CHAPTER 8
Champa Bai lived in a large house in one corner of the palace compound. Although within the palace walls, her house was so situated that it was possible to enter it without going through the palace at all. A postern gate, set low in the wall and opening out on a park, allowed those who so wished, to come and go without attracting notice. And it was through this gate, late in the evening when Champa Bai was giving her dance recital in the palace, that a man entered the compound and then the house, where he seemed to be a known visitor, because his entry was not obstructed. This young man, for he was young, had made himself completely at home in a deep armchair when Champa entered the room.
“Ah! Champa my dear, I thought you would never come. What took you so long?”
“Concern for your safety.”
“Why. Nothing can happen to me.”
“You are not safe here any longer, Preddy is going to betray you.”
The man rose slowly from the chair. He was tall and wiry. He held Champa by her shoulders, looking down into her eyes, “how do you know this?”
Champa gently pushed away his hands.” I overheard the king agreeing to hand over Maan Singh to the British. He has asked for a month’s time. You must get out of the state at once.”
“I will, my dear, I will.”
“Where will you go?” she asked, an anxious note creeping into her voice.
“Somewhere far away, but not too far”
“Well, what are you waiting for. Someone may come here looking for you, there is not moment to lose.”
“I will leave Champa, but not yet.” His arms went around Champa and pulled her close. His lips sought hers. The night was far advanced when a shadowy form emerged from the postern gate and melted into the darkness.
After coming out of Champa’s house, Maan Singh walked rapidly along dusty cart tracks, and over bridle paths which he seemed to know well. As the day was breaking he found himself on the banks of the river Narmada. The channel was about half a mile wide here and the current as fairly strong. Without a second thought, Maan Singh plunged into the water and struck out for the left bank of the river. He swam strongly, letting the current take him diagonally downstream. He seemed to heading towards a small island in the middle of the stream, little more than a sand bank, where he rested for a while. On the sands he drew an arrow pointing towards the south-east where the mountains were, and then he swam on the shore. The jagged crests of the mountains to the east were now clearly outlined on the horizon. Soon the sun would rise over the crests and the valley would be awash with light, but here as still some time before that happened.
On the left bank of the river was a small village which seemed still asleep, though ascending spirals of smoke from some of the huts showed that people were beginning to wake up. Walking swiftly, but silently through the village, the young man come to a small shed that stood in a clearing. Two men, by the look of them poor peasants, were trying to blow on a smouldering fire within the shed, so that they could brew some tea. The man walked up to the hut and untied a house that was stabled inside, nodded to the peasants and rode off towards the mountains. He rode at a steady trot, and had entered the shelter of the enveloping jungle before the sun was too high. But once within the forest, he did not stop but continued to ride. He stopped only when he came to the base of the hills. The forest was very thick here, almost primeval in its pillared glory. Stalwart trees of teak, of enormous girth and standing tall and straight, formed colonnades, but the forest was almost clear of undergrowth, the reddish laterite soil seeming to support only stands of teak and sal.
Getting off his horse and typing it to a young sal sapling, the young man whistled. His whistling was rather like the call of the koel, but this was winter, not the season for a koel to be calling. His call was answered and after a while Korku emerged from the forest, followed by another and then another Korku. These denizens of the forest were short and wiry with broad noses and thick lips; wrinkled and weather-beaten. All of them wore white loin clothes, and nothing else.
“How are you, my friends of the forest”?
They only smiled broadly in reply.
“And how are the gora log?”
A wizened old man who seemed to be the leader of the group came forward, “a big sahib cutting the forest. He, not a good man.
“Who is this sahib? What is his name?”
“Rambo sahib,” they chorused.
“You mean Rumbold sahib.”
“Yes, Rambo sahib.”
“Well, we will soon put a stop put a stop to all that. But I need some food first and then some sleep.”
