KASARAGOD: Lijeesh Mathew, a 15-year-old boy, lost his way and spent an entire stormy night in the forest until he was found by rescuers around 7.30 am on Sunday. By then, the boy had spent around 14 hours in the forest, chilled to the bone and legs bitten by leeches as he was wearing only his shorts and did not have his shirt on.
The boy's misadventure kept Balal gram panchayat on edge for the whole night. Around 5.30 pm on Saturday, when a shirtless Lijeesh was in the thick of gully cricket, his mother Sally Shaji asked him to check the water pipeline.
The family lives at Valliya Pamathattu, on the edge of a forest, in Konnakkadu ward of Balal panchayat. Residents usually draw drinking water from streams uphill using flexible PVC pipes. Gravity will bring clear water to tanks at homes downhill. Sometimes dry leaves can block the mouth of the pipe or wild animals or storms can change the position of the pipe.
It was routine work for Lijeesh. So, he ran up the hill to fix the pipe, 500m away. "I did not expect him to go alone," said Sally.
After some time, the water started falling into the tank. But Lijeesh did not return even after 45 minutes. By 6.30 pm, his father Shaji Vattamala, and Sally started worrying. They are surrounded by relatives and good neighbours. They immediately set up several search teams and went inside the forest. In an hour, residents from Konnakkadu, 3 km away, joined him. Soon the police too joined the search party.
By 7 pm, strong wind and heavy rain started pounding Pamathattu, also known as Panjab. Three weeks ago, a herd of elephants had parked themselves pretty close to Sally and Shaji's house. "I knew he would find a safe place inside the forest to stay. But I was worried before the forest had snakes and elephants. Also, he could fall from slippery boulders," said Lijeesh's mother Sally.
Around 1 pm, the search parties returned to base. The weather became too hostile, said Konnakkadu ward member Bincy Jain. "We decided to resume the search by 6 am," she said.
Lijeesh -- a class X student of Government Higher Secondary School at Maloth Kasaba -- said he had fixed the pipe and was returning when it became misty and the visibility dropped. "I had come up to my neighbour's house when I realised I should take another path to reach my home," he said.
So he started walking back. And that walk took him 4km deep inside the forest. Lijeesh realised he was lost. "So I climbed atop a boulder and sat there," he said.
From the top of the boulder, Lijeesh could see the torch lights of the search parties far away. He yelled for attention but his cries were drowned in the howls of the wind. "I saw them at least five times but no one heard me," he said.
When the rain stopped, he dozed off on the rock only to be woken up when the rain lashed the forest again. "I shivered the whole night but I was not afraid because I knew everybody was searching for me," he said.
When the Sun was up, Lijeesh started walking back home. The search parties resumed their search at 6 am.
Around 7.30 am, farmers Kunhambu, Prasad, and daily wage workers saw Lijeesh at Sankaranganam Forest. "He was walking deeper into the forest," said member Bincy Jain.
Around 8.15 am, Lijeesh was in the warm embrace of his mother.
Caption: Sally with her son Lijeesh Mathew after he was rescued from the forest after 14 hours, at their house at Pamathattu in Konnakkadu in Balal panchayat of Kasaragod.