Prodded by cop, The Hindu reporter dons the role of an official and saves tea estate worker’s life

A thrilling journey to Valparai turns into a life-saving mission for a man threatening to jump from a tower.

Trips to Valparai have always been close to my heart for varied reasons. Perhaps I might spot the enigmatic Nilgiri Tahr on the cliffs en route to the hill station or feel the cool breeze coming from the misty plantations.

But a journey to Valparai on a reporting assignment on Thursday turned to be the most satisfying one for a different reason.

Accompanied by my photo journalist colleague M. Periasamy, I started our trip from Coimbatore to Valparai early in the morning. While I wanted to document the certain behavioural aspects of the rare Lion-tailed macaque, Mr. Periasamy was trying his luck in photographing a rare bird.

As we crossed the ghat section with its 40 hairpin bends and reached Iyyerpadi around 8.45 a.m., a tea estate around 105 km off Coimbatore, a police constable stopped our car and requested us to disembark. A fire tender was parked on the side of the road and people had thronged the spot in large numbers.

Soon, I spotted a man atop a high tension electric cable tower in the middle of tea estate. The policeman told us he was a tea estate worker, who had some issues with the management, and was threatening to jump from there.

“We want you to pose as an official from the Labour Department and hold talks with him. Please convince him that his grievances would be addressed and ask him to come down,” the policeman said.

I told him that being from Kerala my Tamil wasn’t great. He assured me that wasn’t an issue. “Just pose as an official and talk to him. You can do it, sir,” the cop instilled confidence in me and I agreed.