Odisha: A Trip to the Mysterious and Mystic Island of Berhampura

It was a slightly foggy afternoon when we started sailing in a packed motorised boat from Balugaon, in Ganjam district of Odisha.

The sea wind was gradually growing gusty and we were a little apprehensive as our boat started rocking at times.

The fear was further fuelled when the accompanying boatmen handed us life jackets. Since a few of us were not adept at swimming in currents like Chilika lagoon, the fear was natural.

Berhampura is a very less publicised island nestled between the Chilika lagoon and the Bay of Bengal.

Although there are no known human inhabitants in this island, the countable living creatures that rule this island are some feral cows, who have been abandoned here for more than 70 years.

There is no recorded history of when the island came into being. Whether it is timeless or born out of some massive literal drift, cannot be ascertained.

As our boat anchored at the bank of Berhampura Island, we heaved a sigh of relief after our one-hour-long voyage.

As we disembarked, we were taken to a British era rest house, later restructured into a three-room bungalow by the state forest department, with a huge backyard leading to the other end of the island, where the sea tides lapped at the shore.

The lovely courtyard had arch-shaped windows and a wide exterior.

At night, there was a mystic air of silence except the sound of nocturnal creatures. It was so quiet, that one could hear each other breathe.

We woke up to an early morning that was indeed dreamlike, with sun playing hide and seek through the canopy of the casuarinas sparsely allowing the morning rays to fall on the sandy surfaces below.

With a nip in the air at dawn, we chose to walk to the sea shore that was faintly bathing in sunlight. Little did we know that there was a spectacle in the waiting.

A figure could be noticed from behind the thick casuarinas, swiftly vanishing in the thick woods. It was obviously a human figure, but his or her disappearance was so fast that was never possible to figure out anything further.

When we asked the forest department man in the Bungalow to unravel the ‘mystery’, he sported an enigmatic smile. The ‘mystery’ remains unsolved.  

There was a vast carpet of numerous red crabs lacing the expanse of the shore. Our presence was not a welcome sign for them, as they retreated into their holes as a defence against outsiders.

We took a circuitous route from there to discover other living creatures. Our first encounter was with a couple of jackals who were digging a hole on the sand bed to get some crabs out for snacks, perhaps.

As we walked through the sandy track, we had a pleasant yet fiery encounter with the ferocious inhabitants of the Island. About a hundred feral cows grazing on the pastures and a few in groups were just standing there.

Some of them raised their heads in alert as they saw us. Their fierce breathing and dragging of feet on the surface were enough for us to guess that further curiosity could be dangerous.

We could recollect the words of the forest personnel that these cows normally do not brook the presence of outsiders.

We decided to turn back and noticed a fishing cat suddenly passing through the hedges -- a lovely and little animal resembling the tiger, with black stripes on its body.

Back at the shore, the setting sun looked like a brilliant crimson disc lazily dipping low on the horizon.

The scene was captivating and mystic, and as the night started falling on the Island, we could never recover from the inscrutable mystery of a probably a human figure that vanished, and the forest department man’s enigmatic smile.    

The writer is an independent journalist based in Odisha.