An Ode To The Jungles of The Great Chhota Nagpur Plateau- Hirak Dasgupta

There is no loneliness more profound than what is felt in the heart of a busy city amid a thick crowd buzzing, fretting, and quivering in servitude. The modern city is supposed to be the epitome of civilization. And yet, it has nothing to offer to the soul. To the wanderlust, the city is reserata carcerem – a prison without locks. 

In the heart of the forestlands beyond the fringes of civilization lies Eutopia. Nature is at her best and most unforgiving in the mountainous terrain of the Chhota Nagpur plateau. The rolling old-fold mountains crisscrossed by small rivers and ravines harbor the most venomous snakes and insects, and elephants and jackals. They hide under the dense green shroud of the evergreen sal, mahogany, teak, sheesham, and other trees I cannot name. And yet, these emerald patches have more warmth in their bosoms than the most civilized parts of the city.

It is the presence of the living tissue as opposed to the lifeless concrete that makes these forests special. No lies. No deception. No spreadsheets. Money – paper or plastic – has no meaning to the great banyan trees and the baby foxes curling in their cubbyholes between the roots. 

Red gravel tracks start where the tarmac ends and take wandering nomads to the banks of enormous lakes retaining water the year round for the fauna. You can watch the sun rise and paint the terrain in vermillion in the wee hours. The sunsets are equally magnificent – the shimmering waters of the rivers and the lakes dissolve our great star’s splendor one ray at a time and the great woods stretch their shadow across the landscape until everything is swallowed by the night. And that’s when the trill of the cicadas begins. It’s an overture to an enthralling opera to be played till the sun rises once again. 

Crack! A branch breaks somewhere. An owl hoots from a distant tree. Leaves rustle in the vicinity. Is it an elephant? Is it a Kalach snake in search of baby cobras? The woodlands teem with life even in the nights. You can glimpse some of it in the glow of your campfire. A pair of glowing eyes. Something slithering quickly past your tent. But nothing there to strike you unprovoked. The elvish dwellers of the forest realm are too afraid of humans. We have been consuming their abode a hundred thousand trees at a time every day since time immemorial. And yet, none of the forest beings want to harm you. Man-eaters exist but not in the paradise of the Chhota Nagpur plateau. 

I have a condition of the heart. City life makes me vacillate between sanity and lunacy. The proportion of sanity declines rapidly after a few months of enduring city life and there is nothing I can do to keep myself within the confines of the towering buildings and glitzy malls. So, I must break free from time to time to let the dopamine and serotonin level up. It used to be a motorcycle. Now, it’s a rust-bucket of a car that takes me to the heart of the Great Plateau’s woodlands. The Chhota Nagpur Plateau is vast. It stretches across Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh. Some say the Great Plateau is the oldest landmass to have risen above the primordial oceans. Its 540-million-year-old rocky surface carries more minerals and biodiversity than most places on Earth. 

Civilized humans have done what they do best, though. Numerous filthy cities dot the plateau, growing larger every day and turning the freshwater reserves brinier. Countless mines burrow into the soil in search of minerals and leave the landscape gutted and treeless. Factories scorch the azure sky faster than it can heal. At this rate, the Great Plateau won’t last another millennium.   

The lore of the Santhals stretches back a few thousand years, describing the grandeur of the ancient forests of Chhota Nagpur and its omnipresent spirits. If you listen carefully, you can hear the faint sound of the Maadal drums echoing in the distance on quiet winter nights in the jungle. Last winter, I spent some time with an old tribesman in Belpahari, right at the heart of Bengal’s portion of the Great Plateau. His eyes welled as he told me how poverty had driven the young folk to the cities only to be crushed under the bootheels of the Babus. It’s a tragedy that has been repeating since the days of the Raj. The jungles don’t belong to the Santhals anymore. The Babus can do whatever they want with them. 

The fading forests of Chhota Nagpur still have the healing touch to cast city fatigue out of asylum seekers like me. You need only lose your way in the jungles and try and listen to the distant call of the elephants. And if you are a wanderlust like me, you may set about counting the stars at night when the stillness of the prehistoric world descends on this patch of green. 

About the author

Hirak is an author, columnist, and activist from Durgapur, West Bengal.