To swim around in unfamiliar waters is scary. Swimming around to the extent of getting used to it and further being indifferent to negative surprises is simply insane. Realizing this insanity and hoping that your home ground will soon be reached just leaves you as a bitter person, for, there is a limit to the number of emotions you can feel at a time. I have been drifting afloat in the avenues of nowhere for a while now. And this is a small note on taking the road ‘generally’ not taken.

.

One year ago, in June 2009, I was a proud graduate. There is difference between the first fifteen or sixteen years of your academic life and the life that follows thereafter. The first phase showers you with so many counterparts that you forget you are an individual in the journey. You are just carried forward with the crowd. I had walked through the first phase with notable ease albeit insignificantly. I had reached the final stage of being with the crowd. I wore my hat and robe with much pride. A sense of gratification brewed in my mind as I marched up the flight of stairs to the auditorium where we were finally sent off. The convocation ceremony assured me that the first phase is done with what it came in my life for. It was until this point that I was with a group of commons. The same life of dry academics, same goal of getting done with it, same problems with assignments-teachers-management-institution and, almost the same solutions to escape. But from there on, your dear ones begin to drift apart. Their dreams, ambitions and priorities branch out and you are left alone. Some of them took up a job and paced away. Some went with higher studies in subjects that made little sense to me. Some treated it like it was the last facet of education and got married to begin a new life. I opted to take a break from academics; or so I thought. My plans to make preparations for the following year kept me worried. One year of a break was fine. But after that I had to continue studying. So I applied for postgraduate courses in various places, giving myself a year-long uncomfortable tag. I was a ‘candidate’.

.

My choice of interest is not something that every third person opts as a career path. Wildlife biology and conservation science is not a common interest. No, I do not intend to brag about being different. Nor do I feel overly special for having rather unique interests. But I am most certainly not with the masses. This puts me in a trickier position. My paths ahead are not too many. My four year long dream, however, was to study wildlife and conservation at the National Centre for Biological Sciences- NCBS, Bangalore. But the chances were bleak. To get selected as one of the fifteen students who get to study in this postgraduate program would be a miracle. This brought my back-up options. University of Kent, University of Exeter and University of Reading. The million and one procedures to apply for each one was anything but exciting. The documents, letters, recommendations, certificates, scholarship applications, accommodations, so forth and such which. While corresponding with most foreign universities through mails, to top it all, you are addressed not with your name but with your candidate code. That just moves your identity further away from yourself. But going abroad also meant that I had to leave India. India- who’s wildlife has still held me tight in its awe.  Not that the procedure for admissions at NCBS itself was a cake-walk. It is a six month long procedure with entrance exams, submissions of documents and certificates, two rounds of interviews and the likes of it. Just another place where I am just another candidate.

.

The worst part is that people around you care a little too much sometimes. There are constant questions about me whose answers I myself am unsure of. What exactly am I doing? What do I plan to do next? Is there any scope? Am I going out of India for sure? And some provide effortless superficial assurance that I will get through at NCBS. Not that they fake assurance, but, they simply aren’t aware of the competition. But the truth through all this madness remains the same. Like that itch that you feel at the wrong time and cannot scratch off. I am a candidate. And nothing more.

The feeling of being stranded in mid air and getting choked by uncertainty was getting the better of me. But sailing through all this, today, I sit with a letter of acceptance from NCBS. Dreams do realize. And now that I am out of it, I also realize that it was somewhat nice being a candidate. It meant I was nowhere. It also meant I was free. As a candidate I have seen one year of life the way in which I might never see it again. But now begins a new era. I sit with my seatbelt locked tight and feeling eager and enthused about the two year journey ahead. Life, here I come….

Have you ever seen a couple perform a beautiful piece of Waltz? It is a treat for the eyes watching the man, his partner in his arms, glide across the ballroom floor. The lady embraces her man grimly, yet, in a delicate fashion. They display perfect poise and postures, turning with grace and elegance, her frilled gown gyrating with that sheen. The synchrony and finesse, the perfection with which their legs move, complementing each other makes it feel like watching two bodies of a single soul, intricately woven together; like two dollops of butter melting on a hot pan. Passion for each other and, passion for dance and romance blooms and beckons the heart, mind and soul of the spectator. You do not know what move they are going to make next. But every second’s anticipation is well worth the wait. Add some philharmonic orchestra in the background and you have a perfect picture. Such is the image of a well choreographed performance of Waltz.

Now let us picture this. The man is clumsy. He has no clue as to how he should support the lady in his arms. The lady nervously holds on to the man, anticipating a mishap. They are constantly and consistently tripping over each other. They fall even. The music goes off-beat and gets irritatingly stuck every now and then. The lady is unable to hold balance and turn around, leave alone with grace. The dancers do not know what their moves have to be. And even if they did, they are unsure. The choreographer suffers from evident and recurring bouts of ego issues and neither believes in his dancers nor works towards training them well. They do not know passion, they do not understand romance and they certainly do not want to be with each other. It is mentally painful to be exposed to such levels of mockery of art.

I seldom speak of topics unrelated to wildlife or the environment. This one is no different. Let us skim through the surface of bloopers, blunders and bureaucracy that fuels the present wildlife conservation crisis in India.

.

Old Age or Heritage

Our country is truly blessed with a bounty of natural treasures. We have towering cliffs and labyrinthine valleys, silver streams that flow through emerald forests and miracle rivers quenching arid ravine lands. These are also home to a myriad of creatures, diverse and unique. India boasts of biological diversity that is matched by few places on the Earth. As is the case with all other valuable objects, these jungles also need protection. The safeguarding of these treasures means safeguarding a healthy future for ourselves. Protection is thus, of extreme importance. India has a wing in the ministry that is concerned with the protection and conservation of these natural riches, the Ministry of Environment and Forests. There are forest departments that govern and manage forests in every State. Down at the grass-root level are the forest guards. These are the people appointed to patrol our forests and defend them. They are the ones who hold the safety of wild animals and forests in their hands. For those of you who know less about the duties involved, it would be surprising to know that it is no cake walk. These men have to face wildlife poachers, encroaching villagers from all around the forest boundaries and in some cases even rebellious tribal folk who dwell inside the protected forest areas. Forest fires, natural ones as well as human-created ones at that, are a severe threat to the remnant forestlands. It is the tireless job of these guards to stand up and defend the jungles from all these pressures. Their job profile is nothing close to a dream walk in an enchanted forest.

That kind of a job requires people with strength and courage, dedication for work and a will to contribute arduously towards protecting the forests. One would imagine that these guards would be able, physically well built men. And most of the forest guards perhaps fit the bill. And that was two decades ago. So, most of the men who are in-charge today were hired around twenty years ago. There have been no new significant postings of forest guards for a very long time. The staff members have grown terribly old and continue to try and work in challenging conditions. I do not mean to offend them in any way whatsoever. These people have acquired commendable experience and skill over the years and I trust that a percentage of them still work diligently. But how wise is it to leave our jungles in the hands of such people? Sometime back in the near past, retired army personnel were supplemented to these guard posts and a few in higher levels as well. Our highlight still stands at ‘retired’. I do not deny that our servicemen are able, fit and willing. But it certainly doesn’t require a genius to figure how well they know of forest life and how good their knowledge of related aspects would be.

There were also pompous announcements in newspapers that in certain places, poachers were being reformed and given jobs as forest guards. The life that a normal guard leads is anything but smooth. The income is low and untimely, they are certainly not well armed, very little heed is given to the betterment of his family and community and the system is anything but supportive. How are we accommodating new postings for poachers, or ‘ex’-poachers in such a field? Are we not risking something bigger, by trusting a person with contacts and capabilities to continue working with the wildlife mafia, and that too by providing him the tag of a government employee? I needn’t mention that poaching would pay more than what the government does. So the ‘reformed’ poacher would always have options.

.

Blame the Dance Floor

I spilled my guts out and spoke about the rather pathetic state of the guards. Above these guards is an entire hierarchy of officers and department staff. It is both uninteresting and ugly to get into details of how the power levels work in the system. We shall keep that aside for later. Bringing into focus the people at the higher levels, where in fact, I think the mistakes begin. Most of the higher officials are posted through merit rather than passion for the field. Maintaining the anonymity of names, I shall quote an example. In one of the famous Tiger Reserves that I visited, I had a brief conversation with a forest department staff member of a lower level. The park has more than one Assistant Conservator of Forest (ACF). The man with whom I spoke claimed that, while one of the ACFs is hardly ever around, the other one does not like to roam the forest. So that leaves the third ACF to patrol the forest alone. And it goes without saying that our representatives at the parliament who are passionate and genuinely care about these issues are an endangered species.

There are loopholes in the lower levels, loop holes in the higher levels and certainly large portholes in the middle where the intermediates sit established. Each one gives the other enough and more chances to point fingers and cover up their own faults. Everyone enjoys the unhealthy yet pleasing and gratifying blame game. In our country we have very often blamed the system for everything that goes wrong. The subliminal truth is that we too are a part of that system. But it is impossible for body cells and organs to remove cancer cells on their own, even though they all belong to the same system. Can we afford to sit and wait for surgery through interference from outside?

.

