The bright sunlight bursting through the window of the jeep was starting to warm my arm as we slowed up on entering the village as a procession of grey, long horned cows blocked our path. Like the outskirts of the large city we had travelled through earlier that morning, the buildings around us were tatty and ramshackle, the open-fronted shops selling everything from plastic chairs to scrawny live chickens, cans of cola to roughly tied bundles of firewood.
We passed a small temple covered in brightly painted Hindu figurines and this was the only building that had any semblance of being finished. At the edge of the village stood litter; heaps, piled high with rotten food scraps and plastic bags of all colours. A pair of macaques were sifting through the masses of carrier bags and a rough looking dog was busily feeding on some remains.
I had wanted to come to India for many years, inspired by John Bailey’s ‘Casting for Gold’ and John Wilson’s television shows featuring India, and as the jeep bumped along the dusty, potholed road into the greenery of the forest, I just hoped that over the next few days I would find the India I had dreamt of.
A loud thump woke me from a deep sleep, it was first light and I stumbled into the bathroom with my stomach growling – an after effect of the local dishes served at the camp. I could see through the cabin window that the forest was shrouded in a heavy mist and pulling on some shorts and a shirt I crept past my roommate, who was still fast asleep, quietly opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.
There were monkeys everywhere, a large rope climbing net was tied to the tree in front of the cabin as well as hammocks and a swing and macaques – small and large – occupied all of them. In the mist towards the edge of the river stood a group of spotted deer looking around nervously, as if sensing my presence. A macaque suddenly leapt from the straw roof that covered the porch, landing in the branches of the nearest tree, this was probably the culprit responsible for my early morning wake up call.
The sound of a snapping twig caused the spotted deer to bolt off into the trees and through the mist an Indian lad appeared carrying flasks of tea and coffee. The monkeys watched intently as I sat sipping my cup of sweet, milky tea but I was on my third morning in the camp now and would not make the mistake of leaving my cup unattended in their presence again, having learned quickly of their tendency to pinch anything and everything!
It was still misty as my companions and I carried our fishing rods to the sandy beach at the edge of the Camp Pool. Four Indian guides were positioning white bamboo coracles in the shallows of the river, loading stools and bags of ragi paste bait into the bowl-shaped craft.
Once sat in the coracles we wished each other luck and set off downstream with our guides. We had all come to the River Cauvery to catch mahseer, legendary fish once pursued by Maharajas and English officers during the era of the Raj. These large, stunning looking fish of the carp family reside in the fast flowing water here and can reach weights of 100lb.
Rocks poked out of the river here and there, some only a couple of feet wide others forming small islands, surrounded by thick green reeds. It was on one of the larger rocks that emerged from the surface of the water that I had seen a very large crocodile sleeping the previous evening, but I couldn’t see any through the fading mists this morning.
A bag of large balls of ragi paste sat at my feet, our bait for the Mahseer, a reel of handline alongside it would be used to catch small livebaits during the day. A black and white Kingfisher shot past us and with the other coracles out of sight now, we sped on downstream.
Some way down the river, we stopped by a large island, tying the coracle to some reeds at its edge and cast our baits into the fast flowing water below our position. Water forced over the rocky island by the fast current trickled into the main flow via a series of miniature waterfalls alongside us. The morning sun began to burn away the mist, the dense green forest coming into view along the banks. River terns flew up and down the river and the sound of the rapids filled the air.
In the emerging sunshine the forest suddenly came to life, green parakeets and grey hornbills could be seen and heard in the trees of the forest and macaques played on the branches hanging over the river. Bright orange dragonflies danced around the coracle and at one point a large fish eagle flew slowly past. It was like fishing in a completely different world!
Sitting there in the warmth of the Indian sun I felt in complete awe of my surroundings; to be fishing in that stunning place waiting for one of the baits on the river bed below us to be taken by a fish of legends was magical. I wondered if I would ever fish a place more beautiful or more alive than where I was at that moment and I realized as I sat listening to the river flow and the noisy birdlife, in that primitive coracle, that I had indeed found the India I had dreamed of.
