Dang-erous!

Lush teak forests teeming with wildlife, tribal kings who drove away the British and healers who use black magic - Dang in south Gujarat is an explorer's delight

By Eisha Sarkar

Posted o Mumbai Mirror on Monday, December 21, 2009 at 02:36:34 PM

"Yeh Dang hai, Gujarat nahin," Anil Patel, a documentary filmmaker tells us as he takes us down a narrow path through the dense forest in the Sahyadri ranges of south Gujarat. We snub off his comment with a few giggles. "How different can things get when you're just 140 kilometres from Surat?" But when darkness falls, we sit by the campfire at Earth Matters (the eight-acre campsite near Chaankhal village) listening to the night birds and reflect on Patel's words. Dang is different, very different. Warrior tales Little on Dang has been documented. Its population comprises mainly of Bhil, Kundbi, Gamit, Kok Sunset at Dang ni and Warli tribes. Before Independence, several wars were fought between the five tribal kings of Dang and the British. The biggest war took place at Lashkaria Amba, in which the kings of all five erstwhile states got together to protect Dang from British rule. The bust of Shilpath Raja still stands at the same place where he fought off the foreigners years ago. Defeated, the British then entered into a compromise treaty with the tribal kings in 1842, which allowed them to use teak to build railway sleepers (an agitation in south India had clamped off the supply of teak). In return, the five rulers would get a total of 3,000 silver coins. The teak would be loaded on to the trains from Valsad and is therefore still known as Valsadi sal. Meet the king King of Gadhvi - Kiran Singh Yashwantrao Pawar We are indeed privileged to be audience to the King of Gadhvi, one of Dang's five kings. We expect a mustachioed middle-aged man dressed in a leaf skirt, wearing necklaces and a cattle-horn crown. Instead, we find 24-year-old Kiran Singh Yashwantrao Pawar in a yellow shirt and black trousers seated in an administrative office room at Ahwa. We check with Patel if he really is the king. Patel nods. Singh’s ill at ease as we field questions about his current financial condition. He may be king, but all he owns is 150 acres of farmland, he tells us in Dangi (the local dialect). However, Singh is made to feel like king once a year at the Dang Darbar. The festival marks the occasion where the state pays the kings their pension that ranges from Rs 24,000 to Rs 60,000 annually. The kings of Dang are the only rulers in independent India who still get paid after the privy purses for Princely States were abolished in 1970.   Of herbal remedies and black magic "Medicine is medicine, there's no other name for it," Janu Bhai Thakrey responds as we watch him chop a piece of wood into thick slices. He turns to his 'patient' from Surat and tells her, "Grind these, boil them in water for half an hour. Then filter the water and drink it twice a day. Your cancer will become better." The patient notes down the prescription on a yellow chit as others wait impatiently for their turn. Thakrey is j The tribal healer Janu Bhai ust one of the bhagats (tribal healers) that Dang boasts off. Sitting in his own 'clinic' (a shabby corner storage room at the back of a run-down chai joint in Ahwa) he doles out ancient tribal remedies - fruits, shoots and roots - to the throng of patients from all over Gujarat. While naturopathy is the most important healing technique in all of Dang, the bhagats also use black magic to heal those who can't be cured by the herbs. We attend the annual food festival called Kurmari where we are 'greeted' by thousands of tribal from all over Dang. Hundreds of bhagats (mainly men) assemble on the night of the full moon to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. As men sway to the beats of drums and pipes and chain dance around a pole, the bhagats compete with each other and exchange their knowledge of herbs and black magic. We look sympathetically at the goats, chickens and calves that have been lined up for sacrifice. Tradition demands that the meat of the sacrificed animal be consumed at the ceremony itself. On the wild side With lush forests, bamboo landscapes and rivers (Purna, Khapri, Gira and Ambika) and waterfalls, Dang is a paradise for nature lovers. We follow cattle-trails littered with dung to navigate our way through the dense forest to remote tribal villages such as Dhulda, Mahaal and Savarda. The Purna National Park at Mahaal boasts of leopards, deer and even panthers, but the dense forests allow for such low visibility that all we manage to spot are butterflies and birds. The forests are home to the giant red Asian squirrel, but chances of spotting them are rare, unless you find them on your plates at a tribal dinner (we told you, it's different!) Dang is an explorer's delight. It treasures a civilisation we have forgotten and think is extinct. But with logging becoming routine and younger tribals aspiring to move to cities, Dang may no longer be the same. Getting there Ahwa is connected with Vansda, Navapur, Vyara, Nasik, Babulghat and Songadh by road. GSRTC buses are available from here. The nearest railway station is Bilimora on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad rail route.  Folk art and culture of Gujarat: Guide to the collection of the Shreyas Folk Museum of Gujarat  Gujarat (Inside India)