‘Trick or Treat’-ing with Tourism

An aspect that is increasingly gaining importance is wildlife tourism. There are contradicting views on impacts of wildlife tourism in the country. It is not difficult to deduce that larger and larger number of tourists; especially those visiting high-profile Tiger Reserves like Kanha, Ranthambhore, Corbett or Bandhavgarh significantly increase the revenue. The tourism department, usually separate but sometimes clubbed in with the forest department, is beginning to exploit this opportunity. Sell the idea of seeing tigers in the wild, attract more and more foreign tourists, and increase revenue. ‘Trick the crowd sentiments and treat thyself’ seems to be the motto. Although it seems like a great scheme since tourism offers employment to the locals, facilitates economic growth et cetera, there are more things that go morphed and unnoticed. I shall brief an example of the Lions in India. For those of you who are not aware, there are two species of Lions in the world, viz. the African species and the Asiatic species. The African Lion, as the name suggests, is spread across the plains of the African continent. Their numbers are substantially high and effective conservation efforts, although with tourist attraction as a motive, has kept them going strong. The Asiatic Lion, originally the National Animal of India before the Tiger, was once spread from modern day states of Gujrat and Madhya Pradesh to Bihar. Excessive hunting reduced their numbers drastically, and, presently they are confined to a small isolated population of around 400 individuals in the Gir National Park of Gujrat. They are breading well and considerably increasing in numbers.

The main problems that crop up because of this rammed up pocket of lions are lack of space, inbreeding and susceptibility to epidemics. Gir cannot hold more than 250 Lions, but now there is an uncomfortable surplus. Inbreeding means mating and reproduction between individuals who are siblings or half siblings or plainly genetically related. Continued inbreeding creates a generation of genetically weak individuals. This means that their resistance to diseases, both extant ones and new alien ones, would be really low. In case one such lion contracts a disease, it can spread sporadically to the entire mass of weak lions that thrive within the limited space. It could wipe out the last few surviving wild Asiatic Lions from the face of the Earth. So what is the rational solution? We find a place away from Gir and establish an alternative breeding population of lions. After efforts in research for availability of space, prey animals and other suitable conditions, Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh was suggested as the ideal place to introduce lions. The Gujrat government adamantly refused to part with their Lions claiming that the lions were ‘Gujrati Lions’. They refused to donate the ‘pride’ of Gujrat to the neighbouring state of Madhya Pradesh. Mushy sentiments? Love for animals? Safeguarding pride? Let us dig a little deeper.

Madhya Pradesh currently boasts as the ‘Tiger State’ of India. It has three high profile Tiger Reserves, Kanha, Bandhavgarh and Pench. And the state has been marketing its wildlife with tourism aspect rather well. A foreign tourist who wishes to visit India to see Tigers usually plans to visit Madhya Pradesh. The same foreigner, to catch a glimpse of a Lion, has to go to Gujrat. Almost all of Gujrat’s wildlife tourism income is through Gir and its Lions. Lions are found nowhere else in India. But if Gujrat gives its lions away, Madhya Pradesh will then become the ‘Lion and Tiger State of India’, thus grabbing a significant chunk of income that the Gujrat tourism currently generates. Do we need more arguments to question the ‘sentiments’ of Gujrati Lions?

.

Wrong partner, wrong moves

There are innumerable non-governmental organisations that are operating in the country today. Some are doing commendable work. The government can very well join hands with them and work towards betterment of the forests. But that would be utopian conditions wouldn’t it. The alliances and collaborations seem to be amongst those who can be partners in crime rather than those who can mutually safeguard the treasures. The few organisations that are well equipped, possess the potential to get work done and actually contribute effectively are stamped on and shunted off. Big bucks evidently favour patronization in the higher circles. We thus have large mining projects, irrigation and power plant projects that effortlessly exploit the ‘to-be-conserved’ resources in and around protected forestlands. Except for a few renowned big organisations, it doesn’t seem like the government’s choice of ‘partners’ has been very wise.

With such an explosion of awareness and information, one would expect that senses will be restored and they will pick up sanity at this point at least. But the truth is far from hope. The Lions are stuck in bureaucratic revenue issues and Tigers continue to slip out of hand. These big cats are charismatic and manage to get little attention. You can very well imagine the condition of less charismatic animals and plants. And the sudden decision to ‘re-introduce’ Cheetahs in India takes centre stage. There is miserable failure in executing initiatives and ideas proposed by numerable scientists and researchers to create a safe and sound system for conserving existing forests and wildlife.

.

All of this certainly sounds gloomy and morbid. But I do not think that all hope is lost. What I see emerging at present is a generation of individuals with broader perspectives and sensitivity to such issues. It is indeed heartening to see young men and women of my age and some even younger, contributing towards wildlife research and conservation with commendable passion and dedication. I believe in myself and those of my kind to hold hands and conquer dreams. I trust in ‘us’ the ability to gather what’s slipping away. We have had enough of the bad music, wrong partners and painfully lame blame-games. And that is why I hold my hand out and appeal to my counterparts. Shall we Dance…?

Kanha Tiger Reserve, part of the Central Indian wild highlands, is located in the Mandla and Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh, India. Earlier divided into two sanctuaries of Halloen Valley and Banjar Valley, Kanha National Park now stretches over an area of 940 km². Together with a surrounding buffer zone of 1,009 km² and the neighboring satellite protected area, Phen Wildlife Sanctuary, it forms the Kanha Tiger Reserve. The park is famous world over for its rich wildlife; the charismatic Tigers, elusive Leopards, mangy Sloth bears, vain Swamp Deer or the ‘Barasingha’ and nasty packs of Dholes or Indian Wild Dogs. Along with two entrance gates ‘Kisli’ and ‘Mukki’, which are also the names of ranges inside, there is now a third entrance gate called Sarhi. The name ‘Kanha’ finds it genesis from the word Kanhaar which is a type of clay soil found around the villages that once existed amidst the forest stretches. Alternately, it is known to be named after sage Kanva who once protected all the jungle’s creatures in a time of peril. The lush Sal and bamboo forests, grassy meadows and plateaus of Kanha became the muse for Rudyard Kipling’s epic tale, “The Jungle Book”. This is the abode of the Seeyonee Wolf pack, lands where the elusive Black Panther – Bagheera, the convivial bear –Balloo and the hypnotic rock python – Kaa roamed free. The land where the atrocious monkey troupe – The Bandar log maintained havoc, where Tabaqui the Jackal betrayed and home turf of the legendary tiger Shere Khan.

Dr.Ruth DeFries of the Columbia University has a foundation that funds young students who intend to study and carry out research projects related to forests, environment and wildlife. This year, Vishnupriya and I were awarded the fellowship to study forest degradation in those forested areas around the actual core of Kanha National Park. The project, supported by Centre for Wildlife Studies, was being carried out with Dr.Krithi Karanth as our Project advisor. I had been longing to visit the central Indian jungles all my life. Finally, I was not only going to ‘visit’ Kanha, but also work there for two whole months – through January and February of 2010. My excitement knew no bounds.

.

The Beautiful Baraf Villa

Vishnupriya and I took an overnight train to Nagpur in Maharashtra, which is around 270 kilometres from Kanha. After a quick lunch with my friend Ruchik, we took the hired cab and headed towards Kanha, munching on some delicious oranges that we had picked up from Nagpur. After a five and a half hour ride through fairly decent roads, landscapes around varying from villages, small towns and agricultural fields to visually pleasing teak forests in the outer limits of Pench Tiger Reserve, we reached the village of Mocha. Mocha village, where Dr.Ruth owns a house, is on the Kisli gate side of the park. Finding our way through the village roads late that evening, we managed to find Ruth waving to us, standing in front of the main gates to her mansion. A large green double gate opened into a long concrete driveway. On the right side was the caretaker’s house attached to a pleasant looking thatched outhouse. The rest of the driveway was surrounded by a large garden with a few trees and ploughed plots where the caretaker’s wife grew assorted vegetables. The mansion itself stood tall and wide, cream yellow in color. Large slopes of brick red coloured slate tiles stood in delicate contrast with the light coloured mansion. It was a beautiful villa. We acquainted ourselves with the place and with the rest of Ruth’s family who had gathered in the house for a big family get-together. We were thus put up in the outhouse. It was peak winter and Kanha was freezing over. The temperatures would drop down to around 2° Celsius at night. With very little furniture and hardly anything else in Ruth’s villa, it would get really cold. Hence, we decided to christen it ‘Baraf’ [Ice] Villa. The outhouse had nothing much inside. It had a rather large room with a big bed at one end and one spacious bathroom. Nonetheless, it had a homely feel to it.

The next morning, we saw the arrival of Meghna, the third person associated with our project. The team was now complete and the four of us planned and scheduled a reconnaissance for our transects. It was like a teaser for what we would be doing during the two months to follow. Like all trial runs, even this one was filled with a fair share of changes, modifications in methods, arguments and elimination of mistakes. The next day we were visited by Dr.Rakesh Shukla, the Research Officer of Kanha Tiger Reserve. He arrived in a hurry, beaming with enthusiasm. We met with him to seek permissions, directions and also plan out logistics. Within one brief meeting, he gave us the most comprehensive idea of the entire park. He truly left us impressed.

