At Malayinjippaara

Reached kottayam on time to enjoy the nercha kanji on Good Friday from a church there. Next day morning, started to Malayinjippara to visit a great man who devoted his 40 years in planting, caring and loving trees as his own children. I had decided to visit his place after reading an article on Malayala Manorama on his fabulous life last week.

First reached Eerattupetta via Pala and from there got another bus to Poonjar. Waited more than 30 minutes there in Poonjar to get the Koruthodu bus. Walked around 1 km after getting down at Malayinjippara since the person I wanted to meet was not staying exactly there as I thought!

At the abode of Devasiachan.. in the middle of a forest..

There I could see a lot of trees including Njaval, Parijatham, Kariveetti, Ambazham, Maravuri maram, Yakshippala, Israel tree(dunno the name.. it was brought from Israel.. and so the name!), Butter fruit tree, Anali vegam (presence of this tree with white flowers would keep away snakes), kunthirikkam to name a few.

Gone inside the man-made-forest and spent around 2 hrs inside with a shivering heart as I was afraid of snakes (I was told about this Anali vegam tree only after I returned from the forest L). At that moment I realized how valuable was life and how much I loved living in this world without any injuries.

Apart from the rare trees in the dense forest, there are a lot of jackfruit trees of different genres, many kanikkonna trees, wide varieties of mango trees, coco trees, jaathi trees, kamuku etc. I ate one Jaathikka(nutmeg) from there.

Near to his house, saw a pig enjoying in the mud created exclusively for this mud lover creature and three cows in a near-by farm. One of them was a kid. Fed the two big cows with some grass and leaves. They didn’t mind me initially. But soon they became friendly after giving them their food!

There was an Erumaadam(elevated hut on the tree) in the front side. Climbed up the Earumaadam and meditated there for a few minutes. It was a nice one built upon bamboo trees.. sorry bamboo plants of the grass family.. I don’t know why they are being treated as plants!

He asked me to have lunch from there as I didn’t eat at noon. But I requested to get coco fruit instead. He then plucked 2 coco for me. I ate one within no time. It was almost ripe.

Talked with him on the medicinal benefits of the herbal plants. There I saw Vaathakkodi plant leaves with its cables swinging down from some trees.

Upon leaving I hugged him and assured him I would be coming back with the seeds of ‘Lakshmi tharu’ from the Art Of Living Asram in Bengaluru. I left the other coco there instead of taking it with me. Got bus quickly and while sitting in the bus, I realized that along with that coco, I left my heart too there..