singursaga: MALNUTRITION DEATHS It’s Getting Dark Out There There are 19 Kurumba hamlets in the depths of the Silent Valley, they too have seen infant deaths. Our correspondent braved the incessant rains to find out more. MINU ITTYIPE

Sunday, July 21, 2013

MALNUTRITION DEATHS It’s Getting Dark Out There There are 19 Kurumba hamlets in the depths of the Silent Valley, they too have seen infant deaths. Our correspondent braved the incessant rains to find out more. MINU ITTYIPE

SIVARAM V.

Valli, with one-year-old daughter Binish, crosses a river en route to her house in Thazha Bhoothayar

MALNUTRITION DEATHS

It's Getting Dark Out There

There are 19 Kurumba hamlets in the depths of the Silent Valley, they too have seen infant deaths. Our correspondent braved the incessant rains to find out more.

MINU ITTYIPE

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?287026

In July, with the rains in full spate, Kerala throbs with life. It's hard to find an inch where something green is not growing. Yet, in Attapady you can. We had come prepared to deal with the rain on our way to Attapady. From Palakkad we pass the lush, wet Silent Valley and come down into the gentler slopes of Agali panchayat which is pleasantly cool. But even in the monsoon, some parts of Attapady lie in the rain shadow where not a drop falls, where the land is arid and there is acute water shortage. Two infant deaths had been reported from the 19 Kurumba hamlets that lie deep in the forests of Silent Valley so we decide to go there. At Pannamaravayal, men and women flag us down and load our jeep-top with rations. The government has been doling out free grains. Buses do not go beyond this point and for the tribals it's an arduous 7 km trek to Thazha Bhoothayar and 10 km to Edavani Ooru with 25 kilos of rice on their heads. The highest hamlet is Mele Bhoothayar on this side of the mountain and there are more hamlets on the other side.


	The Kurumba women tell us that it is difficult to grow anything here. The elephants and pigs destroy everything.

We cross the Varagar stream by jeep and enter the Bhavani forest range of the Silent Valley. We are told that we would have to cross the stream four more times and then trek to reach Edavani. And if it continues to rain, the streams would be impossible to cross back. The nearest hospital is 25 km away and if the streams are swollen, then a sick person can do little else but wait it out. We decide not to go beyond Thazha Bhoothayar. At the edge of the stream we watch Valli with a child straddling her hips deftly crossing over to Thazha Bhoothayar. We follow her and find the current too incredibly strong for us. After crossing the stream with some help, we walk on ahead till we come to an open clearing with 2-3 houses strung around it. Around this is some terraced land and the Kurumba women tell us that it is difficult to grow anything here. Elephants and wild pigs destroy everything. One of them, Jakki, who says she is 48 but may be 20 years older, is in a mood to sing and dance. She sings in a deeply soothing, strong, lilting voice in the Kurumba language.

On our return from the hamlet, we see a cobra crossing the field and we keep a respectable distance but not so the Kurumbas. They run towards the snake. Later, at the tribal speciality hospital, Dr Ramesh tells us he gets 4-5 snake bite cases every week. "Most of the tribals survive even a venomous snake bite. Their constitution is equipped to combat venom." Snakes are easier to tackle, it is hunger that is the more deadly enemy.

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