During the Raj few bonds were stronger than those forged between Munnar’s shikar-loving British tea planters and the local Muduvans, their tribal trackers. It was an attachment cemented by a common interest — hunting.

Most of the planters had their own Muduvan trackers — an indispensable, and often infallible, accessory in tracking down the quarry. Overnight camps saw the Brits sharing their camp-fire, food and liquor with the Muduvans in a rare spirit of camaraderie that blossomed over the years.

Never obese, the Muduvan was agile, dependable and intrepid. One young planter, breathless after a steep climb, described how his Muduvan “bounded up the hill ahead of me as effortlessly as a young stag.” And a veteran hunter observed, “He’s absolutely reliable. He’ll never bolt with your gun when you’re suddenly confronted by an angry beast, leaving you to face the music!” Indeed, a Muduvan once stood, unflinching, beside a British planter as he gunned down a charging rogue elephant.

Among my collection of old shikar photos is one of a few Muduvans triumphantly perched atop a slain rogue elephant they had helped track down. Another shows a Muduvan carrying a magnificently horned gaur skull on his head, and looking more like a Zulu medicine-man!

To test his Muduvan’s tracking skills, one Brit cleverly faked the spoor of a sambar and later accompanied him to check these out. “This is the dorai’s work!” the Muduvan gravely deadpanned. “How did you figure that out?” queried the planter, mystified. Pat came the terse reply, “From your boot tracks!”

... contd.