JOIN USEvery year, knowingly or unknowingly, I stumble upon a little treasure in my own backyard and am surprised by what I find.
Very often it is serendipity that leads me towards an interesting discovery. I have found the ruins of a floating church in the backwaters near Shettihalli, a hero stone or a virakkal buried inside a coffee plantation near Hassan, cave paintings from the prehistoric period near Anegundi, to name a few. And every discovery has been as fascinating as the other. However, two of them stand out in my mind — the first one was in the arid regions of Bagalkote district, and the second experience was in Coorg, the Scotland of East.
The road lay ahead, empty and bare. It was a pleasant winter morning, with bright blue skies, although the nip was clearly in the air. In the distant horizon, I could see layers of smoke, swirling and curling as they rose up into the sky. The landscape changed drastically. Green fields of sugarcane filled the eye with an occasional patch of golden sunflowers. I was in the district of Bagalkote, a region that once bore the legacy of the Chalukyan king, Pulakesi 1, and my destination was Jamakhandi, a town known for its sugar factory.
I stopped by to explore the town and its colourful market. A faded photograph of the brave Kittur Rani Chennamma brandishing a sword hung at the entrance of a quaint building which turned out to be a vegetable market. The red chillies were scattered on the ground while pumpkins hung from the tiled roof tops here, held by colourful threads. Sacks of potatoes and onions were carried away and thrust in autorickshaws to be sent to other markets.
Little secrets
I walked along and found the women dressed in sparkling clothes gossiping away. The men were curious and they guided me to another local farmer’s market, this time, the spoils were spread out in the open courtyard of an erstwhile jail. I chatted with the locals, munching on channa and groundnuts when I heard about Jamakhandi’s little secret. The dusty town with a colourful market was once a princely state of the Marathas during the British India period. The nondescript town was once a capital city.
But the only monument that reminded this humble vibrant town of its legacy was a quaint palace built on a hill overseeing the entire town, belonging to the erstwhile rulers — the Patwardhan family who were commanders in the Maratha army in the 18th century. While they fought several wars against the British and the father-son duo of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, they were known more for their victories against the latter.
As I drove along, I looked around and could barely see a hillock anywhere. We went towards Ramteerth, where a temple was built several centuries ago. The landscape slowly changed into a fabric of green and then it became barren with rocky hillocks. There were the remains of an old moat with walls, giving the impression of a palatial fortress built in an enclosure. There was not a soul around. The path was green but the road looked untravelled. Old banyan trees lent an air of antiquity to the silent area as the car came to a halt. We climbed on foot and entered a small lane where we saw a flight of steps leading to a gate.
Behind the walls were beautiful gardens gracing a mansion. Another old palace looked down at us. The watchman let us inside the garden, while adding that visitors are not allowed inside the private property of the Patwardhans. I realised that it was not just the palace, but the town itself was a discovery along with its royal past tucked away in the hills, lost in a maze of dust.
In coffee country
A few months later, I was in another part of Karnataka, often referred to as the coffee country. And I was in for a special surprise, where I found acres of tea instead of coffee right inside Coorg. It was 1,200 acres of tea planted by the British a century ago and it was called Glenlorna Tea Plantation. Walking around the plantation, we ventured downhill to find a dense canopy of bamboo trees hiding the light.
It was pitch dark and the clumps of bushes parted ways for us as we found a narrow path plunged in darkness. We could neither see what was above or below us, nor could we see what was in front, but we heard the roar of a cascading falls. As we finally stepped out of this natural tunnel, we could see the tumbling falls, gushing its way through the rocks like an impetuous child, without a care in the world. The waters finally collected into a little pool, encircled by the rocks, and gently flowed into a little stream. We sat there for a while, gazing at the raw beauty and wild flow of nature before heading back to the estate.
But Coorg has several secrets tucked away — palaces, inscriptions, tombs and even temples. And one of my favourite discoveries was inside a forest, where it was just me, the trees, the crickets and a lone shrine. The greenery virtually shrouded me from the rest of the world. I felt like I was in the middle of nowhere. The leaves of the trees rustled, hissing like a snake. The call of the crickets reached a high note. The temple, however, was just a small little cabin — a house with sloping Mangalore tiled roof with grills all around.
A deity was housed inside and she was referred to as Panagalammai who had been separated from her brothers because of a curse. One of her brothers, Iguthuppa, who was widely worshipped by the Kodavas, was housed in a temple close by in the hills but the curse prevented the brother-sister duo from seeing each other. It was believed that Iguthuppa shot an arrow into the jungles and found her a home here when the arrow landed. Locals believed that the mark of the arrow was still present here.
The wind was getting louder as I stood there in the forest. For a moment I realised that it was just us and the deity in the jungles.
For many people, travelling is all about scenic routes and stunning locales, but if you look harder, there is a story or an interesting discovery tucked away somewhere amidst them. For me, journeys are like treasure hunts, unearthing these stories. And that makes the entire experience special.