WILD TIME

Woman Found Alive After Four Days Lost in The Forest

She said she found a strange beauty in her isolation.

A hiker has been found alive after going missing in an Indian forest for four days. G.S. Sharanya, 36, got lost on a “trek from Kerala to Tadiandamol peak in Kodagu district” in India last week, according to Karnataka state Minister for Forest, Ecology and Environment, Eshwar Khandre. “The young woman has been detected by a total of nine teams, including Forest Department, Police Department, Naxal Nigraha Force, which have conducted day and night search operations,” since Thursday, he said on Sunday. He added that she was in good health and that “arrangements have been made” to get her home. Speaking to The Times of India, she said she lost her group of 15 others during the descent and had only a small water bottle and no food. While she was missing, the IT professional, however, found peace in the forest. “As darkness fell, the forest slowly came alive, first with the sound of cicadas and then with fireflies,” she told the Times. “It seemed like a full moon and the night was bright to the point that one couldn’t sleep. It was the first time that I was seeing a night inside the forest, and it was beautiful.”