A Birding Guide, A Matriarch
You go birding and sometimes you encounter something even more interesting than the birds. It takes a lifetime to know someone’s story, but sometimes it just takes an afternoon. This is an account of my encounter with an inspirational figure I met in Thattekaad — a birding guide, an entrepreneur, a survivor.
S___ Chettikattu¹ was not your typical sexagenarian. Affectionately called S___-ma in the village, she was a birding guide; according to her, the only female birding guide in Kerala. She had a square face, clear brown eyes and a strong chin. She was short, about 4’ 5”. Her skin was wheatish in tone; smooth, tough, unwrinkled — like a woman whose hands have seen work, whose legs have walked miles. The skin around her eyes were soft, dark and wrinkled. That and the loose flesh under her chin were the only indicators of her age.
Today, for our evening birding session, she wore a coral-pink and blue salwar. Her birding vest — a military-green sleeveless jacket with over-sized pockets — covered her kameez, and a 8x32 green Vanguard binoculars hung around her neck. She was spry and quick-footed, and keeping up with her was difficult. She maintained a five-foot distance between us.
We walked on the highway for ten minutes, and then crossed the Thattekadu bridge that spanned the Periyar river. After another fifteen minutes on the Thattekaadu-Kuzhampuda road, we turned into the jungle.
It was 4PM. The afternoon heat lingered. We heard some bird calls but didn’t see much. She began quizzing me. Which bird call is that? And that? And that? The tone of her voice was sharp and challenging. I got them wrong. “How long have you been birding?” She asked. “Not too long,” I said, “Only 1–2 years.”
We stopped at a clearing.
“Usually, around this area, you see 4–5 species of raptors. Nothing today.”
She turned back into another trail deep into the jungle. As dusk approached, she spotted some common birds for me: drongos, mynahs, babblers, cuckoos, doves — nothing exciting. When she spoke, I often couldn’t understand her Malayalam accent. She found my constant requests for her to repeat herself irritating. Clearly we weren’t getting along.
But something happened a few minutes later, at the end of the trail, that brought us together. Something stupid — I lost my wallet. We needed to go back. But where? How does one find a dropped wallet inside a forest? S___ma’s blank face didn’t give me much hope. But we got lucky.
Not even five minutes into our walk back, I found my wallet, lying tilted on a small mound of dry soil. I was overjoyed. I heaved a huge sigh of relief. And for the first time since we started, I saw a crack of a smile on S___ma’s face.
The lost-and-found wallet broke the ice between us. S___ma became chattier. My walls came down as well.
She started a new trail at the edge of the forest. Dusk was upon us. The sky turned orange, the mercury dropped, birds came out. She pointed out a pair of Green Imperial Pigeons. She went inside a home to chat with a friend while I was entertained by a Malabar Pied Hornbill foraging his dinner on a berry-ful tree.
We passed by an orchard. She said hello to a bearded man in a mundu tending it.
Another bird passed us by. Greyish in colour, Cuckoo-ish looking. But we couldn’t make out which one. Cuckoo-Shrike? We decided to consult the our bird-book when back.
A few minutes later, it was sunset, when, up there in a distance, she spotted the very-shy, Blue-faced Malkoha. I couldn’t get a picture. I was bummed. I requested her, if we could wait for it to re-appear. Ten minutes later, our patience was rewarded by not one but two Blue-faced Malkohas, that flew up and sat on an open branch. I was so excited, that I fumbled around my camera and almost missed snapping the moment.
S___ma was beaming from ear to ear after the pair of Malkohas disappeared, “I have never seen this bird come out in the open like this. You are very lucky.” She patted me on the back. We became friends.
My luck didn’t end there. To our left, she spotted a Jungle Owlet. Resplendent in the golden-orange glow of dusk, sitting on a dry branch, its spooky large yellow eyes seemed to staring into our souls.
It was a photographer’s dream: perfect light, perfect perch.
And with those snaps, our sojourn in the forest ended.
She stepped out of the woods and into the asphalt road, heading back to the homestay.
“Are you tired?”, she asked.
I was. I hadn’t slept well the previous night. But she wasn’t. She walked hours everyday. This was her job.
“Can you guess my age?”, she asked. I guessed late fifties.
“I just turned 65 last month.”
“I walk hours everyday, for last twenty years, since I started my homestay. I used to be fitter.”
And then she got cancer. Her life turned upside down. She had to undergo five radiation sessions and numerous chemo-therapy sessions. It was Cervical cancer caused by the HPV virus.
“15 days after the treatments finished, I was out here again. Birding.”
And the cancer went away. The birds, the nature, the air, the physical exercise. They cured her in three months.
“Lots of people here in the village got cancer. Some died in three months, some in a year. Not many villagers have the money for treatments.”
But she did. She had her children, her homestay, her birds, and money. She made it. She beat cancer.
Every month since then, she would donate thousand rupees to cancer patients in the village.
“Every 100 rupees out of 1000 rupees I make out of my homestay. I donate. That’s why God saved me from cancer.”
We heard the bells from the Shiva temple where preparations for Maha-shivratri, happening the next day, were underway.
“Mahadeva, he know everything that happens all around us. He knows everything I have gone through. All the punya I accumulated, but still he gave me cancer.
Just to test me. He gave me cancer.”
This was not the first test Mahadeva had thrown her way. 30-odd years before the cancer, she faced an even tougher challenge.
“My husband died 35 years ago. Brain tumour. Then, we knew nothing, had nothing. No money for hospital or treatments.”
Her husband just worked for the forest department as a guard. Her son was in 8th standard, her daughter in 6th, when he passed. Like most housewives of her time, she knew nothing of the outside world.
“I knew nothing except the four walls of the kitchen.”
She and her mother opened a small shop by the bridge. They started selling milk and rice.
“We were just two women, there were lots of fight to get here.”
I was walking beside her as she told me her life’s story. It was not just a fight against economic forces, but also against the societal prejudice against widows. We, Indians, have moved past the horrific practices of Sati, but there is still widespread deprivations that widows face² today — even in a relatively developed and highly literate state like Kerala. They are socially isolated, their movements restricted. They are not allowed to attend religious and social events. And if they break the norms, they are talked about. Their character is questioned.
“Boys would come to my store, and when I handed them their purchases, they would grab my arm. They would touch me under any pretext.”
So while handing out items or taking money, she would ask them to place their money on the counter.
“Nothing illegal. I said to them. I keep the coffee here, you take it from here.” The predators were no match for her.
“When I first started the homestay, twenty years ago, I had only two rooms with a tariff of just 300 rupees, and no guide. Now we have fifteen rooms with 3000 rupees rent with a guide.
I had to learn everything on my own. I knew no-one. But now, everyone knows me, people from all over the world know me.”
Later that night, after dinner, when she brought over Grimmett bird-book to identify that Cuckoo-ish bird; I saw the inscription on the book. It was a gift: ’To Sudha, thank you for an amazing experience, Bob from San Francisco, 1/10/2018’
“I was zero. Zero + hard work + luck + god’s grace. That’s how I am here.”
We crossed the temple — her daughter was performing the next night: Bharatnatyam. We crossed the shop she had opened thirty years ago. We were back at the homestay. Her son greeted us in courtyard. He had been busy all day with a big case, he was an advocate. Unlike children of most destitute widows², he didn’t have to sacrifice his education.
She bid me adieu, and went inside to greet her grandchildren and play with them — still full of energy; while I climbed up to my room on the first floor, unlocked it, switched on the AC, and collapsed into a deep slumber, with my shoes still on.
¹ Names changed/hidden.
² Debt, shame, and survival: becoming and living as widows in rural Kerala, India. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3517387/
