Why does this Karnataka man call the jungle his home? Read to know

Tribune Web Desk
Chandigarh, October 9

For 17 years, Chandrashekhar has called a forest in Dakshina Kannada his home. He lives in his ambassador car, bathes in the river, makes a living out of weaving baskets from things lying around in the forest, and socialises with animals.  

He could be the Indian version of Tom Hanks from the 2000 movie ‘Cast Away’. He looks the part too, with his long flowing beard and his gaunt, weather-worn face. 

The 56-year-old Chandrashekhar moved into the forest between Adtale and Nekkare in Dakshina Kannada’s Sullia Taluk when hard times hit him: after a cooperative bank took away his home and his 1.5-acre land because he couldn’t repay a loan of Rs 40,000, he moved in with his sister and his family in Adtale but that got rough, forcing him to set off in his car— the one possession he still owned, News 18 said in its report.

And 17 years later, he’s still there—a tarpaulin covering his car home, and a working radio that he uses to keep in touch with the world outside the forest.

His contact with the outside world is limited to the radio and his visits to a shop in Adtale village, where he sells his baskets in exchange for rice, sugar, and other groceries, the report said.

Wild elephants take a peek into his house every once in a while, as do wild boars, antelopes, leopards, and bison. Snakes are almost always around, but it doesn’t disturb him, the report said.

Things became hard however when the pandemic struck, News 18’s report said. In the few months that everyone in the country withdrew into the homes to fight the pandemic, Chandrashekhar was forced to survive on water and other fluids to survive, but things began looking up again once the lockdown lifted, the news report said.  

And what about authorities? They’ve largely kept away and left him alone, he says. The last time he met any authorities was when he was given the Covid-19 vaccine.  

He claims he’s never harmed or looted resources from the forest and even uses only dead creepers for his baskets and so the forest department leaves him alone.

 “I don’t even cut bamboos in the forest. If I cut even a small shrub, I will lose the faith that forest department has on me,” News 18 quoted him as saying.

He was offered a real home once—a real house to live in—when District Collector AB Ibrahim visited him a few years ago, but Chandrashekhar refused, because that house was in the middle of a rubber forest.

He dreams of getting back his real home—his farmland, but fears that his forest abode, his ambassador, might not make that journey.