.

Kanha: The First Look

Early next morning, while the air around us continued freezing, we woke up and rushed outside. No, we had not lost our minds. The gypsy that would take us on our first safari into the park had arrived at 5.30 am. Cuddled up in competitively heavy and thick jackets, coats and scarves, we sat in mighty eager and reached the park entrance. Trying to describe Kanha in words would be utter blasphemy, for the place is beyond descriptions. Yet, I shall make the best attempt to do justice. There was a permanent blanket of thick fog all around. The majestic Sal trees stood tall, with condensing dew pitter-pattering as water droplets fell from each leaf to another below. Creepers and lianas, tender and thorny ones alike, caressed and clung on to the massive tree trunks. A myriad of birds of every color had made cosy homes in the heavenly canopies. The numerous shrubs amidst the trees intimately embraced each other while creatures big and small dwelled inside. Dense bamboo groves adorned the landscape in various places, adding to the diversity. The rolling grasslands spread across vast stretches of elegant meadows, all with that very foggy blanket. The first rays of the Sun slowly showed up, gently touching the surface of the grass. It lit up the layer of fog above and we were surrounded by a golden haze. The little waterholes interspersed in the meadows shone under the golden rays of the Sun. As the Sun rose higher and higher, the towering Sal trees remained nonchalant, casting reticulate patches of calm shadows on the dense undergrowth below. With aesthetically scattered beautiful plateaus forming enchanting valleys in between, Kanha allured and captivated us with an unusual charm. It is indeed the most charming forest I have ever seen.

A Barking deer, standing coyly amidst the thickets welcomed us into the park. We drove further and reached the open meadows of Kanha. The Swamp deer or the ‘Barasingha’ strutted in vanity amidst the grass, flaunting their gorgeous antlers. The marvellous scape was heaven on earth. We saw two absolutely gorgeous Barasingha stags, lifting their heads up alternately and giving out their ‘rutting’ calls. Kanha is the only place in the world that has wild populations of Hard-ground Barasinghas. The drive continued and we were further charmed by herds and herds of Spotted Deer, sprinting and almost gliding over the grasslands. Up ahead, a couple of gypsies had lined up and the tourists inside were fidgety and jumping about. Our driver, like all other drivers, went and stacked the vehicle with the rest of them. To our left, amidst lush green bushes we spotted them. A courting pair of Tigers. They were at quite a distance, yet we could make out their brilliant golden brown and black striped pelage amidst the green streaks of the grass. The male, whose head looked massive, was indeed large and majestic. The female, although of the wild kin, looked oddly sophisticated. A radio-collared tigress, she was sleek and beautiful. She sat on the ground, adoring her mate, while he walked around her, spraying urine on tree barks and bushes. They occasionally got up, moved around and sat down together, nudging each other’s faces as they did. It was a sight worth a million bucks. But the stacked up line of gypsies attracted more and more vehicles from all around and we no longer felt comfortable being there. We drove away.

At the end of the ride, we visited the Kanha museum and interpretation centre situated in the heart of the park. It is a very informative and insightful enterprise that elaborates on every aspect of the national park and gives valuable information to the visitors. We then drove back feeling satiated. My first drive inside Kanha will definitely be treasured in memory.

.

Mukki, Meghna and Muba Home

The week that followed, we were to spend on the other side of the park. We had booked for accommodation in a resort for the three of us at Muba Resorts, which is on the Mukki side of the park. It was late in the evening and the cab took us towards the little town of Baihar and further towards Mukki gate. We took a diversion from the main road and drove along what looked like deserted lands that had no lights for miles ahead. At rare intervals, a couple or two village huts stood grimly on either side of the road. But that’s about it. We drove through nowhere and finally reached the entrance of the resort. It looked deserted as well. Dim lights and a wooded gate, a tiny watchman who flashed the torch light at our faces and let us in and we drove through the serpentine path inside the property. Owing to limited budget, we had booked the less pricey ‘mud huts’. For the scary apprehensive first look of Muba that we got, it was a rather pleasant twist in the tale. It was built right at the border of the core-buffer area and thus the backyard was pretty much pristine forestlands. We fell in love with Muba at the very first look and it became a ‘home’ to us within the first two days. the mud hut was large and roomy. Beds inside were set up in a series one next to the other. The thatched roof behaved like a temperature regulator – keeping the insides warm in winter and cool in summer. Every morning, we opened doors to witness a fog covered patch of grassland in front. This was complemented by Racket Tailed Drongos and Rufous Treepies making noises in the woods behind. The staff pampered us with delicious food and treated us like we were from the royal bloodline. The place was pleasingly well kept. It was just meant to be ours, for, the very first night I found a garden lizard sitting on my pillow and later one day, a Wolf snake in the bathroom commode. We took random walks in the free time, paying visits to Tiger territories and Wild Dog dens in the Buffer zone. Wild dogs or Dholes are notorious canids that hunt in packs. Although they are adorable to look at and to admire, their habits are so nasty that they usually begin to eat their prey while it is still alive. It gave us an unusual thrill to look at tiny pug marks of wild dog pups on the wet mud near their den. The den was amidst a bunch of large boulders which had tree roots hanging down from the top. The entrance of the den faced a small serene stream. They must have had some luck in finding a good Realtor. Muba also brings back memories of Dr.Zafar Khan, the owner of the property and an uncontrollable wildlife enthusiast. A sparkle eyed, large-built man with a characteristic moustache; he was a born story teller. It seemed like his whole purpose in life was to excel at narrating convincingly entertaining stories. And he succeeded brilliantly at his skill. We spent many a memorable frosty night by the campfire where he narrated hilarious incidents from his life in the wild.

As an integral part of our project, Miss Meghna definitely deserves an ode. She is perhaps one of the funniest people I have met in my life. A first year PhD student under Ruth’s guidance, she hailed from Delhi. She was one of the typical and stereotyped Delhi girls. She had that floating accent and attitude, with slow and deliberate pronunciations for every word. Topping that was little trademark phrases of Miss Meghna, for example, “Hye Hye” with a raised eyebrow and a coy smile as a reaction to someone or something interesting. She was a delight to be with. She had bizarre thoughts and ideas. Being ‘normal’ was something she did not seem to know or understand. On our very first transect we got really late. It was getting dark and we were yet to walk back to the vehicle which was around 2 kilometres away. Vishnu and I panicked and paced back towards the vehicle, fearing naxallite problems since we were near the Chattisgargh side of the park. Our beloved Miss Meghna, until many hours later thought that we were running away fearing that Tigers might come out and attack us. She just couldn’t remember names. Places like ‘Jhalmala’ became ‘Chilbili’, ‘Chilpi’ became ‘Chilpa’, ‘Paraswara’ became ‘Paarsinaala’ and there were too many more to pen down. Being a couple of years older to us, she would treat me and Vishnu like we were little kids. Every night she would tell us stories before we fell asleep. The stories would be two or three lines long. It would be as random as it could get, about some chap called Dumpy Ahmed from Uttaranchal to her achievement in athletics, from secret recipes of vegetarian mothers giving their kids non-vegetarian substitutes to importance of SLEEPING in spite of airplanes and laptops. Although Miss Meghna stayed with us only for four days, she left a lasting impression in our hearts.

Jungle Cat and Mangal sutra: While on the Mukki side, Vishnu and I decided to go for a jungle ride in that zone as well. So we hired a gypsy from the resort and went on a morning drive into the park. Mukki left us even more speechless. It had comparatively denser parts and also, being the zone with higher lands, the Gaur herds had migrated to the Mukki side. I have always been in love with them and thus, the dozen and more sightings of Gaurs went much beyond merely satiating my craving. The morning ride that day, albeit pleasurable, did not stand out as far as animal sightings were concerned. We also took another ride the last evening before we left Muba at the end of that week. This afternoon ride was with a tourist guide Kamal, who managed to impress us with his astounding knowledge on animals, plants and history of the park. He knew the scientific names of almost every plant in the park. His knowledge on the the behaviour of animals was also commendable. I called this ride of ours Jungle Cat and Mangal sutra because the elusive Jungle cat crossing the road was the only animal that we saw, which was not a part of a couple. The other sightings, by default, strictly included couples. We spotted Barasingha couples, Spotted Deer couples, Sambhar couple, Wild boar couple, Jackal couple and a humongous Male Gaur with two of his mates. That pretty much sums up the mangal sutra part of it. That evening we drove to the top of Bahmni Dadar [read ~ Bum-knee The-aa-other] plateau, also known as the ‘sun-set’ point of Kanha. The top of the plateau offers a spectacular view of the entire national park. The setting Sun appeared like a blazing ball painted in vermilion red. And we drove away from Mukki and Muba for good; or so we thought.

Every facet of our stay on the Mukki side at Muba became too close to our hearts to be parted with easily. Our drivers Naval and Basanth, the owner of the cabs – ‘Bunty’– a scrawny looking twig of a person who owned half the town of Baihar, Vijay – the Manager of Muba whose affection for us was simply heartening, the sit-out and bridges over little streams at Muba resort, the extremely supportive Harsha – naturalist at Taj Kanha resort Banjaar Tola, the shops at Baihar and everything else that was a part of our lives for that one week. With a heavy heart, we bade goodbye to Mukki side and headed back to Mocha where an empty house awaited our arrival.

