Chendru Mandavi, 63, who earned the sobriquet of “Bastar’s Tarzan” for featuring in the famed 1960 movie A Jungle Tale depicting growing bond between a tribal kid and a tiger, on Wednesday passed away in his native village of Gar Bengal in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district, after battling hard for around half-a-century to cope up with his windfall fame and the misery that followed.
The primitive Muria tribal hailing from Chhattisgarh’s Abujhmarh region in south Bastar, had been bed-ridden for the past two years after suffering from several paralytic strokes.
“Chendru’s story was truly heart rending, that has also sent a clear message to scholars and travellers, particularly foreigners some of whom still holds India a country of snake charmers, we should not interfere with way of life of tribals,” noted ethnologist and author Niranjan Mahawar who has been closely watching Chendru falling from fame to misery in the past five decades, told this newspaper here.
Chendru featured in Swedish film maker Astrid Bergman Suckdorff’s movie The Jungle Tale when he was barely 10 years old. The film was shot completely in his village. Astrid later had taken him to Sweden during the release of the movie in 1960, where he spent one and half years.
Chendur however became nostalgic and returned to his village.
“His (Chendru’s) life had become topsy turvy after his return to his village. The trip to Europe had a negative impact on his life.”
“He was a misfit there (in Sweden) and misfit here (in his village),” Mr Mahawar recounted.
Acute poverty has turned him frail and sick.