Tribal Hills and River Deltas - Travels in Odisha, Chattisgarh and Andhra

Trip Plan

A friend and I planned to travel to Southern Odisha where we spent our childhood and have an authentic experience meeting the Desias or the local tribes as they are known. Staying in a Township, we had a distant relationship with them during our childhood and we wanted to intimately know them and be part of their culture as insiders, as if in search of our identity and reclaim a small part of who felt we were.

Vishakapatnam - Andhra Pradesh

Thotlakonda Monastery

Traveling to Vizag, we stayed near Rishikonda beach. The beach road is superbly developed and probably one of the best beach stretches in the country with the sea on one side and the hills on the other. Development on the hills is limited due to the Kambalakonda Wildlife sanctuary and two buddhist monasteries built in the early centuries, Bavikonda and Thotlakonda. We met up with some school mates and then made a trip to the Thotlakonda Monastery. 

The Monastery is high up in the hills and the road recently made and well maintained by the state Government. Here buddhist Pilgrims from the Oceans would land and then make their way up to Sarnath and Bodh Gaya. 

Koraput and Sunabeda - Odisha

At the school

From Vizag, we took a train to go to Koraput which winds up through the Araku valley, a popular vacation destination in this area. In Koraput, we met up with the cousin of a school friend and went to the local Jagannath temple. From there we went to Sunabeda township, where we grew up as kids. 

The next day, we explored the town revisiting our childhood hangouts and reminiscing on our younger days. We also went to the markets and met up with the shopkeepers, many of who have retired and their sons taken up their place in running the shops. We managed to get a bike and planned to go to Deomali hills which is the highest mountain in the state of Odisha.

We set out for Deomali the next day through Semiliguda, a nearby town. It was a pleasant ride to the hills through farms and some winding roads. From Deomali, there was a new road which went to Talamali, another nearby hill before returning back to Sunabeda. The hills were barren and the dense green cover that we had experienced during our childhood was long gone due to logging and exploitation of the gullible tribals by timber contractors and the mainstream politicians. No wonder, that Naxalism rose in these areas as a response to the exploitation.

Enroute to Deomali

If one is looking for resorts to stay in this area, there are two Desia Eco Stays, one in Deomali and the other in Machkund where there is a lake created by the building of the Machkund dam.

From Sunabeda, we went to Jeypore and on the way, dropped in on another friend's place, this time a person who had a coffee estate near Koraput called Lamtaput. His name is Sujay Pradhan and he took us to his estate to taste his coffee. Koraput coffee is a brand that the Government is trying to promote, similar to the highly successful Araku Coffee. The Government has also been training and encouraging the tribals to grow coffee and sell back to the Government for being marketed under Koraput Coffee which I thought was a good initiative. We need ways to get away from the water intensive rice farming which is common across India. Sujay was trying to promote his own brand of Coffee called Brown Valley and his specialty coffee tasted very good, so there is a good potential for Coffee from these areas. Many Entrepreneurs have been growing Coffee for many years now and this could become a new source of income if marketed well.  

The Paraja Villages - Koraput, Odisha

Paraja Tribe Woman

In Koraput, we got the reference of a person in Borigumma which is a town a little away from Jeypore and we met up with him there after taking a bus from Jeypore. His name was Nageswar Gowdo and he is from one of the local tribes and a PHD scholar who is studying history in the nearby University. Nageswar would be able to take us to some of the nearby villages and meet up with the local tribes in that area. 

The major tribe in the area are the Paraja (which comes from Sanskrit Praja meaning the common people). Their mother tongue Parji is a form of Gondi belonging to Dravidian family of languages. But now most of them living in undivided Koraput district speak the regional language called "Desia". 

The Parajas are simple, friendly and hospitable, but like to remain aloof from the people of other communities as they are shy by nature. Paraja settlements are uniclan in structure and are usually located near foothills where perennial hill streams are flowing down the hills to provide them drinking water throughout the year. In multi ethnic villages they live in separate hamlets keeping social distance from other ethnic groups and maintaining their own cultural identity

Gowdo took us to one Paraja village where we met an old blind man who was the last of the story tellers. He said that the new generation didn't sing the old songs and probably these will be lost with him. He sang a few songs for us and attempted to act it out. Playing musical instruments is also fading away as the younger generation dances to Desia songs from Youtube.

Local Landa

In the evening, we went riding triples to another Paraja village near where Gowdo stays. It was a while that we rode triples (during school days!). Luckily for us, all of us were slim and could fit in. We also tasted some "Landa" made from Ragi. Tribal communities drink Landa at home with younger and older members of the family. This is a fermented drink and is good for the gut. Landa is an essential component of various festivals, is considered auspicious and is offered to appease the gods for good fortune, a bumper yield and good health. 

We went and met a teacher who made us sit outside his home. Soon a friend of his who was a local leader joined us. They were all young, in their 20s. All of them have taken advantage of Government schemes and got themselves educated. I went through some study material. The textbooks were written in Desia by a NGO called Asha Kiran Society and the hope was that this will make Desia speaking people literate and then pave the way for them to learn Odiya, the state language through bridge literacy material.

The Dancers at the Village

We requested the teacher's wife to arrange for a dance session with some music. She was shy and initially hesitated, but then after a little more prodding took up the task enthusiastically, gathering the village children and ladies to dance for us. They put up a boombox in the village square. The whole village turned up to watch with lot of enthusiasm. We waited for the eldest leader of the village to come who we greeted and then the program started. The songs were mainly Desia songs, but there were some old hindi remixes as well which shows how the local culture gets influenced by the mainstream over a period of time.   

