Living in the woods might be an ideal dream for many city dwellers hoping to get away from the urban jungle but life isn't all cozy forest cottages and picturesque jungle safari in the real world. It is also living amidst the fear of the wildlife, no access to ready-to-cook/eat food and surviving purely on what nature has to offer.
According to a News18 report, 56-year-old Chandrashekar gave 17 years of his life to the dense forest area nestled between the villages Adtale and Nekkare near Aranthodu of Sullia taluk, Dakshina Karnataka.
During pre-pandemic times, he could weave baskets using dead creepers from the forest, sell them at a nearby village shop and buy rice and sugar, but post-pandemic, for weeks, he survived on wild fruits only.
The forest man was once an areca nut farmer with 1.5 acres of farmland in Nekral Kemraje village. However, things turned rather uneventful for him in 2003 when he took a loan of Rs 40,000 from a co-operative bank. He tried hard but couldn't repay the loan.
So the bank auctioned his farm, leaving him landless. He took off to his sister's house in Adtale in his ambassador car but following a rift with his sister's family, decided to live alone, all by himself. He drove away into the deep jungle, parked his car in a good spot, and put a plastic sheet above to protect the car from rain and sun.
Chandrashekar received his covid-19 vaccination with the help of Aranthod Gram Panchayat despite being cut off from civilization and was also visited by the District Collector with the promise of getting another house to live in. The offer was politely refused by him, for he didn't wish to live amidst rubber plantations, according to the News18 report. All he hopes to get back is his land and drive back home like in those good old times.
