The Pettandar of Chinrala (BLOGPRINT)
There are stories of men who turn into werewolves at night. The stories generally are made into movies with the likes of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff as the main protagonists. These stories are proto-typical tales, where a man gets bitten by a werewolf and becomes one. It generally ends tragically with the man/werewolf being killed by angry villagers or by a terrorised wife etc.But, this one I am going to recount, is a very different kettle of fish.
It was the spring of 1948, I was the newly appointed District Superindent of Police of Vizagpatam(now called Visakhapatnam) district. I was in the habit of going on tour with a whole retinue. But, this time I decided to drive to Chintapalli alone.The forests of Chintapalli lie about 90 miles from Vizag. The forests are thick in places with forests of bamboo and sal and other trees.. The Chintapalli Forest Agency is a Taluka(now called a Mandal) which was at that time rich is wildlife, a few Tigers, but a much larger proportion of Panthers, also called Leopards and an abundance of deer, sambhar, wild pig, bear and bison.
My Inspector at Chintapalli, told me over the then trunk phone that a panther was causing quite a bit of depradation in Chinrala Village and the villagers had asked for help. I drove my jeep up to the Police station at Chintapalli , picked up the inspector and started driving towards Chinrala. The inspector, who was an Anglo Indian called White. In newly independent India, he was referred to sarcastically, as Sri White, filled me in, on the Panther. The panther had arrived one evening suddenly two years ago soon after dusk and casually walked up and down the main village street , cool as a cucumber. He was a very big animal as panthers go, looked to weigh about 70 kgs and appeared to measure at least 8 feet in length from nose to tail. He sat for some time at the village square looked about , like the Raja(not the Maharaja, to which title only the local Tiger, could lay claim ) of the village. Since that time, it appeared that he decided to adopt the village. He used to visit the village regularly and his visits generally coincided with the disappearance of a goat or a cow. Sometimes, the half eaten remains of the kill was found near the Village.
Chinrala Village is what could be considered a one horse town in Telugu country. It was essentially two streets: one street down a part of the Chintapalli Road and another running perpendicular half way down. It was a village of perhaps fifty families, with a headman, called the Pettandar. Inspector White told me with a wry smile, that the local rumor was that the Pettandar and the panther were one and the same. This was so, as the Pettandar reportedly through black magic turned into the beast, in the evening. The reasons adduced were three fold. Firstly, whenever the panther appeared, the Pettandar was absent, ostensibly on a trip outside the village. Secondly the Pettandar was known to dabble in the black arts and was famous for curing snake bites with incantations and finally and most importantly, six months back, the local shikari, who also doubled as the town drunk, depending on his condition at any point of time, had taken a pot shot at the animal with his twelve bore gun and had apparently winged him on his shoulder. The panther had sped away, but the next day, the Pettandar had returned with his arm bandaged saying that he had been hurt falling into a gravel pit. The wound, when examined, showed several small punctures consistent with his story that he had an accident in a gravel pit or alternatively, the viilage wise man remarked with a what looked like a knowing smile , it could be a wound from a glancing gunshot of small pellets (typical a diffusing LG or SG cartridge).,
We reached the village in the late afternoon, met the Panchayat with the Pettandar sitting as headman. The elders said that the panther had arrived the previous evening , ambled up and down both streets and bounded out in what appeared to be a hurry. White, in a low whisper with his forefinger tapping significantly, on the side of his nose said, "The pettandar was also absent at same time".,
That evening they found a buffalo calf missing. Following the blood spoor they found the carcase below a spreading tree, half eaten. The village elders asked me if I would sit up over the kill that night. I told them I would, though Sri White decided to go back to his Police station as he had to control an incipient riot at Chintapalli. I was provided with a hot meal of forest chicken Curry and rice and a boiling hot cup of sweet milky tea, typical of Telugu forest villages.
The Pettandar, did not say much. He apparently had no family and was not married. He appeared to have come to the village as a young man saying that he had left his own village soon after his parents had died He was a man of medium height and build, pock marked and slightly cross eyed..His cross eyes combined with a grin that often appeared on his face, as if out of the blue, gave him a kind of shifty and sinister look that would only add to one’s suspicions, in view of his reported antecedents. He said, “I do not think it is worthwhile for the Ayya(in Telugu, meaning me) to waste his time on this Chirutha Puli(Panther)”. But, he was going along as most of his fellow elders felt that it was necessary.
Looking at the tree above the kill, at about eight feet up, the tree trunk bifurcated to two substantial limbs at an angle leaving a comfortable seat of about about four foot square. It seemed a natural place for me to sit up for the panther. The two limbs of the tree went up another ten feet and then further branches spread out finally to the height of about fifty to sixty feet. This was a substantial tree. I clambered up to the seat that had been covered in straw by the villagers, a comfortable Machan to sit in wait for the panther. I had with me, my trusty Thirty Springfield rifle(called 30 odd six in the US) with one bullet loaded into the barrel and with five other substantial 220 grain bullets, in the magazine. It was a bolt action rifle, that had stood in me in good stead when going after big game., It was about 6.30 in the evening when I climbed onto this makeshift Machan. I had some sandwiches, a flask of tea, and a flash light and a blanket for warmth . About 8.30 I ate the, sandwiches, and drank half the flask. and waited for the panther. At 11.30 I finished the rest of the tea and soon dozed off. I do not know how long afterwards, the stillness was broken by the bell of a sambhar, generally announcing the presence of a big cat in the vicinity. But, then a long silence, that to me became rather oppressive. Well after midnight , the air became rather chilly, I wrapped the blanket tightly round my torso, and involuntarily went to sleep.
Suddenly, I heard the grunting cough, which I knew to be the growl of a panther. I sat up wide awake. In an what felt like a split second, the cough was repeated and in that instant I realized that the direction of the sound was above and not below me. I took my flashlight pressed the button and moved it above me. At about fifteen feet in height on a branch of the tree I was sitting on, I saw the panther. He was lying full length along the branch looking at me with an unwavering stare. Then with a sense of shock, I realized that the panther was cross eyed. My rifle was lying beside me : I knew the action of picking it up, unclicking the safety catch and aiming to fire would take at least half a minute to perform: but there I was , returning the panther’s stare, as if paralyzed , unable to shoot the animal. We remained frozen in our stares for what appeared to be an eternity, but could not have been for more than a minute or two. Then the panther to my mind appeared to smile the familiar sinister cross eyed smile, yawned and I do not know whether I imagined it or not, to my horror winked at me and then jumped down to the other limb, down to the ground and out of sight..
The next day, the villagers arrived, and found me wide awake, but looking a little sheepish. They looked at the kill, found that it had been entirely eaten down to the bone, but they looked puzzled, on why the Ayya had not seen and shot the panther. About two hours later, the Pettandar returned from his trip that , he had made to the adjoining village where, he said with a knowing smile, his ‘woman’lived., He looked at me with his sinister grin and said, “Ayya, you missed the Chirutha Puli(panther). He will not bother the village any more. “ He said that and winked. My blood ran cold at the wink. But there he was, enjoying my discomfiture.
I was DSP of Vizag, for five years after that incident. The panther was never reported to have bothered the village again. The Pettandar remained headman, while I was in Vizag, but retired a few years after I left. On a visit to Chinrala well after my own retirement I heard from the villagers that the Pettandar had died in bed at the ripe old age of 80. He had kept to his practice of disappearing in the evenings periodically and reappearing the next morning. The explanation being that he was visiting his woman, who he never identified.
© Girdhar Gopal., all rights reserved.
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