We were keen to taste the local ‘mahuli’ liquor made from mahua flowers and these were brought surreptitiously in plastic packets. It was surprisingly smooth and light, even comparable to the best of Single Malts! As the evening progressed, the dances became more frenetic till we had to  stop when it became pitch dark and we took leave of the village after a lot of photographs and thanks to the entire troupe and village. 

Maths under the street light

While the older folks wore the traditional dress, the younger ones nowadays wear normal maxis and skirts wearing the traditional saree only during occasions. Also the mud huts were concretized with funds coming in from the Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana. 

We then went to the next village which Gowdo is from and finally said our byes to our hosts. Before we left, we spied upon a group of kids below the village Banyan tree huddled up under the street light. To our shock and pleasant surprise, we found that they were studying mathematics and a few other subjects along with a tutor. The math was algebra and pretty complicated. The kids were bright, had a twinkle in their eyes and for sure, fire in their bellies. These were the next generation of kids with the hunger to lift themselves up and do well in Society. We were superbly impressed even as my friend immediately video called up his daughter to show her the real India, studying under the street light and ready to blaze their way to future success. 

Jagdalpur - Chattisgarh 

Chitrakoot Falls

From Borigumma, we left for Jagdalpur in Bastar district of Chattisgarh. Even a few years back, this area was the hotbed of Naxal activities, but with the presence of the heavily armed Cobra security battalions and developmental activities being carried out in parallel by the State, these have largely vanished and life was normal across the district. At Jagdalpur, we checked into the hotel and then hired a driver who would take us out for a day tour to the nearby Chitrakoot falls. It was also the week of Maha Shivratri and there was a festival fair going on near the falls where a large temporary market had come up.

The water in the falls was less due to the upstream dam, we were told it would be much more during the monsoon season. After seeing the falls, we went into the market where there were hundreds of stalls and a milieu of crowds. We tried out different types of Mahuli brought to the fair by tribal women in plastic buckets! Feeling nice and high, we set out on a circular route back to Jagdalpur. Enroute, we stopped at a steep ravine called Mendri Ghumar which was a lovely spot and from there we could see miles away into the valley below where the river Indravathi was flowing.  

Traditional Cock Fight

As we were returning back, we spied upon a place where there was a traditional cock fight going on. We were invited to have a VIP seat where we could see the cock fighting events. It was a betting market out there, with different contenders finalizing the duels to be fought based on the bird weight and size. The selected birds were then tied with a steel claw which would mean that this would be a fight to the death with the winner killing the other bird. As the birds were brought onto the fight arena, there was a frenzy of betting with cash trading hands instantly like the stock market and the sounds rose to a high pitch as the birds fought aggressively, till one of them dropped off to his death. The sound of the crowds would then die down with the winners jubilantly counting their earnings while the losers give a sigh of defeat and try their luck in the next round of bird fight.

It was gruesome as well as fascinating. No amount of classroom teaching will teach the science of economics, supply and demand as spending a day in these markets.  

The Godavari Belt - Andhra Pradesh

Paddy Fields

From Jagdalpur, we set out to Bhadrachalam the next day which is a town in Andhra Pradesh in the Godavari River belt. The plan was to stay a night there and then take a boat down the Godavari to Rajahmundry where the Godavari meets the sea. This area is one of the most fertile deltas in India and the rice fields of Godavari have made the Kamma castes of Andhra Pradesh rich and prosperous.  The Kammas are one of the richest groups in Andhra Pradesh with socio-economic and political prominence throughout the Telugu-speaking regions of India. Valuing education along with wealth, in recent times, large number of Kammas have migrated to the United States.

Boat Ride down the Godavari

The boat ride was around 7 hours and would have been a great experience, except for the Indian penchant for music and dance which accompanies every outing. We had hoped for a quiet drift down the Godavari as it went through the Papikondalu Wildlife Sanctuary, bit that was not to be. We also joined in as there was no option and ended up playing housie, listening to loud music and dancing on the deck for Andhra uncles and aunties. For the first time in my life, I got a full house and my friend RK, got the top line. We donated the winning proceeds to the crew and our reward was to dance on the deck with the cast and crew. The crew also put in a dance drama which was quite enjoyable.

We finally reached Rajahmundy and spent the evening with our school friend, Suresh and his family who is based there.

Sri Rama Sadan

The next day, we set out for a trip down the delta into the verdant green fields. Enroute RK wanted to find the village of his origin which he had seen in a Youtube video and we ended up going to a small village called Peruru near Amlapuram. There we found a house called Sri Rama Sadan. The lady who came to greet us was the owner of the house. She had returned back from the US and built the house in the local tradition. We took a tour of the house which was built using local materials and had a large courtyard and a Gowshala (Cow Shed) at the back. It was a nice tour and we had a good conversation with her and her  philosophy of life and why she came back to take care of her parents and in-laws. 

Yanam

We then rounded off our trip by going to Yanam (Part of Pondicherry !)which was at the sea edge and turned back from near Kakinada to come back to Rajahmundry. All the way, I was imagining how the area can be turned into the next Schenzen if only our politicians had the vision and will power as the area had everything going - lot of land, river delta, a port, rich crops and commodities and well drawn roads from the hinterland to the sea. 

The next day, after saying good bye to our friend and his family, we caught the flight back to Bengaluru completing an eventful trip that will be remembered for a long time for the diverse experiences that we had.