This is about the Agastyar trip. Enjoying the natural beauty, listening to the song of the wind, and paying obeisance to the forest gods, the thrill cannot be explained in words, it is something that needs to be experienced personally. I ended the previous part of this article by describing about the forest gods. As we continued the journey, we enjoyed the charming beauty of the forest and reached the worship place under a big tree. Here, the way divides into 2, one leading to the Agastyar Mala and the other to Athirumala base camp. We had a look at the path which we would have to take the next day.
We turned to the other way which led to the base camp. The camp was entrenched to protect from wild animals. Base camp consisted of a small canteen and some bamboo huts. We showed our tickets to the guard sitting in a small room in the canteen. The tickets will be entered in a book as evidence that we visited this place and each one will be given a mat. We can go to any hut with that mat to lie down. We had a cup of hot black tea from the canteen and walked to one of the huts. Inside the hut, there was a raised portion made with bamboo in the shape of a cot. I kept my bag in a corner, laid the mat on the cot and lay straight on it. I got up half an hour later. I came to see the forest, I didn’t want to spend my time sleeping. I went out of the hut and took bath in a stream that flowed through the back of the camp. I felt energetic after the bath. I experienced the heavenly bliss of the gushing wind, bitter cold, and the music of crickets.
In the twilight, the huge Agastyar Hill looked like a crown on the head of the forest. I sat in the camp having my porridge little by little, relishing the cold dark night and the song of the nightingales, I felt like this itself is enough to make my trip successful. In between, I had met and talked to a lot of other tourists. These are the moments which one can never forget, the exciting experience of meeting strangers in the lap of Mother Nature and becoming friends with them and sharing the experiences with them in a night like this. This is an instant when we get to know ourselves.
Everyone started getting ready to sleep. We need to get up early in the morning. When all others lay down for sleep, my friend and myself went outside the camp and stood there for a while savouring the cold wind and the song of the night. This is a ‘feel’ which need to be felt. After a while, we also lay down to sleep. After sometime, the roar of the wind started sounding like thunder. If you ask me whether I slept, I would say I did, but it was not a good sleep.
I woke up to the sound of the alarm and after the daily routines, got ready to climb the Agastyar Hill. My body felt like aching. Without thinking much, I had a Paracetamol Tablet in empty stomach. I could see that people had just started to move around in the canteen. In a short while, I got a cup of hot black tea. In the bleak climate as this, the hot tea is priceless. We were informed that it will take some time for getting the lunch packs to be carried with us while we go trekking. If we wait for the food packet, we will miss the beautiful morning scene in the forest. I had some biscuits and a bottle of water in my bag. I decided not to wait for the lunch packets and started walking towards the Agastyar Hill.
We bowed at the idol as we passed past it. The way was rougher than the one that we came along yesterday. On the way, I saw a board with words reminding us of our responsibility to take care and protect the Agastyar Forests. Agasthyarkoodam is one of the Biosphere Reserves that has been added by UNESCO to its world network of Biosphere Reserves. As per the statistics, it is a storehouse of more than 2000 medicinal plants. There is also an abundance of unknown and rare herbs. The most important of the medicinal plants present here is Arogya pacha or Trichopus zeylanicus, which is the natural version of the present day drugs. We searched for it, but could not see. It gives a pleasant feeling to the mind as well as the body to spend time experiencing the caressing of medicinal plants, feeling the wind, drinking the fresh water of the forest.
We moved forward through ways winding upwards in the deep forest, jumping from boulder to boulder. If we miss one step, we will fall hitting the head on the rocks. At the end of this strenuous journey, we reached the wide rock formations called Pongalappara. Devotees make pongala (ritualistic offering of porridge made of rice, sweet brown molasses, coconut gratings, nuts, and raisins) here before climbing the Agastyar Hills, that is why this hill is called Pongalappara. We lay there for a while gazing at the shapes of the clouds in the sky.
The remaining part of the journey will be narrated in the next part of the article.