.

Magic of Mocha

When we returned to Mocha, Baraf Villa was empty. Ruth had left along with the large family that had gathered. Only the caretaker of the house, Gyaani, his wife Yamuna and their two kids lived in a room adjacent to the outhouse. Everything seemed cold and hostile. We desperately missed living in Muba. The outhouse did not even have a table for us to stack up food stuff or equipments. The village itself was a little crazy. Every weekend, there would be a special Ramayan recital in all rural grandeur. Loudspeakers would boom with devotional songs repeatedly. The village mosque which was in close proximity treated this as a religious competition. The moment the Ramayan Bhajans came to a brief pause, the man in the mosque would start yelling out, also in the loudspeaker, his religious chant. So Vishnu and I had no option but to bear with this. As if all this wasn’t enough, one local tourist resort would play the same contemporary Hindi movie song over and over again. Thus, until around 2 am in the morning, we had to bear the blaring sounds of “Jai ram jai ram jai jai ram, jai sitaram jai jai sitaram..”, “Allah who akbar…Allah who akbar Allah…” and Atif Aslam howling “Teraa…hone lagaa hoon”, all at the same time. We were not really spared even during the day time. Gyaani had two little children, Sandeep and Sumit. While six year old Sandeep was a charming little angel of a child, his younger sibling Sumit was a two-year old terror. He just wouldn’t shut up. He would cry, yell and shriek all day long. After a tiring day’s work, we would return to the room only to hear Sumit screaming to his heart’s content in the background.

Slowly, we got used to it. And weirder still, we fell in love with it. We built a small table out of bricks and a metal sheet that was lying around. We familiarised ourselves with the shops and shopkeepers of the village. Everyone in the village, the Paan-eater and his son who owned the village dairy store, the owner of the grocery store whom we nick-named ‘three piece’ [he would wear a three piece suit everyday and sit in his shop for reasons best known to himself], the tailor who would photocopy our datasheets and everyone else around became our friends. They would greet us, smile at us and wave to us every time that we passed by. We had subconsciously memorised the Bhajans and we would hum along when we heard them. When Sumit began his lachrymal marathon, we would play songs on my laptop louder to combat the noise. We also often played with the two kids, their pet Rooster and the Langurs that occasionally dropped by. We made a home out of the Mocha house.

And before we knew it, January 2010 had come to an end.

Time flew faster than we had thought it would and the month of January had ended. At that point we were still enthused since there was the whole of February left. Although, Vishnu has started keeping track of the number of days left and updated the countdown to me every day.

.

Assisting Antics

Our work involved finding remnant forest patches all around the park boundary and walking transects to assess degradation parameters and also assess habitat suitability for wildlife. This meant that we had to drive all over the place and spread out as much as we could. Thus, we hired two local assistants from a nearby village with motorbikes who would drive us around. Enter Harish and Kuldeep, two young chaps a little older than us. I honestly feel that work as such became less hectic because of these two. Both of them were street smart and thanks to them, we faced half the amount of problems that we would have had to face otherwise.

Even though they are worth a praise or two, it does not, in which ever way rule out the fact that they were absolute cartoons. The mornings would indeed be really cold. They would turn up shivering in the cold mornings, usually late by at least forty minutes, dressed up head to toe in layers of warm clothing. Only their eyes were visible, for the rest of their face would be wrapped up in a muffler. Vishnu stood next in line, wearing multiple jackets, multiple trousers and a pointy cap. I, being myself, stuck to my odd trend of attires and wore a thick jacket with a raised collar. The muffler went on my head, wrapped like a Turban. This was the look the four of us flaunted. While we drove around like this, it looked like two terrorists were escorting a destitute Gnome and an angry Sardar who were all on a conquest. Kuldeep was the slightly serious one of the duo. He excelled at identifying wild animal faeces and ended up being extremely helpful on field. Harish on the other hand, although commendably loyal and obedient, was the butt of all problems. Either his bike, or his stomach would misbehave on alternate days. Repeated punctured tyres, dust in the carburettor, fuel getting empty in the tank were few of the various problems his bike gave us.

On one of our transects, Kuldeep stumbled upon what looked like a large dull yellow colored pebble. The yellow pebble then began to give out dense yellow fumes. It was a fascinatingly scary sight. We asked the boys what that strange thing was. They looked at each other, giggled, and said “Kukkurmutthaa”. Vishnu and I were flabbergasted, both, with the name as well as with the behaviour of the weird pebble. Since we had no idea what a kukkurmutthaa was, we questioned them again and again. They brought more kukkurmutthaas and started hitting them, creating denser yellow fumes. They also claimed that they eat the kukkurmutthaas. This led us to thinking that it was a kind of fruit. But they denied the fact that it was a fruit. Finally after several more kukkurmutthaa questioning sessions, we realised it was the local name for a Mushroom. And the dense yellow fumes were just the spores of the mushroom. They asked me what a kukkurmutthaa was called in Kannada and I told them that it was called ‘Naaykoday’. This just put both of them in a fit of giggles. They found the name as funny as we found kukkurmutthaa. So every time after that incident, when Harish saw a mushroom, he would giggle once, point at it and say “Naaykoday”. I would nod affirmatively with a smirk on my face and say, “Yes. Kukkurmutthaa”.

It was also a mutual learning experience, being with them. They taught us local names for animals such as Beega, Laddiyaa, Sehi, Neelkant, Peerpeehu, Titteehi and several more. We in-turn thought it mandatory to teach them English. Although they knew a few select words, being educated in the village school, they weren’t fluent with it. They would add an unwritten “E” before any word that began with an “S”. So a school was eschool, squirrel was esquirrel etc. After sinfully painful attempts at teaching them the right pronunciation for a squirrel, Kuldeep only managed up to calling it a ‘Sukrul’. Vishnu actually fell down while she tried to laugh at it. It was bliss working with the two cartoons. I remain extremely glad to have met them and worked with them.

.

Bagheera, will you date us? Balloo almost ate us!

One animal I almost desperately wanted to see in Kanha was the Leopard. Unfortunately, even the two month long stay did not help in giving me a leopard sighting. Nevertheless, it gives me a good enough reason to revisit Kanha. We never did see the other animal I was equally desperate to sight-the Sloth Bear. We did not get to see it in the safari rides; but that is hardly the end to that story.

Sloth Bears, very much unlike the convivial and cheerful image that Kipling had created of Balloo, are rather nasty and known for ill temper. Matted black hair covers their entire body. Their limbs are somewhat twisted and they walk in a clumsy manner, criss-crossing their legs as they do. They are stinky, mangy and will attack other animals or a human in close proximity with no rhyme or reason. They are highly feared by the local villagers who go into the forests to collect firewood and honey. All these, however, do not come in the way of my love for them.

We were in the middle of one of our transects. We had walked around 500 meters away from the main road into the jungle and further around 300 meters along our transect line. At that point, we heard some rustling movement towards our right side, from behind some large bushes. Vishnu and I knew for a fact that it was a herd of herbivores. We would generally know of a wild animal’s presence only by its tracks and its faeces. We rarely ever ‘sighted’ the animals. Excited and overjoyed with the possibility of a Chital or Wild Boar sighting, we made Harish and Kuldeep sit in the place where we left the transect line and slowly walked towards the bushes which were around 5o meters away. A large flock of Babblers sat in the bushes, babbling in the most irritating manner, somewhat hiding the rustling sounds of the deer. When we finally crossed the bushes and peeped on the other side, the deer had fled. Disheartened, we walked back to the place where the assistants were sitting and continued walking along our line. At about 80 meters from that point, we heard some women speaking to each other in close proximity. It was not an unusual occurrence as we would encounter many woodcutter women during our walks. Their voices were merely faint mumbling noises and we paid less heed. We had reached the point where we were to take readings. Kuldeep was setting up the tripod, Vishnu was measuring undergrowth cover and I was recording the tree density. Suddenly, the women who were softly speaking to each other began mumbling loudly. Further, they started gargling and growling in strange constipated tones. At once Kuldeep turned around and said “Yeh toh Baloo hain” [There’s a Bear over there!]. Excitement and panic simultaneously hit me and Vishnu like a lightening hits a tree on the hill top. We had seen many Bear droppings in our transects, but this was the first time we were in the presence of the animal. Our hands and feet turned cold. We did not dare even to move a muscle. Kuldeep went on to inform us at that point, that it was not a herd of Chital but the Bear that we had heard and tried to follow. If we had walked any faster, we would have run into the bear and he would have sliced our faces with ease. Presently, the Bear continued to make the weird noises. We just stood there in much tension and waited for it to leave.

