A trip to the Chettyalathur tribal colony would mean leaving almost everything to chance. Even if you go during the day, when the weather is clear, in a four-wheel-drive cab from Cheeral, the last village with a taxi point, about 10 kilometres away, there could still be herds of wild elephants along the final stretch of the 3-km gravel road to the colony.
That’s how life has been for the settlers of Chettyalathur, a hamlet that straddles the trijunction of Kerala’s Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, Tamil Nadu’s Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, and Karnataka’s Bandipur Tiger Reserve.
“We have been living in the settlement for many generations, but frequent attacks by wild animals are forcing us to leave,” bemoans Ramesh, 44, a farmer at Chettyalathur, the largest of the 110 forest settlements in the wildlife sanctuary.
