BR HILLS 1

BR HILLS 1
As wild as it gets
By Anurag Mallick

It is a region so wild that the milestones are painted yellow and green for fear of marauding elephants. It has been noticed that wild elephants pull out white milestones. The Forest Department, incidently, recently pulled one of them (the milestones) out of a tree. Welcome to BR Hills, short and sweet for Biligiri Rangana Betta. This was once a temple on a hillock with a rarely visited wildlife sanctuary nearby. That's until Jungle Lodges transformed it into the most amazing vacationing spot in Karnataka. The range stretches from north to south for about 16 km and takes its name from the Biligiri Rangaswamy Temple, which stands atop its highest point. Though Biligiri in Kannada means `white mountain' (the granite cliffs here have turned white due to erosion), the name is clearly a misnomer. The entire area is a thick forest of green dotted by deciduous trees and patches of shola rainforest. In Lord Rangaswamy's temple , he is the patron deity of these forests , is a pair of outsized sandals measuring one foot and nine inches! Local legend contends that the deity uses these sandals to roam the adjoining forests. Almost as if by logical extension, the sandals wear out and are replaced by the villagers who say they are alerted about it in their dreams. The Soliga tribes are the oldest inhabitants of these forests. And then there is the odd signboard that warns you of the most elusive creature of the jungle , Veerappan! Now that's what I call a really wild weekend...