G’ROSS’LY UNDERESTIMATED

   When I first heard about Ross Island, I dismissed it as just another “touristy” attraction every place invariably has – the kind a visitor must visit for fear of being ridiculed amongst peers, but which never quite live up to expectations. So much so that I delayed my inevitable visit to the island as much as I possibly could. I am happy to report that in this case, my fears were completely unfounded.

   Interestingly enough, my first glimpse of this almost triangular island was from the air. It sits at the entrance to Port Blair harbour and gives a commanding view of the Andaman Sea to its East. From the air all I could make out was a really dense forest cover and a solitary small jetty jutting out towards Port Blair. As I settled into Port Blair, I came to know that the island belonged to the Indian Navy – a fact which made me even more complacent about planning a visit there, since I now felt it could be done “anytime”. And we all know how these things never work out.

   Happily though, it did not come to that and about a month after arriving at Port Blair, I found myself waiting for a boat at the Aberdeen Jetty, camera slung around my neck and a Chinese cloth kite in my bag. Ross Island looms large when seen from Aberdeen Jetty, whose only other remarkable features are that it is surprisingly clean and now features a statue of the erstwhile Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The statue, in an attempt to be unique I suppose, features the great man in a pose which made me wonder whether he was throwing the garland or catching one flung at him. Another instance which strengthened my belief that busts and statues of people need to be designed with great care or not at all.

   The boat sidled up to the jetty. As I embarked the considerably weather-beaten vessel, I understood the true meaning of “creaking planks” and “weak rails”. The boat crew were cheerful – the kind of cheerfulness that comes from accepting the fact that every trip could be your last. I began to have serious doubts about the vessel’s sea-worthiness to handle the ten-minute journey to Ross Island. However, even this could not take anything away from the pleasant trip to the island, once you found a place away from the noxious diesel exhaust fumes the boat seemed to specialise in. Ten minutes later, having stepped over two little crabs on the jetty steps, I was on terra-firma, facing a board which said “Welcome to Ross Island”. Given the boat trip, I swear I could make could the word “Congratulations” hidden on that board somewhere.

   From the moment I stepped on the island, it was like I was in a time warp. The thick forest cover I’d seen from the air starts off a bit further inland and as I stepped off the jetty, I found myself in a beautifully manicured open area with a central pathway running along the Western edge of the island. The area is dotted with coconut trees and I turned to look back at Aberdeen Jetty and Port Blair to be greeted by the most picturesque of sights. The vista is punctuated by perfect silhouettes of coconut trees, while ferry boats, almost toy-like in the distance, loll lazily in the tranquil waters of the Andaman Sea.

   As I walked along the pathway, my camera clicking frenetically, I could almost imagine the sahibs with their ladies out for an afternoon stroll in the latter half of the 19th century. Ross Island is so far away from the bustle and clutter of Port Blair that it seems frozen in the 1850s. Wishing to know more, I asked around for a guide. The ever helpful Naval Petty Officer informed me that a woman named Anuradha was the official guide for the island. It was to be a memorable meeting. Anuradha, said the sailor helpfully, was a repository of Ross island trivia and what was more, she could even converse with the deer and squirrels on the island. Seeing my disbelieving look, he nodded vigourously and took me to a small gathering of tourists under a nearby coconut tree. As I moved amongst the throng to see what was keeping them in thrall, I found myself face to face with Anuradha herself. A diminutive bundle of energy, Anuradha greeted me with a beaming smile and for some reason (possibly a sly frown from the Naval sailor), decided to shower me with all her attention from that moment on. I, rather sheepishly, asked her about the supposed conversation with animals. “Oh! It’s almost feeding time for the deer. Come!” she trilled and made off towards an open area to the left. By the time I caught up with her, she was in the midst of about fifty-odd deer who were feeding on bales of grass provided by the staff on the island. I watched, incredulous, as she called out to the deer by name and the shy animals actually responded and came over to her. Clearly enjoying the attention, she then proceeded to call out to some squirrels on the neighbouring trees. Well, the little nut-eaters came out and began a conversation with her as if it was the most natural thing in the world! I began to get an idea as to how Lewis Carroll thought up Alice in Wonderland. There used to be over 500 deer on the island but apparently the multi-horned male Cheetals had taken it upon themselves to implement Darwin’s theory of ‘survival of the fittest’ on Ross Island. As it were, the present count was about 350, lamented Anuradha.

   The island, I was told, was the seat of British power in the Andamans as also the headquarters of the Indian Penal settlement for nearly eighty years from the year of the Great Revolt of 1857 to 1938. The island had everything – a bazaar, a bakery, stores, a water treatment plant, churches, a printing press, a hospital, a cemetery (of course!) and even tennis courts. The British actually came to Ross Island in 1788 by way of a sanatorium and a hospital which was abandoned in 1796 as the mortality rate was too high. I quizzed her about availability of water on the island. Anuradha gave me a special smile for having asked this most incisive of questions and informed me that it was the plentiful supply of water that had driven the jail superintendent JP Walker to Ross from Port Blair in 1857. And by the way, the island was named after Sir Daniel Ross who was a marine surveyor.

