9th February 2023, 20:36
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| BHPian Join Date: Aug 2022 Location: Bengaluru
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| Memories of Borra Caves and Chilika Lake Declaration: I am not an artificial intelligence programme, and the pictures are not deep fakes. I am a human, who can distinguish the scent of spring from that of autumn in the breeze, and who yearns for a sentiocentric planet amidst gaslighting and post-truth narratives. If one wishes to drive endlessly without the payoff of seeing too many touristy places along the way then one must try out this route. In the last week of December, I drove all the way from Bengaluru to Satpada (pronounced Satpara) over the course of 8 days. I wanted to drive through the eastern ghats, as I have heard from many that the route is very scenic; see Borra caves and Chilika Lake (interior and the mouth where it meets the sea). Incidentally, the eastern ghats are much older than their western counterparts. They were formed when the Indian subcontinent was still a part of the Gondwana landmass several billion years ago. The texture of the trees is very different from what we see in the core western ghats. Some years back I drove from Kanyakumari all the way till Rameshwaram and Puducherry. So with this we had completed a fair amount of the Coromandel coast. Beautiful Godavari at Rajahmundry  NH 16 after Rajahmundry   The itinerary included a night in Vijaywada, a couple of days in Vizag, a trip to the Barkul area of Chilika, and a day trip to Satpada (to see the Irrawaddy dolphins).While coming back, we simply retraced our path with a night's stay at Vizag and Vijaywada. The national highways that we covered,
In this travelogue, I am going to touch upon my observations of Borra caves. The final frontier The cave entrance  Beautiful Ananthgiri hills, Araku valley  The source of the name, Borra or hole  Generally, what I have observed is that from the middle of December until the middle of January, the number of people visiting places in India is higher than during Diwali or Durga Puja. This is because even government schools take their students on day excursions or field trips (as urbanites like me call it) to places of historical or geographic interest. Furthermore, the weather is favorable, with little chance of rain and excessive heat. Borra caves are situated in the Ananthgiri hills of the Araku valley in the Alluri Sitharama Raju district of Andhra Pradesh. The purpose of visiting Borra caves was to see the columns, stalagmites, stalactites, and flowstone draperies, all of which are classified as Speleothems. The valley as well as the upper part of Andhra Pradesh and southern Odisha are rich in bauxite and other sought-after minerals, so there's an eternal battle for land rights between the indigenous tribes and the bourgeoisie. Reaching Borra caves was quite an expedition for us. The road to the cave is very narrow, so buses and vans (like tempo travellers) need a fair amount of clearance around the bends. As a result, uphill or downhill traffic had to be stopped before the bends so that these big vehicles could turn around the bends. Like this, we had to climb the mountain. It took nearly an hour to climb 5–6 km. After reaching the cave, we saw a sea of people at the ticket counters, there were two queues, one for men and another for women. Needless to say, the ladies' queue was shorter, more organised, patient, and disciplined. The queue for the gents looked less like a queue and more like a scatter plot of the income distribution in our country. I asked my wife to stand in the ladies' line, as that gave us some hope of seeing the caves on this visit. Out of curiosity, I went to see how on earth a straight line could degenerate into a scatter plot. At one point, I thought maybe someone was giving a free demonstration of how to capture election booths, as that was more relevant given the series of elections lined up in various states in 2023. Honestly, I could not figure anything out, and I also didn't have the courage to go to the front of the line and get squashed for no fault of mine. Finally a police constable arrived and redeemed his pledge to restore peace and order in the society. Within 30 minutes we got the ticket and entered the reserve. The sun was scorching, it was sweaty and humid, and it was difficult to convince oneself that it was December. On reaching the cave we saw another sea of people walking down or coming up the stairs of the gigantic cave entrance, but here we were far better disciplined than we were at the ticket counters. One good thing about Borra is that the mouth of the cave is very big, much like Amarnath Cave, but the stairs are not even as they are stone cut, so the chances of falling or missing a step are high enough. I told my family to be behind me, hold my hips, and follow me like sheeps do; and I followed the Lord as my good shepherd. My body was trained to handle and survive the pushing and elbowing in the pandals of Santosh Mitra Square, Deshopriyo Park, College Square Durga Puja, and the like, so this was not much of a feat for me. Despite having been out of practise for over two and a half decades in pushing and elbowing in Kolkata puja pandals, I was relieved to see that my skills remained intact. The Gosthani river flows through the Borra cave, and millions of years of erosion by the humic acid in the water have carved remarkable Speleothems on the carbonate rocks. The entrance of the cave is like a giant castle doorway to the underworld. This is unlike the Patal Bhuvaneshwar cave in Pithoragarh, where one has to wriggle to enter the cave. Be it any cave in India, one will find mythological lores and faces of our pantheon of Gods - Ganesha, Mahadev, Shiv-Parvati, sentinel beings like mother-child, tiger, lion, bear, snake, rabbit and what not in these