Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, October 9
For 17 years, Chandrashekhar has been calling a forest in Dakshina Kannada his home. He lives in his ambassador car, bathes in the river, makes a living by weaving baskets from things lying in the woods, and socializing with animals.
He could be the Indian version of Tom Hanks from the 2000 film ‘Cast Away’. He also looks the part, with his long flowing beard and his grumpy, weather-soaked face.
Chandrashekhar, 56, moved into the forest between Adtale and Nekkere in Dakshina Kannada’s Sulia taluk when he had a tough time: a co-operative bank took away his house and his 1.5 acres of land because he could not repay a loan of Rs. 40,000, he moved to Adale with his sister and his family, but that turned out to be tough, forcing him to sit in his car—an asset he still owned, News 18 said in his report.
And 17 years later, he’s still there—a tarpaulin covering his car house, and a working radio he uses to keep in touch with the world outside the woods.
The report said his contact with the outside world is limited to radio and a shop in Adtale village, where he sells his baskets in exchange for rice, sugar and other groceries.
Like wild elephant, wild boar, antelope, leopard and bison, wild elephants peep into his house from time to time. The report says that snakes are almost always around, but it doesn’t bother them.
News18 reported that when the pandemic struck, things got tough. The news report said that in the few months when everyone in the country went home to fight the pandemic, Chandrashekhar was forced to survive on water and other fluids to survive, but after the lockdown was lifted. Things started showing up again.
And what about the officers? They have largely stayed away and left him alone, he says. The last time he met an officer, he was given the vaccine for Kovid-19.
They claim that they have never damaged or looted resources from the forest and even use only dead vines for their baskets and hence the forest department leaves them alone.
“I don’t even cut bamboo in the forest. If I cut down even a small bush, I will lose faith in me that the forest department has faith in me,” News18 quoted him as saying.
A few years ago when District Collector AB Ibrahim came to visit him, he was once offered a real house—a real house to live in—but Chandrashekhar refused, as the house was in the middle of a rubber forest.
He dreams of getting back his real home – his farm, but he fears that his jungle abode, his ambassador, he can’t visit.