While we waited in perpetual fear, our assistants found it apt to tutor me and Vishnu on ways to escape a bear attack. “You have to climb up a bamboo cluster” they said, “There is no way you can outrun the bear”. We tried to convince them that we could hardly climb a normal tree, leave alone a mass of grip-less bamboo clusters. They assured that we would get killed if we tried to run away. They went on to describe gory incidents of their village counterparts getting mauled and killed in bear attacks. After convincing them that we’d rather try to run away than attempt to climb up bamboo and fall hard on the bear below, they demonstrated the way a bear chases. So, two grown adults were imitating a bear, with heads hung down and criss-crossing arms while moving them in the air, as if they were running. Every now and then they would raise their heads with a jolt and say “He’ll look at you once like this”, head bends again, “..and chase you looking at the ground”. There. One real bear within some 40 meters of the place where we stood and two cartoons behaving like Bears, eliminating all our chances of survival. After around twenty minutes the mumbling brute moved away from us and we heard the growls slowly fading away. Relieved that we had survived the near-death-experience, we continued walking. Within two minutes, we found ourselves in the midst of a strong unusual stench. I asked Kuldeep what it was and at once, Harish, who was walking ahead of us, turned around and asked us to head back. There was fear evident on his face. We didn’t stop to think; we just fled. When we almost reached the road, a large herd of Chital flew across our path. We felt like banging our heads on the trees around. Later, a villager on the road informed us that the jungle patch where we went lingering was the territory of a female Bear. And presently, she had two cubs with her.

The second incident happened much later. This time, we had no assistants with us. Vishnu and I were only 100 metres along our transect line when I heard the same mumbling and growling sounds towards the right side. The same rustling of leaves from behind the bushes and similar flock of Babblers, babbling away to glory. Since we had stopped to record parameters, Vishnu was busy measuring grass length while I desperately tried to make actions to get her attention. When she finally saw me, I made actions to convey to her that there was a Bear in the bushes. Shell-shocked, she just collapsed onto the ground. We remained still. There was a clearing just ahead of the bushes and it stretched up to around 100 meters. At a distance, I saw the rotund mass of a black colored bear coming out into the open. Adrenaline rushed to every corner of my body. Fist in mouth, I chanted “oh my god…oh my god…oh my god…Vishnu…it’s the bear!!”. Vishnu, who was still sitting, had no idea that this was a second Bear that was at a distance. She misunderstood it to be the same one in the bushes next to us. There were two Bears! As usual, she froze and refused to move. The bear in the distance walked away into the bushes and so did the one close by. After giving it a few more minutes, we continued walking, thanking our stars that the bear hadn’t noticed our presence. As our assistants weren’t with us, each of our chances of getting killed was higher. Since there was a lot of dry leaf litter on the ground, we could not help but make noises as we moved. Only a few steps ahead and we heard the bear in the bush rushing towards us. The rustling got louder and louder and that too at an alarming speed. We scooted. We ran for dear life. That was the last time we would take a chance with bears around!

.

Bicchia and Baihar

Bicchia and Baihar are both little towns that are located towards the North and South sides of the park respectively. Although nothing significant happened during our stay there, I feel that they deserve a mention. While at Bicchia, we stayed in a tacky hotel room that had stains of Paan spat on the walls, horrible mattresses and dirty bathrooms. The owner of the hotel was a grumpy old lady who would curse and complain every day when we begged her to give us hot water for bathing. It is also the place where my laptop stopped working properly, and there onwards we had do every possible circus act to make it work and stay in touch with the world. In Baihar, of course, we stayed at Bunty’s hotel. As I have already mentioned before, Bunty owned half of Baihar. He had one shop each for every livelihood need, his own hotel lodge and a travel agency. So any problem at all that we had in Baihar, we would promptly call up Bunty.

.

Tuli and a personalised park

Tuli Tiger Resort and Tiger Corridor is a beautiful tourist facility on the Kisli side of Kanha. Vishnu had previously been a classmate of the owner’s son and we sought help from the resort staff for our tourist interviews. Everyone in Tuli generously helped us out. At every step and every phase, they offered assistance and standing support. We were immensely pleased with all of their naturalists-Veeru, Shiva, Devendra and Kaustubh, managers and other staff. Although other tourist facilities also did their best to assist our project, Tuli clearly stood out. The lighter moments we sat and shared around the Dining area and the campfire by the pool will always be cherished. We remain eternally grateful to each one of them. Tuli was also the place where we met Carroll and Ernie, two amazing gentlemen whose encouragement kept up our morale.

With more and more rides into the park, we slowly got to know it like the back of our hands. We knew the routes inside Kanha zone too well within the first few rides. So our regular driver, Rajesh would just ask us where we wanted to go. Our main intension, however, was to interview tourists at the interpretation centre and museum. On one such ride with Indrajit, the chief naturalist at Tuli, we got to see two male tigers in a single ride. There was one spell of rain that left us all drenched and shivering. It was then that we saw the first one, crossing our path within 10 feet of the gypsy. The second one, which we saw at the end of the ride that evening, was a really large male who followed our gypsy along the path while we drove backwards along the twisted hilly path for about ten minutes. That was one of the best sightings of a Tiger that I have had. We knew Kanha in and out better than we know Bangalore even as I write this. Kanha became a personalised park for us.

.

Supkhaar, Muba and a final Goodbye

Supkhaar is a range on the right lobe of the national park. Even though it is not open for tourism, the main road that goes from Madhya Pradesh to Chattisgarh passes through Supkhaar range. On the day that we got chased by the Bear and abandoned the transect, we decided to drive to Supkhaar. Supkhaar has a forest guest house that was built in the 1920’s. Once the rest house for game hunters, it now stands as a mesmerising structure. The entrance gate was right next to the main road. All around it was absolute wilderness. Large, tall Casuarina trees line the entrance drive way to the guest house. It was a typical old fashioned building; thatched roof and dull colors.  The inside of the building was adorned with old paintings. The furniture and decorations were simplistic and elegant. There was no power supply to the guest house. Solar powered lamps were the source of light and large rectangular mats hung down from the ceiling, which were manually operated, behaved as fans. Supkhaar was beautiful.

On the last two days, our transect work was done. We were presently staying at Baihar, around 10 kilometres from Muba. We made quick change of plans and decided to spend our last day at our first home, Muba. When we went back, we really felt like we were back at home. Back in the mud huts, the same old friendly faces, greeting us with absolute delight and serving us food with genuine wide smiles. It was Holi season this time and Dr. Zafar Khan’s wife had also come over. Along with them was another family of Khans. It was already our last day in Kanha and two months seemed like they had passed within a wink. We ended the day with an afternoon safari ride. The final sighting we had was that of a large herd of Gaurs by the waterhole in the open meadows, and the Sun setting behind Sal forests in the background. It was the perfect way to say goodbye. Back at the resort, we sat with two families of Khans and laughed through the night. We took a night walk with a bunch of tourists, taking undue advantage of them being under alcohol influence. The two families of Khans were the most hilarious couple of families I have ever met. Of course, Dr.Zafar still took the cake when it came to entertaining us. Early next morning, we got into the cab and departed.

.

Kanha, although a scientific research project for me and Vishnu, became the most emotionally moving experience of our lives. It gave us laughter and tears, hope faith and confidence, and most of all, the ability to handle ourselves and each other in times of crisis and yet manage to get work done. The people I met, the moments I shared with everyone involved, the emotions that took a stupendous roller coaster ride with every passing phase, the little things that got me agitated about Vishnu, the little even things that cracked us both up and left us in giggle fits, eating delicious food in tiny dhabas and hotels, the Chai and Daal-Roti at Chiraidhongri,  the Jalebi and Poha at Bicchia, the homely food that Yamuna didi occasionally cooked for us, the thousands of sights and sounds of pristine isolated jungles, walking through streams and rivers, stumbling down boulders and cliffs, the evenings back in the room, the songs that echoed in the Mocha outhouse reflecting my every feeling, the last time ‘three piece’ waved goodbye to us –not knowing that would be the last time, and every little, big, worthwhile, useless, lighter or frightful instance that occurred over the fifty five days will share a very special place in my heart. It was the longest duration I had spent away from home; perhaps why Kanha itself became a home after all. And my two months in Kanha came to an end.

Most parts that I have talked about may not have anything special about them. Neither the typical humour nor the strong opinions. But every aspect I have described here and a million more that I haven’t will remain closer to me than any other experience of mine. Ranthambhore has always been like my backyard. Nagarahole makes me feel like I’m at home. Kanha is my love.

This one is for Kanha

“Ranthambhore was then a wildlife reserve in south-western Rajasthan, sprawling over 400 square kilometres. Its dry, steep cliffs, and the crumbling ruins of historic past dotted around, all merged in perfect harmony, a harmony that held me spellbound. The reserve derives its name from the fortress of Ranthambhore, over a hundred meters high and seven kilometres in circumference: the forest was, in times gone by, the private hunting reserve of the Maharaja of Jaipur. They would hunt tiger and other game for six weeks a year and for the rest of the time the area was protected. This saved it from complete destruction.

Nearly a thousand years old, the massive battlements of Ranthambhore enclose one of India’s most ancient fortresses. The control of this fortress was vital to the control of central India. Countless battles have raged around these walls and the great Mughal emperor Akbar laid siege here. Lake palaces, tombs, summer gardens, temples, mosques, step wells and hunting towers, all reminders of the past have now been overrun by grasses and shrubs, and mosses and lichens have carpeted the stone walls. Today leopards and tigers prowl the ruins.”

.

