This is where we belong: Last family in Attamala forest refuses to leave

Kalpetta: Their rescue from deep inside Soochipara forest -- three days after the July 30, 2024, landslide -- became the defining image of the Chooralmala-Mundakai disaster in Wayanad: forest officials cradling three dazed children during an eight-hour trek through slippery, rain-soaked terrain.

A year later, Krishnan B -- who survived the landslide with his wife Shantha B K and their four sons -- still refuses to leave the forest.

 Officials have tried everything: offered land, housing, schooling for the children. But Krishnan says the forest is the only world he and his children -- Balan (6), Appu (5), Kannan (4), and Unni (2) -- have ever known. His wife, Shantha, is now pregnant with their fifth child.

They belong to the Kattunayakan tribe -- the 'kings of the forest' -- one of southern India's oldest surviving forest-dwelling communities. Over the years, many tribal families have been resettled. Krishnan’s brothers moved out too, after the landslide.
But Krishnan won’t.

For now, Krishnan has moved his family to a prefab shelter built by the Forest Department at the edge of Attamala tea estate. But once the rains end, he says, they’ll return to their old home: a rock shelter hidden deep inside the forest. Even with Shantha’s pregnancy, that plan hasn't changed.

Last week, Onmanorama followed Krishnan back to the shelter he refused to give up. The trail was steep, washed out in places from weeks of rain.

The shelter lies halfway down a ravine -- a deliberate choice, Krishnan said. "If it's hard for us, it's hard for wild animals too."

Below, the Chaliyar river thundered through the gorge, the same river that carried away lives and homes during the 2024 landslide.

Inside the rock shelter lay remnants of the life they lived until last year: a discarded pair of trousers and Shantha's Aadhaar card.

Shantha is four months pregnant and weighs just 27 kg. She speaks little and trusts fewer. Asked about medical check-ups, Krishnan said she had gone to the doctor once. "They said she was fine," he said.

During a previous pregnancy, when Krishnan didn’t return in time, Shantha delivered a stillborn baby alone. She cut the umbilical cord herself.

The couple’s four children don’t go to school. Officials have offered to enrol them -- even suggested a residential tribal hostel.

Krishnan is happy with their progress inside the forest. "They climb trees and rocks. They know the forest," he said. Five-year-old Appu darted ahead barefoot when he came to the edge of the woods to meet us.

Krishnan makes a living gathering forest produce — 'padavali' herbal plant, date palm, frankincense, and wild honey. He sells the herbal plants to traditional physicians in Kozhikode. He sometimes stays deep inside for weeks, often taking one or two children along.

Krishnan said his brothers have also moved out of the forest. But he avoids them. "They drink liquor and hit me when I join them," he said. "That's why I don’t go where they live." But the forest has never made him feel orphaned.