Chota Nagpur plateau, part of the vast Deccan plateau, is Jharkhand's most prominent physical feature, as also its most intriguing. Majorly spread across the districts of Hazaribagh and Ranchi, the area is actually a series of flat-topped plateaus, hills, and valleys presenting an overall lush landscape
There was a time when Hazaribagh did not exist. The place was just the plateau, and much of it was forest. During 1780-90 some battle weary British soldiers halted here to rest and recuperate. East India Company's cantonment followed soon afterwards and Hazaribagh, the sanatorium town, came up at about the same time. The town has ever since stood for rejuvenation and well-being. Hazaribagh has been regarded, and rightly so, a 'sanatorium' amidst sal trees, waterfalls and temperate climes.
If British soldiers came to Hazaribagh to rest and get better, a young poet writing in English and working in an advertising company in Delhi, came back to this hometown of his in 2017. Mihir Vatsa was battling depression then; he had returned not to the hometown really, but to the sanatorium.
The author spends the next three years exploring the northern part of the Chhotanagpur plateau, its local landmarks and their fascinating history, its mighty escarpments, uncharted waterfalls and pristine rivers. Travelling from Canary Hill and the Lake within the town limits, Mihir Vatsa goes through the rocky terrains and laterite paths of deep forest in his trusted Alto to 'find' unexplored waterfalls, and see for himself the course of the plateau's major rivers and its territorial boundaries. These exploratory endeavours were greatly supported by the septuagenarian Bulu Imam, the Padma Shri awardee heritage conservationist of Hazaribagh. Vatsa's adventure-loving mother also remained a constant companion throughout.
Not very long ago I had come across a remarkable book by Sumana Roy titled 'How I Became a Tree' in which the author was drawn to the idea of becoming a tree after seeing the hate, greed, selfishness and violence of our world. Roy gives us a new perspective of what it means to be human in the natural world.
Something similar in Tales of Hazaribagh (Speaking Tiger,2021) too. The 26-years old Mihir Vatsa leaves Delhi battling acute depression and comes to Hazaribagh to get out of it; he's looking to grow self-love out of self-hatred. "It's precisely here that the plateau intervened. I loved it first. I loved its unrelenting flatness and I loved its swift rivers, its ruins and its forest. I loved its lakes and its reservoirs. I loved myself through the plateau. Between what I was and what I am, between hatred and love, and cynicism and hope, is the plateau."
Written with great empathy and measured tones, and in chiselled prose, the book will give the readers a fair glimpse of the therapeutic wonders of the world of nature. For the mysteries of nature could very well turn a plateau into a veritable sanatorium. Read it to realise it. The reviewer is a Joint Secretary rank officer in the Government of Jharkhand. Singh is a bibliophile having a voracious appetite for reading.
