were musty but clean. The water was brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr and there was no hot water available. The inn keeper was a fragile sweet looking old man who would smile to all that you had to tell him. I didn’t want to upset him in anyway and hence decided to brave the cold and take a plunge at that. My friend was smarter and managed to gather a bucket of hot water for his bath.

This trip wasn’t just an exploratory one; well, at least not just at one level. I joined this group of old students from Sainik School Kazhakkoottam, Trivandrum who are  on a mission of prepping up 24 boys from various provinces in the tribal settlement of Attappadi to gain them entrance to that prestigious school in Kerala. The Old Boys from the batch of '91 lead a project that aims to foster, in the long term, Defence Officers from the Scheduled Tribe community in Attapadi. As of now,  the Attapadi tribal community has no recorded presence of Scheduled Tribe Officers in any of our nation's armed forces. I was completely impressed with this noble endeavor  which speaks of such genuine effort from the conscientious Old Boys of '91 and joined them to be part of their journey over the weekend.

The highly competitive All India entrance exam to the Sainik school has papers on Maths, Malayalam and logical reasoning. When they first came in the kids had little or no knowledge of these subjects. They are now able to converse well in the Malayalam and are getting smarter at solving problems with minimal help. All this within the span of six months or 25 Saturdays or over 100 hours, whichever way you want to look at it.

It might sound like an easy task but when you consider one couple donning myriad hats of teacher, administrator, foster parent, driver and provider, it gets overwhelming. The funding of it is one aspect but the actual doing of it is another ball game altogether.

Babu and Litty are a couple who work with the youth. They run a registered organization which focuses on the development of their socio emotional health. In Babu’s own words “we cannot promote ourselves in any other way. Our work should speak for us”. They conduct workshops in schools and colleges and are well acclaimed for what they do.

The project Shine, as it is called, (in memory of an old student from Sainik School) is the current assignment for the duo. I came face to face with the work of these two people who are completely wed to this project of making a difference to these little unexposed lives around there. And the difference is for everyone to see. From being a bunch of silent and apprehensive boys who wouldn’t budge from where they were asked to sit, they have grown to the extent of being able to let go of themselves in foreign company. And it was such joy to watch them do that… watch them being kids; boisterous, carefree, trusting and so very affectionate.  

For the classes on Saturday, the kids gather at the government run center called AHADS (Attappadi Hill Area Development Society) and we were there well ahead in time to receive them. One thing which struck me was how much at home they felt at this place. They were being children; naughty yet not footloose; playful yet completely respectful and obedient of their 'teacher'. I couldn't see or feel in them any of the trepidation of being in a school-like atmosphere and of being with people who they know for less than a year . Looks like the 100 plus hours across the last six months packed in much more than that.

There were close to 20 kids who came in to the centre with their forms that Saturday but there was this one little boy who quite caught my fancy. From the time I was there, he was curiously yet silently following me around looking at all that we did and taking it all in. At the first go, he appeared to be a timid boy but when he was out with his friends I saw that he was a real boy down and out ; creating gleeful ruckus with his fellows. Each of those boys stood apart from the other with their own respective personalities.  
That Saturday was set to sort out administrative issues prior to submitting the application forms for the entrance exam. There were three different kinds of certificates that were required and the red tapism that was involved was no joke. The one upmanship showed by officials at the offices saw the parents of these kids waiting for hours on end to get their work done. That’s when the higher authority got involved and things went on smooth after that.
We celebrated our accomplishment by setting out with the kids to the next hub in Attappadi- Puthoor. Situated at an elevation the stretch on the road was a treat… the sight of green and blue around and above, the magical sound of water gushing from the streams as we went up, the fresh smell of green and firewood…We went on for around 13 kilometres and reached at a point where driving ahead wasn’t the best option. An old teashop on the left was the cue for us to stop right there. I have never been a fan of black coffee, I hate the taste it leaves in your mouth. But I did drink a glass of hot black coffee from here and it changed my perspective. You wouldn’t expect crispy cookies to be served along with the steaming glasses of coffee but that’s what we got.  The kids were thrilled and dug in to the cookies.

We decided to walk up to see what lay ahead. The brisk walk uphill along with the hot coffee would have done its work…. there was a sudden announcement from one of the kids….. He needed to do his business. The next moment saw him jump in to the nearest bush. While it was amusing it also made me think how un- self-conscious they are and how one they are with the nature around them. One part of me wanted them to remain this way while something else told me that they needed to move along with the times and see what the world around is all about. They cannot lag behind. They are far too smart for it. The world ahead can definitely use a mix of their innate and untouched goodness along with the untapped talent that is being honed right now.

Attappadi is a treasure house of untapped potential; she is an untouched woman full of promise. Unpredictable and mysterious, there is something new you learn about her every time you interact with her. 
One thing is for sure, no one who has been part of this project, is the same from what they were. There is so much that has been added on to each one of those who have been involved in the project in one way or the other: student, teacher, parent, friend, a fellow traveller…..

I speak for what I saw and experienced.