It was the year 2003 when I read these words for the first time. Valmik Thapar, in his book ‘The Secret Life of Tigers ’, painted a paradise-like image of Ranthambhore for me. I had a craving to visit this paradise ever since. It finally happened five years later, in February 2008. I stumbled upon a website where a group called ‘Jungle Lore’ had advertised that they organise tours to Ranthambhore. I enrolled myself for the same around a week before the scheduled date and it was confirmed. I would be visiting Ranthambhore National Park for the first time.

With my college schedule making things tight, time constrains took much importance. Thus, I took a flight to Mumbai. My train tickets to Sawai Madhopur were booked by Jungle Lore as a part of the package. I met the rest of the group only at the Mumbai Central Railway Station. To my surprise, the group consisted of two couples who seemed like they were on their second honeymoon and three old ladies. The men in both the pairs were adventure freaks/photographers who had convincing addiction to cigarettes. The three old ladies spoke only amongst themselves and that too in Marathi. I had just begun to curse myself for my decision when there came along two gentlemen who vaguely fit the bill of ‘wildlife enthusiasts’. Thus, I befriended Sandeep Pulla and Rohit Narsinghani. Sandeep had come from Hyderabad and Rohit, an avid bird watcher, was from Mumbai.

We departed from Mumbai Central train station in the evening and arrived at Sawai Madhopur at around 10 am the following day. Everything about the little town of Sawai Madhopur begins to embed in you like you really belong there. And this feeling did not spare me. We dumped our luggage at the back of a Canter and found our seats. We drove through the road that led to our hotel resort, The Ranthambhore Forest Lodge. It was a well kept place with oddly aesthetic triangular buildings. Our rooms were welcoming and comfortable. The fact that I would finally be entering Ranthambhore that day, ‘Ranthambhore’- my mental image of paradise, kept me in a state of perpetual excitement. And it was time.

.

The First Look:

The rackety canter arrived at the entrance of the hotel at around 2pm. The entire group was ushered into the vehicle while the Sun roasted the air around.  The extreme heat did not, in any which way, hinder the activities of the three old ladies. They continued their little chitter-chatter from the back seats of the vehicle.

We drove through the road that led to the entrance with glimpses of scrub lands, some birds and villagers on bikes and bicycles on either side. The canter came to a halt at the entrance. A large green board, glistening under the burning heat stood tall, welcoming the tourists to ‘Ranthambhore National Park’. As we drove in, the tourist guide began his routine explanation of the history, geography and diversity of the park. I sat gaping, and watched in awe the vivid sights that the forest had to offer. The road lined by Vindhya mountain range on one side and the Aravali range on the other side made the valley of Ranthambhore. A large assortment of birds welcomed us into the park. The dry golden grass, the barren trees, the dusty paths, the gigantic hills and the lakes of the area simply took over and left everyone speechless. The canter stopped and the guide pointed out a pair of Long-billed vultures sitting cosily in the crevice up on the rocky hill. The nest it housed slightly jutted out, giving us just about a glimpse of their little home. The park ride thereafter was not without spotting a wild herbivore every other second. Langurs looking at us with intrigue, Chital deer running this way and that, the Sambhars in their foraging frenzy, the Wild Boars-who as usual, could not care any less, the Nilgais and finally a pair of mongooses by a pond. Ranthambhore truly was a paradise. Although there was no sighting of a tiger, the ride was one of the most gratifying experiences of my life.

There were two more rides that followed, both on the next day. The morning ride was not unlike the first one. An array of birds flittered around, as if overjoyed by our visit. We got to see loads of herbivores but no sighting of the King himself. Nonetheless, I grew more fond of Ranthambhore with every passing minute.

.

The Royal Encounter

The final ride into the park was with evident mounting expectations. It had already been two rides with no tiger sightings. Everyone in the group but for the three ladies was desperate. And we drove that afternoon. The same road to Ranthambhore, the same entrance, the same bunch of noisy tourists around and the same level anticipation. Our guide picked zone 3 and we heard from drivers around that the sighting had happened that morning in the very same zone. It gave us all the more reason to sit on the edge of our seats and strain our eyes to spot anything that would vaguely look orange.

Zone 3 is the smallest of the five tourist zones in Ranthambhore. The route, however, includes the beautiful lakes of Ranthambhore – Padam, Malik and Rajbagh. Malik Talao is the smallest of the tree and perhaps the easiest place to spot a Marsh crocodile. Rajbagh stands second in line, with ancient ruins at its bank. One can catch some Sambhars lazing around the lake or a herd of Spotted deer quenching thirst in the mid-day’s heat. Padam Talao is the largest and the most beautiful one. The earthy red coloured ‘Jogi Mahal’- the olden days’ rest house of the Maharajahs, stands still at one end. The Tigers of the surrounding territories seem to love this lake. It was also the favourite spot of the legendary Tigress Machli – also called the ‘Lady of the Lake’. She is known to have fought and killed a Marsh crocodile in the lake as well.

Presently, we were driving past Padam Talao when we saw two other gypsies and one canter halted along the path. The tourists were standing up and a few of them were evidently taking photographs of something on our left. We drove ahead and joined the rest of the vehicles. Towards our left, on the banks of Padam, under the shade of a tree she rested with her beautiful long back towards us, a blazing fiery orange pelage and an astonishing pattern of black stripes. The tigress was in the middle of her afternoon slumber. And thus, I saw my first tiger in the wild.

Ranthambhore, being Ranthambhore would not let me go with just that. At a little distance from her sat one of her sub-adult cubs. Equally gorgeous, she was a queen in the making. After around ten minutes, the young tigress got up, walked over to her mother, exchanged nudges and settled for her share of a nap. As if all this was not gratifying enough, the second cub, another sub-adult tigress showed herself towards our right side. Evidently being used to tourists and vehicles, she walked across the forest path, right in front of our canter, posed for photographs and strolled towards her mother. I was overwhelmed.

Although the entire experience left me overjoyed, there was another aspect of the entire incident that began to trouble me. The tourist vehicles around us as we watched the tigers increased with every passing second. The people in brightly coloured attires yelled and screamed, pointing at the animal. There was utter chaos. Some VIP vehicles even drove right towards the animal. Ranthambhore’s tigers have gotten very used to human presence. Increasing pressures of tourism has left the tigers in a semi-tame state. This thought left me wondering that if tourism is the only way to save tigers and this is what tourism does to them, then whether there is any hope for wild tigers at all.

.

Royal Ranthambhore and a picky Langur

The name of the Tiger reserve itself is derived from the fort that stands tall in the heart of the forest- The Ranthambhore fort. It is a charming old structure that has been retained as a heritage site. The fort also houses a temple on the top which is known to get over half a lakh pilgrims and tourists every year.

On the last day of the tour, a visit to the mighty fort was scheduled. We had to drive through the entrance of the park to get to it and on reaching the entrance of the fort, a large tall door welcomed us inside. After various levels of maze-like steps and corridors, we finally reached the top. The view was spectacular, with the jungle sprawling outwards from the foot of the fort. Padam Lake looked like a piece of mirror on a green carpet and the Red Jogi Mahal caught everyone’s attention.

The three of us, Sandeep, Rohit and I made to the top and walked towards the temple. Large troupes of Langur were seen all over the top of the fort. Although most of them seemed to be in the middle of their daily routines of mock fights, lazing around, looking at tourists with intrigue and grooming each other, some of them also kept an eye out for people carrying food stuff with them. These droll primates can be rather nasty and will snatch food items from your hand with ease.

Rohit had his camera in hand and I carried Salim Ali’s Field Guide of Indian Birds. We were walking towards the temple when we noticed that a Langur was walking towards us. Although it was a rather common thing, something about this Langur was uncanny. He did not look away when we looked at him in the eye. He continued walking towards us and upon reaching us, stood up on his hind feet and snatched the book from my hand. I stood there, blank faced, wondering what a Langur would possibly want a Bird guide for. Rohit and Sandeep stared at the primate with equal amusement. To make things stranger, the Langur saw the cover of the book, looked back at my face and placed it back in my hand. He then walked away with a look of utter nonchalance.

To be criticised for choice of books is one thing. Being looked down upon for the same reason by a Langur is simply preposterous. Still amused, we walked away towards our destination.

.

The ‘Rathore’ and his eye

Fateh Singh Rathore is an ex-Field Director of Ranthambhore. He has seen the sanctum through its glory for several rains. Post-retirement, he began an NGO called TIGER WATCH. The organisation, nearly a decade old now, has to its credit several anti-poaching activities and success stories. My short trip also included a visit to ‘Tiger Watch’ office.

‘Maa Farm’ – property of Mr.Rathore, was where the office was located, adjoining his residence. A wide gate opened right at the roadside and further led to a long drive way. The muddy drive way had bushes and thickets on both sides. En route was a large lawn on the left and finally the road ends at the huge dull-red colored house. We just about reached the house when Mr.Rathore was leaving for a drive. The words in Thapar’s book that described this man appeared as a picture in front of me. And it fit. The green hat – folded up on one side, the dark colored glasses, the dusky complexion and a white moustache that curled up at both ends; the stature and youthful walk. It was him alright. I stopped and stared at him. And that’s about it. I stared with the silliest smile on my face. He came over and cheerfully wished us. Humbly, he took leave and drove away in his jeep. And I stood there, staring, smiling. Rohit nudged me and it was only then that I came out of my trance. What followed was my first look at TIGER WATCH and also a rather insignificant meeting with one Dr.Dharmendra Khandal.

