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Veerappan's Folly

By B Sumangal; Illustrations by Sudheer Nath

In the forests of South India lived an infamous rogue called Veerappan. There was no marksman who could shoot as well. His gang was known for its acts of cruelty. Mothers would frighten their kids with tales of Veerappan and how he kidnapped naughty children.

The entire gang was high on the government's wanted list, for Veerappan and his gang had killed 2000 elephants for their ivory and over 300 forest rangers. But, either through fear or otherwise, the villagers never informed on Veerappan.

In turn, Veerappan (perhaps only his mother might have dared call him Veeru or Appa and that too before he was born) would sometimes throw some money, sandalwood or a carcass before the villagers. That is, if he was in a good mood, which was very rare. The tree or the carcass was enough to feed the entire village.

It didn't matter to the villagers that the money distributed was indirectly their own for after all, the forest wealth was theirs to lead a life without destroying it completely. Nor did it matter to them that the wildlife he killed, destroyed their habitat. To them the money flung before them occasionally, was better than nothing at all.

But how did Veerappan become such a dreaded dacoit? Now that's quite a story. As a child he was the puniest and sorriest looking boy in his village. He started growing a handlebar moustache the day he noticed a few strands of hair sprouting on his upper lip. He was a teenager then.

In the village near the forests, everyone cut sandalwood trees from the areas marked as government property. They then sold it secretly for high prices to people who were willing to do anything for the fragrant wood.

Veerappan soon became an expert in locating the largest and most fragrant tree to cut. Since the tree had to be cut, sawed and transported without the forest officials knowing about it, he got hold of a power saw from his underground contacts and cleverly devised a muffler to cut the sawing noise of the machine.

The forests were also full of elephants and tusks were worth a fortune, more so since killing elephants, an endangered specie, was forbidden by the government. Veeru practiced long and hard and became a crack shot. In a trial run he shot his first tusker and managed to kill it.

Then he declared himself a gang leader and set about collecting a large gang of thugs from around the village to do his dirty work.