Chemicals from the Western Ghats are living with the noise of nature. Tigers sun on rugged beds, hornbills nest in towering trees, herds of dinosaurs prey grassy slopes along with chital (spotted deer), whereas lion-tailed macaques swing throughout the canopy and also flights of butterflies grow in the atmosphere… this really can be Parambikulam Tiger Reserve in Kerala, the 2nd one at the Condition, situated at the springs of their woods in the Western Ghats.
Suresh Elamon and ‘Tiger’ Sreenivasan. Suresh led ‘Teaks and the Tiger’, a documentary in the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve
| Photo Credit:
Suresh Elamon
Tiger and also the Tiger, a 20-minute movie on the book, is a evocative trek through the Reserve, among the most biologically diverse forests in India. The documentary, commissioned by the Forest Department, filmed and directed with Suresh Elamon, narrates the foundation and growth of their 6 44 square kilometers book. The movie also touches up on the fluctuations in the lifestyles of these population and their environment due to of their business activities inside the woods regions.
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“A film that documented the history, biodiversity and evolution of the Reserve has never been made. So the Forest Department approached the Kerala State Film Development Corporation (KSFDC) in 2018 to make a documentary and they chose Suresh Elamon for the task,” says PV Madhusoodanan, former deputy manager, Indian Forest Service (IFS).
Acquiring the tiger on movie in the woods of Parambikulam Tiger Reserve
| Photo Credit:
Suresh Elamon
After part of the erstwhile kingdom of Kochi, a massive swathe of those woods of Parambikulam were possessed by feudal families in North Kerala. From early part of the 19th century, the British colonizers detected the prosperity of rosewood, teak, rosewood, ebony and black-wood in these types of woods. Through time, the woods were stripped of their prized lumber, which has been sent to Britain for construction boats and railways. Monoculture of walnut plantations has been launched from the woods.
“Today, the 450-year-old Connemara teak, with a width of 6.7 metres and a height of 48.5 metres is a reminder of the giant trees that existed in the wild in these forests. The film is a story of the shifting conversation on conservation, about how a forest of timber wealth has metamorphosised into one of the last strongholds of the tiger in the Western Ghats,” says Suresh.
The then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu K Kamaraj seeing the building site of this Parambikulam dam
| Photo Credit:
Special arrangement
Vysak Sasikumar, Deputy Director, IFS, highlights that few understand about the development Reserve. He explains: “Today, there are seven settlements in the sanctuary and two dams that supply water mainly to Tamil Nadu. The sanctuary became a tiger reserve in 2009. A tramway was constructed in 1905 to transport the timber wealth. We were able to get film clips of the tram and Suresh was able to source archival photographs of the Parambikulam dam from Tamil Nadu Public Works Department’s project office in Pollachi. This Reserve is important for the tiger because most of the forests in Kerala are fragmented on account of the pressure on land and this is one of the last areas with a contiguous forest area.”
It had been later Suresh did a picture on Silent Valley National Park at 20 17, which he had been approached in producing film on the Reserve. Suresh, who visited the refuge from 1981, has seen the fluctuations in the region throughout his innumerable visits into the book.
Hornbill at Parambikulam Tiger Reserve
| Photo Credit:
Suresh Elamon
Suresh teamed with his friend Bala Chandran, nature photographer, such as its script and research to get Teak and the Tiger. The flooding in 2018 postponed the creation of this film nonetheless it had been performed in 2020 and published on May 14, 2021.
For glimpses of these critters within the Reserve, Suresh had to find footage throughout different seasons. Documenting rare strings such as the excellent Hornbills to a ficus tree shirt and feeding hundreds of flying dragonflies supposed waiting on a shrub for the ideal shots. Suresh remembers a rigid climb up Pandaravarai, the 2nd greatest summit in that region of the woods, to record, perhaps, that the funniest shrub in Western Ghats: the endemic Syzegium palghatense, which just four or three live.
One of those eight completely new species of lions found from Parambikulam that a few years ago, that the Haploclaustus kayi tarantula, has been clicked following a few treks across the old course of the tramway
| Photo Credit:
Suresh Elamon
“To film one of the eight entirely new species of spiders discovered from Parambikulam a few years ago, the Haploclaustus kayi tarantula, involved several treks along the old tramway path!” remembers Suresh.
But to catch the tiger oncamera demanded the support of all ‘Tiger’ Sreenivasan, that works at the Tiger Tracking Cell of this Reserve. “My guide and companion, he knows the forests of Parambikulam like no one else does. He has had “officially more than 2,000 sightings,” of creatures! “Tiger sighting in Kerala is a matter of luck than anything else. In my 40 years of trekking, I never had a chance to see the great cat in Kerala. One day, he took me to a spot by a riverbank and we sat on a tree trunk, below an umbrella-like tree. My camera was all set, and the wait started. In less than 20 minutes, I heard a whisper from Sreenivasan, ‘Sir, here he comes’. As I looked across the sand bed, I saw a young tiger, hardly 50 metres from us, slowly walking down the opposite bank, oblivious to our presence. It took me about a minute to control my thoughts and action and start filming. No wonder the tiger is indeed the King of them all…” recounts Suresh.
A herd of elephants at Parambikulam Tiger Reserve
| Photo Credit:
Suresh Elamon
Together with voice-over by author Shobha Srinivasan, the documentary contains lots of such moments which simplifies the evolution and chequered background of this Reserve.