.

So that was my very first visit to Ranthambhhore. I wish to conclude with a few lines I wrote owing to my fond memories of the park:

The Kings once ruled

Those arid lands

They fought with might

And able hands..

The Sun looms high

Roasting the dusty plains

Gold and brown summer

Emerald green as it rains..

The Langur and Deer in synchrony

Blue skies where Vultures soar

The Tiger now rules the land

Here be paradise, in Royal Ranthambhore.

This one is for the Panicky Chitals, Glutton Sambhars, Belligerent Nilgais, Picky Langurs and the Majestic Tigers of the Vindhyas and Aravalis. This one is for my first visit to Ranthambhore

Rainbows have always fascinated me. Although I admire colors as such, the reason I like rainbows is not merely for the blend of hues; for it is the concept that I appreciate. By conventional belief, they are formed by droplets of rain suspended in air, conveying the message of the Sun’s arrival in a stupendous manner. They are like entrance arches that welcome you to a new place. They convey the change that happens. ‘Change’ is when you know it. A pleasant change leaves a lasting impression on the mind and soul.

This ‘change’ for me, I believe happened through my life at Christ College [now Christ University], Bangalore. I enrolled myself at Christ for an undergraduate course with Chemistry, Botany and Zoology as my subjects. Although my aim was to seek academic excellence in one of the leading colleges in the country, I was showered with much more than what I had bargained for. Life at Christ was not just a three year academic course. It was an experience. I wish to convey the various aspects of my life at Christ and the relevant changes through the three years of bliss.

.

Violet Side- Simply me

The first color of the visual spectrum and a color I feel deeply associated with. It is a color that signifies the crown chakra; the sense of self having eliminated false illusions. It begins as flimsy lavender and moves to gather strength. The transition is when it morphs into a shade of mauve and realises its place. It then grows stronger and ends as violet.

Through my first year I was not unlike the first phase of violet. Flimsiness was apparent in all my thoughts and actions. I had come with a set of made up walls and ideas and failed to realise that the real world has little space for such walls. Brawls with Vivek or arguments with Shiv, I would get easily agitated, react unnecessarily and speak thoughtlessly. My limitations in terms of both psychological as well as applied rational paradigms made me flimsy lavender of a person.

The second year, however, things began to fall in place. Now that I think back, I remember things getting sorted out in my head. My priorities and my ideas changed. I suddenly seemed to ‘know’ how to handle myself. I became aware and conscious of not only the people around me but also the ideas and personas that came with them. My goals were now set and I seemed to know two steps ahead for every direction that I had to move in.

The third year brought me to the final stage of strength and confidence. I had braved through things I was unsure of and I no longer hesitated to go beyond the walls that I had built for myself. I passed out of college with no regrets and with a feeling of self assurance that I had done good. There, today I feel like I’m a purple!

.

Indigo Moods- The darker times

The color Indigo represents something rich yet gloomy. It signifies strength and power. It is the darkest of all the colors in the spectrum. It begins dark and enigmatic, filters to a rather pleasant royal blue and finally terminates as a soothing sky blue.

Every part of college life is fun. The only thing, however, that might not completely fit the bill is that of the faculty and management. You know that they are in-charge. You know they have the power. Any individual who can foresee consequences would do his best to avoid anything that might put him in the bad books of the faculty. The first year, it was a tad scary. I knew the faculty members only by names and the management only by reputation. I dared not to flout the rules. I entirely fit the role of a ‘good student’. Bunking classes was a rather rare occurrence. Seeking permissions for almost every move made, I thought was mandatory.

The second year was rather relaxed and laid back. I began to relate to our lecturers as individuals and not as teachers as such. Like everyone else, I identified the cheat’s way out for nearly every issue with a teacher. The year passed with an unspoken peace treaty with the faculty.

The third year, being the final one, gave us a level of freedom. Most professors, including a few unimaginable ones had become more of friends than teachers. Although the regular drill of classes sustained boredom, there were at least some exceptions every now and then. Today, I am glad that I can go back to college and still get that pleasant and hearty smile from my teachers.

.

Blue Benevolence- The good times

Blue is consistency. Blue is benevolent calmness. The third color of spectrum, it remains more or less the same throughout. The pleasant times in all the three years came in bits and pieces and sometimes hidden and morphed.

The first year, we spent time in groups when we were appointed volunteers for department fests and had to stay back after college hours to make arrangements. It came in those times in between yelling and shouting during dance practices with the Kaal team. It came while managing to understand some teachers and getting used to their accents.

The second year it came when we were accompanied by the most charming set of juniors while doing the same kind of work. It came when I practised and participated in dumb charades with Vivek and Abhijna. It came during lighter moments of street plays and performances. It came when we tried shooting a movie with a bad set of actors and an even worse director. It came while sharing long hours of deep conversations with Greeny.

In the final year it came while we practised and performed as the mime and spoof team – Pseudolamellibranchiata. It came with my last dance with Sonia. It came while watching the antics of the Burkha girls and it came during lunch breaks and those five minutes between two class hours.

Those that passed off as mere moments when I was living it will now live as memories forever.

.

Green Army- Time for Beasts and Flowers

Fourth in line comes the color Green. It represents pleasant health and prosperity. Green is the natural world. Green is what my class unanimously stood for.

Through first year, it seemed like the entire class was highly enthusiastic about environmental issues. So much was the amount of interest and energy that we honestly planned to form a group and called ourselves PAWS. PAWS definitely saw some weird and ugly times. As a part of the Green Army, the treks definitely require a mention.

The second year saw regrouping and re-establishment of like-minded individuals. Sujay, Vishnupriya and I stuck to venturing out and get into wildlife tours and workshops. That did not, however, stop the rest of the class. We came together again during science week, teamed up with the juniors and put up the most unimaginable street play; conveying the message of deforestation, climate change and animal rights. The weekends we spent at Valley school added to the green experience.

The third year gave me the both the King Cobra telemetry project as well as the Gharial Expedition, satiating all my cravings for contributing towards wildlife conservation at that stage. I honestly believe that these three years played a major role in shaping up the initial stages of my career.

.

Yellow Blooms- like the flowers by the Christ pond

Yellow stands fifth in the array and is perhaps the most attractive one. The Mayans gave the color much importance and associated it with anything precious and valuable. The color longs for purity and any change in it becomes heavily evident. I draw parallels between this and the campus of Christ. It is perhaps one of the best campuses in the city. It boasts of a clean and green campus and it is not untrue.

The first year kept me in awe as I was new to the campus. Everything about it had something to appreciate. The mesmerising cultural events along with sleep inducing day-long functions of the main auditorium, the occasional eat-out at the Cafeteria, the long hours of photocopying in the Ivy hall, the trademark Christ walkway lined by trees on both sides, the large parking lot, the home turf – main block, the alternative class- second block, the Library, the old food court by the football field that gave us so many happy times, the islands and the pebble park, perks at the kiosk and those fresher’s and farewells at the Birds’ Park.

Through the second year, the old food court no longer existed, it was brought down. We made peace with the new one in the Basketball court. Most of our lab records were completed there and I credit the place for the inspiration it gave. The parking lot was gone; it would become a new building now.

The third year, Christ College- Autonomous- September 2005 became Christ University. The audio visual announcing the new status of the institution boomed every now and then when we sat through programs in the main auditorium. Christ as we knew it was changing and not many of us liked the idea.

For one last time however, the Cul-Team of 2009 shot to fame with organising In-Bloom- the annual inter collegiate cultural festival. The entire campus was decked up to resemble a village Mela and for once, the event brought out a festive look. Today, the campus continues to change and the only regret is that it fails to trigger nostalgia when revisited.

.

Orange zest – like the Pondicherry Sun

Orange is energy. It signifies potential to reach the unimaginable and achieving the unthinkable. Energy, for me, is what the college cultural team personified.

SPANDAN, the inter-collegiate cultural fest of JIPMER, Pondicherry, is the only out-station festival in which the university CUL-TEAM officially participates. The first year, of course, everything was new. With only one other person in the lot of 70 students being a first year, saying I was ‘lost’ would be an understatement. From the very beginning I kept to myself. I would sit silently in a corner and speak only upon being spoken to. No one knew as to why I was there. We reached JIPMER campus at around 5 a.m. and were eventually established in our respective accommodation sites. Through the week long stay, it wouldn’t be wrong if the place was called a cultural haven. The true spirit of being a ‘CHRISTITE’ blossomed in every one of us. A sense of pride, a patriotic feeling found its genesis in everyone. We won the over-all trophy.

The second year again I got to revisit the place. This time was much better, one of the reasons being I was one of those in the group who had ‘been there, done that’. The entire team bonded better than the previous time. The moments we shared when we got together and worked on the WALL-MAG[an event] all night long, cheered madly as a mob when our teams performed on stage and basically every instant we spent together as a team, are simply priceless. We won almost every event. We bagged the trophy again.