structures. The restless and creative human imagination has always found a muse in these Speleothems. Once a Bhandari priest cum guide in Patal Bhuvaneshwar told me an interesting story about a stalagmite and stalactite. He told me that when these two pillars meet it will be the end of Kaliyug or the much awaited apocalypse. He also pointed me to a dark, narrow passage that he said led to Kashi. I wonder how our mind yearns for moksha and what better metaphor than Kashi (Varanasi). I was looking for a guide as without one it's impossible to enjoy the cave, but it was mission impossible to find one in this sea of sapient beings. By a fortunate stroke of serendipity one person approached us and offered to be our guide. This gentleman was a member of the Porja tribe, one of the indigenous tribes of the Araku valley. He told us how the ancient dwellers of the valley discovered this cave and started to worship the geological formations here. And as thousands of years went by, Hinduism gradually interlaced with the animistic tribal beliefs. I have read that even before this place was visited by the local tribes, palaeolithic people used these as cave shelters. The guide showed us some interesting geological features and surprisingly told us the same story of a wormhole to Kashi, he showed us a secret passageway that leads straight to Kashi! We took around one and a half hours to fully explore the cave, in the end, I asked him what his fees were, and he said Rs 200. I thought that was too little, and I paid him handsomely. Also, I strongly encouraged him to continue this work and be in this place where his forefathers once lived harmoniously with nature. After coming out, we had the much-famous bamboo chicken of Araku, it's a traditional way of cooking meat inside bamboos without oil. The meat is marinated in masalas before being stuffed into bamboo with their mouths sealed with broad leaves and thrown into the fire. They sell it by weight, and we took around half a kg. They also make biriyanis like this, but we didn't try that. I was amazed by their sense of proportion and timing, they knew exactly when to take the bamboos out of the fire - if too early, one would get half cooked poultry staring at us and if overcooked, it would be charcoal. A requiem in the making As the water flows through the cave, the interiors are very cool but due to human activities, sound and material pollution, the cave is completely devoid of any flora or fauna, except for an impressive population of bats. To learn about the rich fauna that exists in any cave, one must see the episode "Caves" from the Planet Earth series of David Attenborough. Unfortunately, the fate of the Borra caves is uncertain due to the following factors. The DBK (Dandakaranya-Bolangiri, Kibur) railway track is laid above the cave, one can hear the faint rumbling in the cave when a train passes by. Further, there's a distinct fault-line through the centre of the cave. Man-made vibrations would undoubtedly cause subsidence along this fault line over time.Further, what took the geological structures millions of years to form is constantly defaced by us. Further, the lack of biodiversity (microorganisms and larger life forms like reptiles and mammals) inside the caves is damaging the natural equilibrium. Microorganisms play a crucial role in stabilising the subterranean soil chemistry. If you have not visited Borra then plan a visit sometime and pay special attention to the variety of Speleothems inside the cave. A column forms when a stalagmite and stalactite meets (a process of over several million years )  Various forms of flowstone draperies   This is a remarkable formation of a flowstone   This flowstone took millions of years to form and defaced in a couple of seconds  The fault line in the cave  Bamboo chicken   Some memories of Chilika NH 16 near Barkul  First view of Chilika from NH 16, reminded me of seeing Pangong Tso like this from the mountains   Kalijai mata island  We were here! Wherever we go this is a distinct signature left behind by us. Whether a Ramsar site or not, it's up to us to care and respect every natural treasure on this planet  A couple fishing on the lake  A cloud formation that looks like a pair of swans  A rustic scene in Barkul, Odisha  My hometown  Our boatsman  While returning home, on one of the ghat roads over a forest area, we saw a couple of rhesus macaques who became victims of a road kill, probably they were foraging at the side of the road when a vehicle ran them over. By body count there were at least four to five monkeys squashed to death, with blood all over the road. Animals are not safe even in their own territories. It's time the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways of India ran awareness campaigns among bovines, caprines, ovines, and local wildlife on safe usage of national and state highways and our right of passage. Tips for Satpada There are several private operators inviting tourists from the state highways, just keep driving to the land's end where there's a government kiosk for hiring boats. They charge Rs 1200 per boat for dolphin safari. To see the dolphins, early morning is the best time, after 12 noon they disappear into the sea. Ask the majhi-bhai to switch off the boat engines, then they will come very close to the boats - they are equally curious of about us as we are about them. Last sunset of 2022  |
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10th February 2023, 05:07
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11th February 2023, 07:47
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| BHPian Join Date: Mar 2022 Location: Bardhaman
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15th February 2023, 21:17
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| BANNED Join Date: Jan 2023 Location: Hyderabad
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