A still from 'The Hunt for Veerappan'.
The forest is a world in itself. Only those who passionately roam its paths understand its language; only to them does it reveal its secrets.
Senani began discussing the language of the forest with Veerappan. ‘Can you imitate a charging elephant?’ he said. Like a smart boy eager to please his teacher, Veerappan became an elephant the next moment! He widened his small eyes, and trumpeted like an elephant about to charge at its enemy. The act was so convincing that our legs, trained to run the moment we heard the sound, reacted in reflex. Encouraged, he demonstrated how elephants vocalise in different situations.
A ten-year-old Veerappan, who ought to have been playing, learning, and dreaming, had left town and gone to live in the forest. He had spent thousands of days and nights there, mostly without a specific purpose. It was beyond our imagination. He must have observed innumerable natural events. He took us on an invigorating journey. He had captured scenes that would have earned the envy of explorers and scientists out to crack the mysteries of the forest. He captivated us with pictures he had clicked with his mind’s camera.
Veerappan portrayed how a tiger had felled a mighty gaur. In 20 minutes, he gave a detailed account of the fearsome battle that took place one morning. That reminded him of another incident. Wandering alone, he had noticed the twitching tail of a leopard lying in wait. A troop of langurs was settling down for the night in a tall tree. The leopard had merged with the grass, and was stealthily crawling closer. A langur spotted it. A consummate performer, Veerappan launched an exciting audio-visual performance.
He showed us how a frightened little monkey had screamed and jumped across to its mother’s arms, the monkey leader had swung up and down to alert the group, and how the adolescents had gone helter-skelter. Veerappan gave a virtuoso performance, matching the best sound-and-light shows, showing how the leopard froze, waiting for the chaos to subside, and finally pounced on a young langur sitting on the lowest branch. He demonstrated in minute detail how the monkeys had created a racket. An incident that had taken place a long time ago came alive in his narration.
The afternoon news was being broadcast on the radio. Karnataka minister M C Nanaiah said the government was willing to send a mediator if Veerappan wished to negotiate, and had no objection if the mediator were R R Gopal, editor of the Tamil magazine Nakkeeran. We had hoped the government would respond in a disinterested way and Veerappan would be discouraged.
We considered the idea of an ambush and gave it up. What if we refused food? Senani rejected the idea outright. The idea of a silent protest didn’t get an encouraging response either. Dr Maithi butted in, ‘Krupa, you have shown no interest in pranayama and meditation. Start learning it now.’ Senani said, ‘Krupa, Veerappan is coming towards us again.’ I could think of no other way to keep a distance from him, and so I said, ‘Start Maithi’s meditation.’ We sat down with closed eyes, as if following an army order, in a posture suggested by Dr Maithi, our fellow hostage. My application was so poor I could sense everything happening around us, from Veerappan walking up and sitting by our side to his rifle butt softly resting on the ground. After we had spent half an hour, I slowly opened my left eye. Veerappan was sitting with his head bowed.
I didn’t want to break a protest I had mooted, so I kept quiet. After 20 minutes, Veerappan slid away like a snake, lest he disturb our meditation. I snapped, ‘Back to normal!’ Senani opened his eys. It looked like Veerappan was frightened by our mass meditation. He must have imagined we were trying out witchcraft. He got up suddenly and fished out a book from a bag, and started turning its pages.
He looked around. Everyone was lying on the ground. Veerappan ordered, ‘Pasha, come here.’ Pasha, the driver he had kidnapped, threw aside the sheet covering him, and rushed to him. Veerappan began reading. I walked by them, pretending to be getting myself some water. Veerappan’s finger was tracing a paragraph. He was reading it with exaggerated emotion, like a harikatha exponent. ‘What’s that?’ I said. He said, devoutly, ‘Mahabharata’. I returned to Senani and Dr Maithi
and said, ‘Forget your meditation and look. The biggest joke of our expedition.’
It was getting dark. Rangaswamy fetched the radio, which was playing a romantic Kannada song by K S Narasimhaswamy in the voice of Rathnamala Prakash. Delighted, Senani sat listening to it. Veerappan observed him and said, ‘You like dance and music?’ Senani nodded. Veerappan went back to his bag and pulled out a cassette.
The dew had begun to form, and Raju was lighting a fire. Veerappan told Anbu to play the tape. ‘This is the music of my place. It is beautiful. I have two more cassettes like this,’ he said. He then stood in his shorts and vest. The moment the song came on, he started dancing in a style that straddled Bharanatyam and disco. He was doing his own thing, but soon started responding to the beats. He danced for 15 minutes, and stopped when the song ended. Breathless, he said he had done just one beat, and could do eight more. ‘We had 32. The ones who knew them are all dead,’ he said.
He came up with a bigger revelation. ‘Know Hollywood?’ he began. ‘I gather they heard my story and came to make a film. They met our MP in Delhi. He sent them away, saying there was no way he could contact me. They were ready to give me Rs 100 crore. Now you know money isn’t all that important to me.’
‘Right,’ said Senani. He whispered in my ear, ‘Krupa, we must find out how many zeroes he has to his crore!’
(Excerpted from Birds, Beasts and Bandits by Krupakar and Senani, translated from the Kannada by S R Ramakrishna, with permission from Penguin Random House India)
14 days with ‘forest king’
‘The Hunt for Veerappan’, now streaming on Netflix, chronicles the life and times of a poacher and sandalwood smuggler who struck terror in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The four-part series, directed by Selvamani Selvaraj, devotes a significant portion to how Veerappan kidnapped the Kannada thespian Dr Rajkumar, and brought the two states to their knees. But it glosses over another sensational kidnapping, of wildlife photographers Krupakar and Senani, whom he had whisked away from Bandipur. Showtime brings you an excerpt from their book ‘Birds, Beasts and Bandits’, which describes the 14 days they spent as Veerappan’s hostages.