Environment

ENVIRONMENT

Keonjhargarh is situated at an altitude of around 1350 ft above sea level, with gandhamardan may be another 1500 ft above, looming on the west side. At the foothills a temple for balabhadra in the old town, and then gadsahi and the old palace of the king. It is said that the foundation for the temple is bigger than puri jagannath, and when this information reached puri there was a lot of hue and cry. There was a settlement between the two kings that height has to be less than puri.As per the bargain our rath (chariot) will be single but bigger than puris separate 3.The rath jatra was a massive affair with all adibasis from the mountain gathering and carminative mixtures doled out by compounders

Near the old palace there was a dandadevi, where human sacrifice was a ritual in 19^th century to appease the goddess. Then there is one siddha math founded by some ascetic, from where you can climb up the mountains and valleys beyond. But the best was san ghagara (small waterfall) about 3 mile from our house for picnics, approachable by a dirt road and a small but stiff ghat. From the road you have to tread a furlong to reach a clear pristine fall with a large pool at the bottom for bathing and climbing, waiting for the food to be ready. Bad ghagara a little upstream an be reached by walk for about one mile, which was much bigger. This one has no picnic place and the fear of wild animals keep people away.

My maternal uncle’s place was 32 miles, with aradei, baitarani in between. As children we used to go by bullock cart, sometimes overnight sighting occasional tiger. Later we went by cycle with lunch break of chuda on the river bank. There were five unless and you are welcomed by all. All the journeys are clear in memory but when you go there by car later it is not so exiting. A slight detour is kiching built in konark style.

Now if you go to these places it is no longer thrilling.The jungle has been cleared and concrete pathways, rose garden and lawns are made. The trucks on the highway clean them upstream, and the river has a dam above bad ghagra.This has reduced the flow and polluted the water.

Another place about 30 miles north was khandadhar, a huge waterfall by our standards. When we reach there it is invariably afternoon and fall is under shadow. Long back we went in Austin car by road with culverts made of wood. Later we went by a six wheeler and when we came back the culverts broke down due to aging. A couple of years back we went along a different route devoid of forest and animals. If you approach the waterfall through the mining belt, it is devastating scene. Everywhere there are open cast mining devoid of a single tree, roads and dust of morum or iron ore fines, streams are muddy and question of sighting any animal is rare.

In seventies I flew over this area, which was a forest with patches of red mounds of spoils. Now on land it appears to be only mounds with small patches of forest, the dams empty and streams dry. Long back in our chemistry book it was mentioned that keonjhar mines has the highest content of ore at 65% in the whole world. With the demand of this for japan earlier and chinese later, and mine owners greed for money has resulted in this devastation. We believed that british rule with kings were responsible for the reduction of animal population. Now after six decades we have to blame ourselves.

Just 10 mile from keonjhar there is small place gopalpur, where the king used to go for shikar, and now even jackals are not to be found.There was an old road from keonjhar to anandpur on the foothills, whih was abandoned after the new road was built. This I had seen on topographical maps and had the opportunity to pass through after the new road was congested with mine trucks.On enquiry I found that this old road was infested with wild animals like deer, wild boar, black bears, leopards and elephants and a lot of water bodies and flowing rivers.The animals need grassland and dense forest to survive, and they simply vanished by human encroachments.

Coming bak to keonjhar in winter we get up at 8 am and sit around a wood fire to brush our teeth with twigs and sleep under blankets in the evening. Birds like wild pegions crows, sparrows, vultures were plentiful. So were colony of rats small bats, owls and what not.Summer was pleasant for taking bath in open ponds catching fish by angling and nets. Rainy season had frogs croaking, sadhav poka (a velvet red insect) crawling around. Squirrels came later and also mosquitoes. In house cocks, hens, pigeons, cows goats were also kept making a virtual zoo in our house.There are snakes of poisonous and non poisonous variety like naga, chiti and dhamana around.The bani (a yellow bird) eating grasshoppers and various other insects like ants termites to describe a few. Now all the above have simply vanished, with housings and filling up ponds.

If it has happened in my place in half a century, what is going to happen in the whole country, you can well imagine. The temperature has gone up, rainfall scanty, rivers dry mainly due to reduction of the forest over-All big trees were cut by loggers ,small trees taken for fodder and grass eaten up or dried up without cover, collectively led to this scenarios.