The nerves finally got to him on the last leg of the undercover mission.

For four months, forest watcher Sabu Varghese had been pretending to be someone named Babu, a known ivory trader, in an operation that sought to catch ivory smugglers operating on the borders of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

It was a risk posing as someone so well-known, but Varghese had no choice. In the tight circle of ivory smugglers in south India, a new name would have set alarm bells ringing and got him and the Kerala forest department nowhere.

It helped a little that the real Babu was in prison.

But what really helped, as Varghese talked to gang members on the phone, discussed details of the deal, and finally set up a meeting, was that he knew exactly what he was talking about.

He had lived this life, smuggling cinnamon and sandalwood. He had then switched sides, becoming one of the good guys.

His 27 years as a forest watcher have involved many operations like this one, yielding so many valuable targets that he began to be recognised and talked about in forest department circles. Recently, that recognition took official shape.

For his remarkable service, Varghese was awarded the Cricketers for Wildlife Conservation Service Award in Bengaluru, last month. Former cricketer G Viswanath presented him with a ₹1 lakh cash prize and a citation.

The award was set up by cricketers Sandeep Patil, Yusuf Pathan and Harbhajan Singh in 2001, to honour those who fight for and protect India’s forests. Previous winners have tended to be forest officials.

“The award has encouraged me to do even more,” says Varghese, 50.

Such recognition is long overdue, says former range forest officer Raju K Francis, now director of ecotourism with the Kerala government. “Varghese has shown an unrelenting commitment towards protecting the forest. He has helped us with many tricky cases and been an invaluable asset to the forest department.”

It was Francis who recruited him as a young man, decades ago. But more on that in a bit.

Back to the undercover mission, the nerves hit when it came time for Babu to meet the smugglers and collect the tusks (which had been illegally hacked off a dead elephant).

The gang members would have to cross over from Tamil Nadu to Kerala, or the waiting officials would have no authority to arrest them. Varghese managed to convince them to a handover within Kerala’s Periyar Tiger Reserve.

Then he and the enforcement team waited, hoping that nothing would spook them… that no one would tell them Babu was in jail.

They waited. Past midnight. Past 1 am. Finally, around 2 am, the men showed up. Things moved quickly after that. The officials emerged, ambushed and arrested them. The ivory was seized. It was another mission successfully completed.

***

In a quiet week, Varghese simply acts as forest guide, taking tourists on camping expeditions and patrolling, at the same time, for signs of illegal activity such as smuggling, hunting or marijuana cultivation.

In dramatic interludes, such as that mission from three years ago, he actively helps capture poachers and smugglers. He has aided in 300 such cases so far, and has helped convince about 20 such offenders to switch sides as he did, and work with the forest department.

“Before joining the forest force, Varghese was a dreaded poacher. Even today, he is fearless and daring,” Francis says, adding that he knows the jungle as only someone who grew up in it can.

Varghese was 13 when he went on his first poaching expedition. “My family was very poor and there were hardly any jobs to do,” he says.

Raised by a single mother who worked on a tea estate, it was often up to him to care for his younger sister. Seeing his mother struggle to support them on her wages of ₹20 a day in the 1980s, he became determined to do what he could to bring home some money too.

“It was an extremely difficult time. We sometimes didn’t even have any food,” he says. He dropped out of school after Class 5 because there was no money for fees or books.

On the poaching expeditions, he earned ₹1,500 per six-day trip. His primary job was to cook for the gang. He was eating well, and often earning from two trips a month.

It wasn’t easy, he says. The gang would walk all night, covering several kilometres, and camp in the morning to stay out of view. If it was cinnamon they were after, they crossed the Mullaperiyar Dam on rudimentary wooden rafts, and then walked some more to get to the trees.

They never camped in the same place; they knew that made it easier for the forest officers to catch them. “We were always mapping different parts of the forest and that’s why I know it so well,” he says.

As time passed, the teenager’s role became more fraught with risk. He was put in charge of packing up the most valuable items in the camp, as forest officers approached on a tip-off or a raid. “Every gang had designated carriers, and the patrol teams would always get them first,” he says.

The priority was to salvage as much of the smuggled goods as possible, he adds. “My gang must have run into such trouble five to six times, but I always managed to escape.”

***

By the time he was 17, Varghese was leading his own group on expeditions for the gang. His earnings rose to ₹7,000 a trip.

But, by the time he was 23, he had 15 criminal cases against him.

That year, 1997, the forest department launched its rehabilitation programme for poachers and smugglers. It was called Vidayil, Tamil for New Dawn.

Under the scheme, poachers and smugglers who surrendered would have all related charges against them dropped, if they agreed to cross over and help the forest department.

Varghese surrendered alongside 22 others.

Some senior officials were against the programme; they didn’t believe such criminals could change their ways, he says. Meanwhile, the criminals were almost sure it was a trap.

After many meetings with officials, including Francis, Varghese was convinced that they would keep their promises.

More than that, he became convinced that this was his way to start over. “It was my chance to stop running, stop living in fear of being arrested.”

For 27 years, he has lived this life, earning a salary and being respected for doing what he loves. It is work that makes his family proud, from his mother and sister to wife Laisama and teenage children Anand and Alina.

Anand, in fact, is now 19 and wants to join the forest department and continue his father’s work. He is applying to study forestry.

Varghese grins. He loves his life, he says. And now, “I have nothing to fear.”

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