The Marabar Caves - page 6 - The Upper Caves

This page shows images taken at Ramanagara during a visit that I made there in 2017. I also visited the sites for the 'Expedition Departs', and the 'Lower Cave' at Savandurga.

To recap with the plot: Dr. Aziz and Adela take the Guide with them to visit the Upper Caves, leaving Mrs Moore and other members of the Expedition behind at the Lower Cave, as described on the 'Lower Cave' page. Although in the film it appears that the locations of the Lower and Upper Caves are all grouped around the same mountain, the actuality is that the previous shots were filmed at Savandurga, and the ones on this page were filmed some 25 kilometres away at a hill named 'Ramadevara Betta', which is located a few kilometres north of the town of Ramanagaram.

This is the first shot taken at the 'Ramadevara Betta' hill. They climb the stairs, then Dr. Aziz gives a helping hand to Adela: was this the cause of subsequent events?

The party emerge at last at the Upper Caves, and in the film we get a first stunning view of a line of cave entrances cut into the rock of a steep and barren hillside.

Some background to the hill at Ramanagara, and my visit there..
The region is popular for a number of reasons: the 1975 Bollywood western classic 'Sholay' had some scenes taken there which still attract visitors. The Shree Rameshwara Swamy Temple, Sri Pattabhi Rama Temple, and associated lake are situated there, and are a steep but scenic walk from the car-park. There are also some great treks to be made there. Then there are the cave entrances from 'A Passage To India', which interested me.

Not many people in India know about the David Lean film, but many in the area know about the shallow doorways cut into the hill outside of Ramanagara. I wanted to get some better photos of them, but soon discovered that since my last visit in 2002, access to the site had been closed. Long-billed, Egyptian and White-backed vultures have been roosting in the hills of Ramanagara for several decades. They even appeared in the 'A Passage To India' film!

Noticing that their numbers were decreasing dramatically, environmentalists and bird watchers campaigned to have the area declared as a sanctuary. In 2012 the Ramanagara Ramdevara Betta Vulture Sanctuary was set up, with 346.41 hectares earmarked as a protected area for the vultures.

One of the vulture-nesting sites is located right above the 'cave entrances' cut into the cliffs for the film, and so the area around and below has been fenced off, with secured access gates. Foreigners pay a 100rs entry ticket to the Sanctuary, but there is no longer any public access to the cave-entrances.

This is a telephoto shot, taken with a long lens at some distance, showing a Long-Billed Vulture sitting on its nest above one of the Cave Entrances. Its droppings over the years have stained the granite rock white.

Luckily for me, a member of the staff, Shashikumar, one of the founders of the Karnataka Vulture Conservation Trust, learning what I had come for, agreed to take me to visit the cave entrances, as long as I made no noise that would disturb the birds nesting overhead. I wasn't allowed to stay for very long, but did manage to get these new images for the website. Back at the Karnataka Vulture Conservation Trust office, I told him about the website, and how the hills here and at Savandurga were used in the film, and he offered to take me on the back of his motor-bike to see them as well.

In this view, looking out from the hill with its cave entrances, you can see many white marks on the rocks. These are the droppings of the vultures nesting overhead.

There were three Upper Cave entrances cut into the Ramadevara Betta Hill, though in the film you could be mistaken for thinking that there were more.

Comparing photos of the actual Left Cave Entrance with how it appeared in the film shows that some temporary remodelling was done by the film crew, after the entrances had been cut by the temple-carvers.

The Center Cave entrance was also heavily remodelled for the film.

You can clearly see the marks in the rock left by the rock-drills.

In this view along the Cave Entrances, which these days are masked by bushes, you might find it interesting to compare it with the film screen-shot 'First View of the Upper Caves' above. If you do, you will notice that a large area of rock appears in the film, directly above the left-slope of the actual rock shown here. A 'matte' was used in the film to create this effect and make the cliffs appear bigger than they actually are.

The right cave entrance is now masked by bushes that weren't there on my last visit in 2002. The rock surrounding the entrance, though the same as it was in 2002, it quite different to what it appears like in the film..

It is obvious that either the Right Cave entrance-surround was heavily re-modelled by the film crew too.

Leaving Adela outside the Left Cave, Dr Aziz runs past the Guide, who is standing outside the Right Cave, and then continues on, as if to another cave. But there is no other cave there, just the three entrances were cut. Studying the footage closely, it becomes obvious that they used the Left Cave Entrance to film Dr Aziz with his cigarette, adding some extra greenery, and a boulder for him to sit on, to make it look as if there was a fourth cave beyond the Right Cave.

Finishing his cigarette, Dr Aziz goes to look for Adela, who is (in the film) inside the Left Cave. We see a shot from inside the cave, with Dr Aziz looking in to the entrance. This was filmed back in the studio.

Unable to find Miss Quested, Dr Aziz runs back along the line of cave entrances..

We see Miss Quested panicking and running down the hill slopes and through spiny cactus bushes to Mrs Callender's car parked on the road below. Mrs Callender has just brought Mr Fielding to the Lower Cave.

Dr Aziz then comes out of the Left Cave. Ominously, a vulture cries overhead. Dr Aziz looks down the hill to see Miss Quested at the car. He finds her binoculars, discarded on the ground, then runs (apparently) all the way back down the hill to the Lower Cave, where he meets Mrs Moore and Mr Fielding.

The scenes of Dr Aziz running back down the hill were shot at Savandurga, not Ramanagara.

How To Get There - Ramdevarabetta

The Ramdevarabetta Hill and Vulture Sanctuary are located about 3km north-east of Ramanagara Railway Station. The coordinates are: 12.7474 N, 77.3000 E. Ramanagara is well connected by bus and train to Bengalaru.

 

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