The Korkus led the young man to a cave in the rock face, almost concealed by creepers and lianas that overhung the small opening. Maan Singh threw himself down on the straw that had been spread on the floor and slept soundly for many hours. When he woke up day light was filtering into the cave through the screen of branches and creepers and he could hear the alarm call of the brain fever bird crying brain fever, brain fever, somewhere far off in the forest. A large bowl made of out of dried gourde, containing a rough porridge of millets had been placed not far from his bed and Maan Singh ate this as he thought of the things that he had to do. “Marchu, Marchu,” he said softly, calling out to the young Korku who looked after him.
“Dada?” He was called dada, or elder brother by all the Korkus.
“Send word to the boys to collect at Bhimkund tonight. And call all the Korku elders as well. I want to speak to them.”
Bhimkund was a natural pool deep in the forest. By the side of the pool was a gigantic statue of Vishnu, recumbent under the raised hood of Sheshnag, the great serpent. The statue was covered in lichen and moss and it was clear that it had not been worshipped for hundreds of years. A giant bunyan tree grew close to it, some of its flying roots intertwining the statue. This abandoned temple had now become a Korku shrine, but it was the tree they worshipped, not the statue, and a heap of stones, brought there as oblation could be seen at the base of its massive trunk.
Gathered around the statue were that Korkus, sitting down on their haunches and drinking toddy out of leaf cups. Some smoked their earthen pipes, packed with home grown tobacco. “All right now,” said Maan Singh, stepping up to the pedestal of the statue and raising an admonitory hand. “Let Chief Bhumka come forward and speak!”
An old man, wizened and weather-beaten as the rest shuffled forward, carryinghis chillum with him. He spoke in hoarse, low voice. “Dada, you want me to speak, but I have no wish speak, because my heart is heavy. We Korkus are the children of the forest. Are we not my brothers?”
Everyone nodeed vigorously.
“The first Korku was born when the spirit of the forest, the greatest Bhumia of all, mated with the earth, which is our mother. We are children of the forest. No forest, no Korku. And it is the spirit of the forest that we worship in the sacred grove where Rambo Sahib is cutting down the trees. If you cut down an old tree in the grove, you cut down my hands and feet. You spill the blood of a Korku. Please stop this sahib from cutting down our sacred grove Dada! That is all I ask you, and in return the Koku will shelter you and protect you from the goralogwho are destroying our forest.”
“All right, take us there.”
The Korkus led Maan Singh to a box canyon that was enclosed on three sides by the sheer walls of the Dhupgarh massif-on the far side of the summit was the Pachmarhi plateau. The south side of this canyon was open and a stream of clear water thundered out through the defile. The floor of the canyon was covered by gaint trees of teak, behemoths whose pillared trunks rose straight as a column for seventy to eighty feet, before branching out into a broad crown. This abode of the giant teak was the sacred grove of the Korkus. “Look at this tree dada!” Said the old Korku, pointing to a stalwart of the forest, whose trunk had been neatly girdled by a deep incision which went all the way round the trunk at a height of about three feet. By cutting through the outer bark which carried nourishment from the roots to the crown, the poachers had passed a death sentence on the tree as effectively as though they had cut through the trunk. Deprived of life-giving nutrition, such trees soon withered and fell, thus providing the timber thief with a windfall. The fallen tree could then be quietly carried away in the dead of night, without alerting the forest guards who were usually listening for the tell-tale sound of the axe.
“Who carries away this timber Macchu. It will need a lot of this size.”
“They don’t have very far to carry it. They take it to the river and drop it there and it floats down to Rambo Sahib’s camp.”
“I see, simple and effective.”
“Yes dada, and when a log gets stuck in the rocks, he sends his men to see that it is set afloat again.”
Do the forest guards know this.”
“They don’t come here. This sacred grove is taboo for all outsiders, including forest guards. You are the only person who has seen it, apart from the Korku of course.”
“All right, take me to the camp at night and then leave the matter to me. I promise you, after tonight, no one will ever enter this grove.”
