My Adventure in India

India is an exotic land to outsiders. My perception of India was shaped by stories and movies like the Jungle Book and Indiana Jones. My father, an immigrant from India, had told me stories of his homeland, and I remember asking him once if he ate monkey brains. The question did not amuse my father, yet he shared stories of his childhood and heroes from Indian lore, such as the Monkey God named Hanuman. His stories always fascinated me, and I wondered what an adventure to India would be like one day. Thankfully, I was fortunate enough to travel and experience adventures in India with my father. The one adventure that comes to mind involved getting lost around a forested mountain, a failed hunt, and a conversation with a dog.

My adventure took place in the southern Indian state of Kerala, a lush tropical area facing the Arabian Sea in Southern India. The region around Kerala is covered in tropical forests where you can see large trees growing mangoes and coconuts. Also, you can see monkeys, wild boars, elephants, and possibly a tiger in the natural reserves. India is famous for its tea, and tea plantations are in the western section of Kerala. My father and a cousin of his arranged for a trip to visit one of these tea plantations that would take us along a four-hour journey starting near the coastal city of Kochi and headed towards the Periyar Tiger Preserve National Park.

My journey began in the back of a land rover-like jeep. As we drove, I could see the surrounding countryside where I observed the people and became amused at the traffic jams caused by wandering cows along the road. We briefly stopped for lunch, where I was offered a coconut cake that tasted pleasant but would later cause me suffering later on the trip. As the journey continued, heavy rains began to fall as the monsoon season set in. To stay dry in the back of the jeep, we closed the canvas flaps; but this caused the diesel fumes to creep into the back. The smell of the diesel fumes, along with the scent of the coconut cake we ate earlier and taken extras with us in the jeep, created an insufferable mixture that began to exacerbate my motion sickness. What made it worse was that the four-journey took much longer as we got lost in the forested and mountainous regions where the tea plantations were located.

Along the way, my father and his cousin stopped and asked for directions. Each time, they pointed towards a path, and off we went. While trapped in the back of the jeep, I noticed we had traveled there before. I realized that we were driving around in circles at the base of a mountain. Outside the jeep, pouring rain and getting dark. We were getting lost because there was a misunderstanding of what was being asked. My father and his cousin were asking for directions to the name of a specific tea plantation, but the locals thought they were being asked where the “old man was” due to my father’s and his cousin’s mispronunciation word. Thus, the locals pointed in the direction of the nearest old man. The four-hour journey lasted close to seven hours before we found the tea plantation.

When we arrived, it became clear no one at the tea plantation was expecting us. No one bothered to tell the staff at the plantation that a group of Indians and Americans were arriving. This fact meant that there was no dinner. Instead of going back down the mountain to buy food, my father’s cousin decided he wanted to hunt for dinner and take me along. I had never hunted before, and there I was in a foreign land attempting to hunt in the area around the tea plantation that border deeper forest. I am not sure what my father’s cousin expected to pursue in a tea plantation. Rabbits? In my mind, I was thinking a tiger would jump out and surprise our little hunting party that consisted of one man carrying what looked like a relic of a rifle from the 1890s and me holding a stick and a flashlight. We walked around the woods for over an hour, and we did not kill anything for dinner. Upon our return, my mother half-joked in frustration that if it made us feel better, we should drive down to the bottom of the mountain where there was a market, and we could shoot the dead animal hanging for sale.

Cold, wet, and hungry, I sat outside the small building at the plantation. I looked out across the plantation rows at the moon when a dog came and sat down next to me. The dog was a kind spirit and sat there as I expressed my frustration at the long journey and failed hunt. The dog reminded me of mine back home. He was kind and calm and allowed me to vent. Of course, I am unsure if the dog understood anything since I spoke English, and I assumed he understood the local Indian dialect spoken in the region. If there was a language barrier, the dog and I did not seem to care. The following day, I asked the father to ask the plantation workers if they had seen the dog and remarked they were not aware of any dog at the plantation. I am not sure how the dog got there, but I am glad for that brief moment I had a friend to talk to during my misadventure to the tea plantation.

We left the plantation and headed off to the national park for another adventure that included fights with monkeys, but I will share that at another time. Since that adventure in India, I have traveled to other places around the world. I like to explore and am comfortable getting lost. I learned to never go on an adventure unprepared, bring plenty of food, and, if possible, find yourself a good dog to converse with on your journey.