The Road to Kandhamal
on Richard Johnson (India), 13/Aug/2010 05:48, 34 days ago
Please note this is a cached copy of the post and will not include pictures etc. Please click here to view in original context.

The road toKandhamalleads north by northwest out of the town ofBerhampur, encountering rain-swelled rice paddies almost as soon as the last tea stalls and mobile-phone-recharge shacks are left behind.The jungle morning in monsoon season is dulled of most of its colour but refreshingly crisp.The first villages we approach rise up over the road in the clouds of dust from the morning traffic; a small green sign announces each hamlet we pass, with the village name kindly noted in Oriya and English.In a place calledHinjilicutwe pause for breakfast at a roadside stall. A young boy slaps a dried teak leaf onto a small metal plate, and upon this he places twoidli—steamed cakes of rice flour—and threepuri—fried dough patties—and smothers them in a savoury potato curry. We eat with our hands, our right hands.We drive on, and on toward Kandhamal.Where it warrants the attention of his eager listener, my companion does not hesitate to recite the story or anecdote or latest gossip associated with the places we pass: Here is the birth village of ourChief Minister, look how nicely paved the roads are, and they have a new greenhouse cooperative project they are implementing; In that village my brother’s family runs a preschool and day-care centre for Dalits that is supported byPREM; There, that is the village of anMLAwho is currently in jail for allegedly murdering a member of the mafia.Further along we come to the massiveBhanjanagar Dam, an artificial resevoir in theRushikulya riverthat regulates the flow of water downstream to towns and industries in the coastal belt. Here in this bucolic dominion of peasants and paddies it cuts a severe pose. Timelessness is a dirty word in Orissa.We pass through the town ofSorada, a fledgling twinkle of the proverbial melting pot where, by some intersection of need and desire, the residents built all the holy houses of religion next to each other; two mosques nestle around the Catholic church, which abuts the grounds of a Hindu temple ofHanuman.The rural road begins to rise; we are gaining elevation onto the foothills of Kandhamal. Where earlier we had followed a purposefully paved route with a dotted white line dividing its two lanes, we now follow a single unmarked lane through unmarked villages.I protest silently: Every place should have a name. But by now there are no more signs. There is less brick and cement, more thatch and mud. Our road could be said to have lost its integrity. The cows are scrawnier. The haystacks are pathetically thin.We are more than two hours but less than 100 kilometres from Berhampur. The villages have not ceased to pass, but few may be seen. The forest encroaches upon the road, thickening and trapping the near-midday heat.At last we reach our point of ascent. Our frail road will climb almost fifteen hundred feet in less than three kilometres of roughly paved switchbacks. The forest is dense. Nothing stirs. Even the imagination has gone still.When we reach the top, we will be in Kandhamal. If I am lucky, someone remarks, we might see an elephant.I have no cause to pick a fight with my luck way out here, but no elephant appears.View Larger MapPhoto credit:http://ncf-india.org/