Shabari passed on a few years ago. On into the arms of his great mother. I still remember the earnest simplicity in which he shared what was to him an unassailable fact – that he has two Mothers and two Fathers – Human Mother, EARTH Mother; Human Father, SUN Father. He was a master storyteller.
To me, it was perfectly natural to think of Shabari as an Ancient, while through his land we walked. I have seen him talk to wild animals in our path, which then went on their way. Through all the years and many many walks we talked in a strange almost-Malayalam.
In his youth, Shabari was a runner. A small wiry but strong man running ahead of the man on his horse. He probably got wind of the odd startled tiger or ran into a quiet herds of elephants first and gave warning to the white man.
His long arduous courtship of not his wife but of her father left me wondering about a lot of things. Once he had decided on a potential bride, he started searching for and delivering to the father a series of gifts, from fruits, wildfowl and other forest delicacies and ending with a wild boar. He proved with each gift accepted that he was capable of looking after her. As the gifts got larger, one day his prospective father-in-law somehow gave him the nod. From what I remember of the ending to this story, there wasn’t much of a wedding ritual except that he had to head for the forest again. This time he he had to find the right kind of forest vine, some wild turmeric which he ground and rolled-applied to the vine. With this, his thali he then married her.
Walking through “Kollikumithy”, a little settlement which in those days hosted the elephant camp, he told me the story of how the place got its name. He spoke of a time long ago, when two brothers lived there. The elder went on a long journey and when he came back he brought back with him a pair of magical birds. Tired after his long journey, he placed the birds under a coop (kamuthy=to turn upside) and went to bed. The next day, he instructed his brother not to go anywhere near the coop or the magic birds and went into the forest. And, as the story goes, the temptation was too great for the younger brother. And when he lifted the coop, it turned to stone. Its there. I’ve seen it. And what of the magical birds; they flew off into the forest and generations later, we still see them – the Grey Jungle Fowl (kozhi=chicken).
He talked of ancient times, when kings ruled. A story of a great king who ruled over a vast land. Into his domain came the leader of another tribe who wished to settle down there with his people. The king was so great, war was not an option. He called for a vessel. In those days, a full grown section of bamboo between knots, were used as vessels, even over fires. In it, milk was then brought to a boil. The king dropped his ring into the milk, into the arm-length pail and challenged the intruding leader to recover the ring first, if he wanted to stay in the region. The new tribe lived on in the region but only due to the large heart and bravery of the leader who had lost the use of his hand.
Around 1995, Shabari and his son Ganesan worked with DreamCatcher on the BBC film “Land of the Tiger. He’s immortalized on celluloid. But my memories of him include the one time on the verge of a long walk into the jungle, one of the crew reached out to him with a gift of a pair of snazzy shoes. Shabari smiled his thanks with a little half-bow, squatted down, rolled the shoes up into the towel he always carried, tucked it under his arm and stepped out smartly onto the path in his bare feet.
I first met Shabari back in the mid-eighties and I am writing this more than 30 years later.
He Walks on…
