Keepers of the Forests
The forests of India have found everyday heroes in the humans of surrounding villages. Employed by the states’ forest departments, they work devotedly to maintain harmony between human and forest.
By the Bannerghatta National Park are patches of settlements where, alongside farmers, potters, and silkworm rearers, are these watchmen of the forest. Prominent among them in the small village of Shivalli is Basappa who has been working for the forests for 24 years.

The way to Shivalli is flanked by disconnected quarries of what used to be healthy hills. The green gaps will be conquered soon, too, I think in dismay. Sizable plots of vegetable and millet farms follow these dry, grey sites, and among them the humble and brightly-coloured houses of rural landscapes.


Reaching Shivalli, I savour the fresh, unmistakable smell of Indian villages — a pleasant mix of cow dung, smoke from wood fire, and fresh air — as I look around at the rustic houses with thick wooden frames that are gradually evolving to modern concrete matchboxes. I ask an neighbourly elderly woman for directions and (after offering to serve me breakfast in her house) she shows me where I can find two of these men of forests.

Basappa and his colleagues’ workdays begin at 7 AM, after a breakfast of raagi mudde and vegetables. Today, Meesey Shivanna hurries off cursing under his breath some village goats that he has to keep from entering the forest limit.
Basappa starts to talk and I tear my ears away from the incessant bird calls as we walk up the path. ‘We are about ten men from our village and the neighbouring ones. Our job is to explore our designated beats to check for any trouble within the few kilometres. We help put out forest fires, any time of the day or night we are notified. We do our best to chase elephants out of the farms. We keep the villagers and outsiders from entering the forest and from cutting down trees and shrubs. This has led them to harbour ill-feelings towards us; we’re the enemy in their eyes. I hear whispers in the village, but once I leave for work and take a look at this splendid landscape and its smaller details, the negativity leaves my mind.’ By now, we have reached his beat.

The men are happy working among the trees. ‘The village-folk are a stubborn lot, though. They even blame us for elephants entering their farms in the nights!’ complains Basappa. ‘The elephants are no less, those mischiefs. They’ve now learnt to defeat the electric fences with their tusks or tree logs. We check what can be done and we alert the officials about damages; they bring solutions.’
‘When we have to chase an elephant away, they send us jeeps. All of us go in the jeeps with walkie-talkies. It’s very exciting. It makes me very happy to see elephants.’

Life, for Basappa, is simple in the village and the forest. ‘I have visited the city sometimes,’ he says about Bengaluru. ‘I’d sooner have elephants and leopards to run away from than face your traffic!’ He laughs as I look embarrassed on the city folks’ behalf.
He recalls the dangerous wildlife he has encountered so far. ‘I’ve been mock-charged by an elephant once. It was frightening, but we learnt more about their behaviour that day; we understood them better. I’ve spotted leopards and sloth bears on my beat; they all humble me greatly. Once, I thought I saw a tree branch move; it turned out to be a massive python looking right at me. I avoided that spot for a while! Now all I want to see is a wild tiger, the raja of these lands, once.’
His affection for the forest and all its elements echo clearly in his voice.

Just as the forested hills make way for quarries, and as countryside homes make way for plain new houses, so do the reputedly-inferior jobs make way for the temptations of cities. The generation following Basappa, Meesey Shivanna and their colleagues is fast adopting urban lifestyles. They are the stressed cab drivers and workpeople of factories who have no time for the modest rural living, constantly looking for better places to reach.
Basappa hopes to travel someday, too, but to the other great forests that he’s heard of, even if it is to get a break from the “few imbeciles of this small village fostering hate.”
Originally written for RoundGlass Sustain