   Rather overwhelmed by this information overload, I decided to lighten up and do a few things of my own. So I crossed over to the helipad (Yes, there is a helipad) where the relative lack of trees meant that sunlight was allowed to reach the ground and unfurled my clown-faced Chinese kite. It was the turn of the Ross Island staff (and Anuradha) to gape as my yellow clown-kite leaped joyfully into the stiff sea-breeze and was soon smiling wolfishly at us from its rather elevated position. Flying a kite from an island out over open sea is a most liberating experience; possibly the best it can get – if you can keep the kite aloft for a respectable length of time, that is. Seeing I was thoroughly enjoying myself, the kite suddenly caught a downdraught, and before you could say “Daniel Ross!”, plunged headlong into the blue waters. There followed an embarrassing salvage operation with the help of naval sailors with barely suppressed grins, but I had gone on record as the only chap in recently remembered history to have flown a kite from Ross Island.

   To the casual enquirer Ross Island comes across as the place where the British kept the worst cases of freedom fighters and did unspeakable things to them. The average British officer is painted as a fiendish and remorseless demon completely committed to inhuman acts. Even the excellent film on Ross Island (which I am told is extremely popular amongst the tourists) errs in this regard somewhat in its attempt to dramatise certain events and send the viewers into a patriotic frenzy. Coloured by the same perception, I was quite taken aback to realise that Ross Island was never a prison at all but merely the headquarters of the British who were in charge of the Indian Penal Settlement. The prisoners were tasked to build the infrastructure at Ross after which they were sent to the sinister sounding Viper Island nearby where the first prison was built.

   At this point I recall my meeting with Rayleigh Trevelyan – an individual with a very special bond. Rayleigh Trevelyan was born on Ross Island in the year 1923 when his father was in-charge of the garrison at the Indian Penal settlement. All of eighty-seven years old, Rayleigh Trevelyan came back to Ross Island in 2009, drawn to the place where he was born. As he made his way towards the site of his father’s bungalow, he said recalled a photograph of him sitting on his mother’s knee on the steps of the bungalow. Less than half his age, I had to put on a brave face just to keep up with him as we toiled up a killing slope on the island on a hot afternoon. I left him alone to savour the moment when we reached the ruins of the Commissioner’s bungalow (as it is marked on the island). While Rayleigh Trevelyan was lost in nostalgia I looked around the spectacular ruins of the Commissioner’s bungalow. In fact all the ruins on Ross are truly awesome. The roots of giant trees seem to have come from behind every wall to completely embrace them – a bit like a scene from a scary movie – but the combination of old bricks, peeling mortar clasped in the sinuous embrace of ancient roots makes for a truly arresting picture, especially when clicked in sepia!

   “I was brought home from hospital along with my mother in a palanquin borne by two murderers and thereafter cared for by a Burmese murderess named Mimi” reminisced Rayleigh Trevelyan, as we savoured the breathtaking view at Ferrar beach on the Eastern side of the island. “Contrary to popular belief, in its early days the penal settlement largely contained criminals and murderers and not freedom fighters. About thirty-three percent of the inmates were convicted of crimes of passion”. Quite an astonishing statistic that one, eh? Never would have thought passions ran so high in these parts of the world.

   Ferrar beach deserves a special mention though. If anything, this beach has become even more beautiful after it bore the brunt of the tsunami in 2004. There’s not much of the beach that Lt Col Michael Lloyd Ferrar (the butterfly-mad Commissioner of the penal settlement in 1923) would have walked on left anymore – the island just sort of broke off into the water, presumably because of the quake. It’s more cliffy and craggy in nature. The coconut trees are almost strewn around like chaff and those that have held their own, lean precariously over the water’s edge at impossible angles. The pristine blue water washes on the rocky coast below me as I take another classic picture postcard photograph. Remember to visit this place on a full moon night for an ethereal ambience.

   I stop over at the little museum in the evening. It’s a hut really, but like everything else on the island, quaint and frozen in time. It even has the musty smell of old documents and faded photographs. I remember Rayleigh Trevelyan poring over each one, trying to identify with something. He also pointed out a few photographs he’d donated to the museum a few decades ago. The English sure lived in the lap of luxury even though it was created by prisoners in such a remote part of the world.

   It’s time to catch the last boat back to Port Blair. I drag my feet back to the jetty savouring the orange light of a spectacular sunset. I leave behind the friendly deer, a peacock silhouetted on the jetty wall, Anuradha’s incessant chatter, Farzand Ali’s grocery store and the eerily magnetic ruins of the Church as I am helped aboard another of those sea-going death-traps. The boatman gives me a smile to suggest I would definitely perish this time. But then I really do not mind for I have seen one of the world’s great sites. Grossly underestimated and largely unsung, Ross Island is arguably one of the finest heritage sites of the country.