The third year in Pondy was plainly the CHERRY on the cake. This time as the ‘Art representative’ and with a major chunk of my class in the Pondy team, it was undoubtedly the most joyous victory ever! The first four days of the week, we won nothing at all. We cried foul several times, blaming the organizers, the other teams and basically everything else related. Event after event we continued to lose. Hesitantly we reminded ourselves, the oath we had taken back in college, to bring the trophy back. We feared the mishap. Depressed inside, it was too clear on our faces to be said out loud. It was however the skit by ‘Passion of the Christite’ that changed it all. The brilliant performance turned the tables for the entire team. With the spirit of the cul-team revoked, it triggered a huge chain of victories thereafter. We began to bag the prizes; multiple prizes in every event. We had won the trophy again, that too, a new one! So we returned, keeping our word after all; not with one, but TWO trophies.

The three years have passed eventfully and I will no longer visit Pondicherry the way I have been visiting so far. The time spent with everyone from the Cul team remains invaluable. I imagine myself, years from now, feeling blissfully nostalgic when I visit Pondicherry or JIPMER again.

.

Blazing Red – a cherry on the cake

Red is something that tops it all. It represents intense passion, love and rage. Red is conquest gratified. I find justice in comparing the color to my class.

The best part of life at Christ was definitely my class. I cannot speak for other classes, but this strange one, until then considered an underdog, rose to miraculous levels of excellence. A multitude of talents came together to form the unit.

The first year had many faces who quit the course. They perhaps missed out on something. From highest GPA scorers to singers, musicians and artists to actors and speakers; Dancers and performers to adventure freaks. We had it all. However, it was the unity of the class that stood out the most.

Through distinctions and departmental fests in first year, street plays and cultural fests in the second year and the amazing trip to Kerala and every single event that took place in third year; we soared through it all. I have already written about this amazing set of people in my earlier posts. Putting them in words would be far too limiting for the kind of people I shared the three years of my life with. So I shall end this with nothing more to say.

.

Those three years at Christ were the most assuring, rich, soothing, prosperous, pure, zestful and gratifying years of my life till date. This to me is ‘being colourful’. The things I would give up, to have one last fight with Vivek over a petty issue, one last argument with Shiv, one last lab practical class, one last dance with Sonia, one last trek with the Green Army, one last session of completing records in a hurry- sitting on the basketball court benches, one last trip to Pondicherry with the cul-team, one last lecture with my entire class in the dungeon museum class of ours.

The change happened; and what a change it was. Like it happens in the real world, there will be more Rainbows again. It just won’t be the same one.

Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary is a picturesque green heaven situated amidst the Western Ghats in Chikmagalur and Shimoga districts of Karnataka. It is surrounded by lofty hill ranges of Mullaianagiri, Hebbegiri, Gangegiri, Bababudangiri. And also the picturesque Bhadra River and its tributaries like Somavahini, Thadabehalla and Odirayanahalla. The ‘Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary’ was earlier known by the name of Jagara Valley Wildlife Sanctuary. The reserve consists of two main areas, Mutthodi and Lakkavalli.

My visit to Bhadra during the first week of September 2009, still a part of Dr. Krithi’s project, was the last of my six national park marathon. I was a part of it only for the last two of the total six days.

.

Drained Arrival

A six and a half hour journey from Bangalore and I reach the town of Chikmagalore at around 1 pm. Having made repeated calls to Krithi, I managed to find my way around to the little bus stop where I had to wait for a second bus. The place where I had to get to, called ‘Kaaranji’ was all the way nearly on the other side of the mountain and an easy 2 hour ride from Chikmagalore. After two hours at the smaller bus stop, the tiny bus finally arrived. It was a private bus, visibly not in the best of conditions. Confirming that it was headed towards ‘Uluvatthi’, I found myself a seat at the rear end of the bus. The road that connected Chikmagalore to my destination was perhaps the worst one I’ve ever seen. While most parts of it had artistically placed potholes, the rest of it could hardly be called a ‘road’. So there I sat, at the rear end of the bus, for nearly two hours while being tossed around this way and that. The pungent smell of hair oil from this strange man who sat beside me only added to the experience.

I got off the little excuse of a ‘transport’ at crossroads. From this ‘Kaaranji Gate’, I was to walk a kilometer or so to reach my destination – Huli Kaanu. Huli Kaanu is an estate owned by eminent conservationist Dr. Ullas Karanth. A part of the land houses a field station under the Center for Wildlife Studies [CWS]. After the draining two hour bus ride, I slowly walked in the direction of the estate asking every soul that came along for further directions. Luckily some heaven-sent tractor came along and the driver offered to give me a ride till Huli Kaanu. So the rest of the distance took less than five minutes to cover but not without the rear-vibrating ‘dhood-dhood’ing tractor.

.

Two days and more

The actual field work with me as a part of it happened for two days. On the first day, we went ground truthing with the team consisting of Krithi, Prakash and myself. We drove towards Bababundangiri and it was perhaps one of the best road routes I have seen. We drove through brilliantly colored green mountains- parts of them covered in thick bottle green forest canopies and the rest flaunting glistening green grass. Large patches of ‘Sholas’ stretched across gigantic valleys. The Shola grasslands are truly one of nature’s wonders. The dew had set in on them through the night and presently, the pleasant morning sun gave them a glossy sheen. Wisps of clouds and mist rose from the large mountains making every sight in every direction almost picture perfect. The best one, however was a tiny lake that we found at the very summit of the mountain. Alternately covered by heavy clouds and sunshine, it remains one of the most amazing sights of India that I have seen till date.

Day two was the last day of field work for the four month long project. The ground truthing team was what Krithi claims to be her ‘dream team’. It consisted of people she had befriended in all the parks; Prakash, Amith, Praveen and myself. So with five eccentric people in one little jeep, things were bound to go crazy. The four of us sang songs at the top of our voices throughout the eight hour long ground truthing session. Krithi admits being so embarrassed as to contemplating on whether she should jump off the jeep. All in all, it was the best session from all the six parks that I volunteered in.

I went to Bhadra prepared for a three day long stay. Changes in plan occurred when Krithi informed us about her parents visiting the estate and that we should stay back and enjoy a couple of days more to celebrate the end of her ten park field work. And thus we saw the arrival of Keya, Krithi’s adorable two year old daughter, and, her parents – The Karanths.

.

Meet the Karanths

Krithi’s daughter Keya is one of those really rare kids that I can afford to handle. She is an almost no-tantrum kid who is as much in love with the natural world as is the rest of her family. The fair little ball of a child left no option for anyone who met her but to fall in love with her. It was indeed pleasing to see how trifling things like bugs, leaves, twigs, sticks, butterflies and birds fascinated the little one.

While Mr. Ullas Karanth himself flaunted that aura of a highly knowledgeable person, his wife was a charming lady who carried with her an air of elegance. They were staying a little away from the research station, in a beautiful house on stilts. Every time that they visited the station where we were put up, it was evident that everyone got conscious and moved around with a complex. Eventually however, we all managed to calm down. We spent so much time with little Keya that everything about her became somewhat important to us; these included her entire range of various stuffed toys, their names and the fact that she called her grandparents ‘Tata’ and ‘Dodda’ compelled us to refer to them with the same names. Thus, they became Tata and Dodda for all of us.

One of the days we planned to go for the jungle ride into the Sanctuary. It was Keya’s first time into a jungle. So there we were, Vishnupriya, Praveen, myself and three generations of Karanths, all packed in a gypsy. We drove around the park and through some strange irony or a streak of terrible luck, all we saw was one Chital and one mongoose.

Hush hush and Wet blankets

The days we spent in the field station after the field work got over definitely deserves a mention. We were bound by some strange unwritten and unannounced curfew. While all of us longed to sit through the night and enjoy lengthy conversations, the lights would be switched off by 10 pm and the people in-charge would hit the sack. The rest of us would huddle up in the corridor and whisper to each other until our ears gave in. Yet, we managed to spend three nights this way. Although most of what was said went unheard by few of us, we managed to laugh and giggle at any noise we heard.

High levels of humidity and the rainy season added to make the place extremely cold in the night. Even though there were rugs around, one or two of them would magically get picked everyday and would become completely wet. No one knew how these warm rugs turned into leaky blankets. Not unlike some lucky raffle, one of us would end up with the chosen leaky rug. The water absorbing rugs of Bhadra still remain a mystery.

.

The Team

The team this time had almost nothing new. With almost every member who had already volunteered in another park before, it had only a couple of new ones. It had Soujanya from Ranthambhore, Amith from Periyar-Bandipur-Mudumalai, Praveen from Bandipur-Mudumalai-Nagarahole, Prakash from Kanha-Pench and Vishnupriya from Dandeli-Anshi. Three new faces, Vikas, Sunil and Laxmeesha added to that and Bhadra team was the craziest of all the teams from ten parks. While Vikas had already left by the time I arrived, Sunil and Laxmeesha’s presence went unnoticed amidst the antics of the rest of the team.

To the misty mountains, cloudy roads, emerald rainforests and a final goodbye to field work.

This one is for Krithi’s team of Bhadra

They say it took God seven days to make paradise. I find it hard to believe. I do, however believe that there was magic; there was a magician. She was a mystery herself – yet the most beautiful magician in all the seven worlds.

.

She stood there, having positioned herself right; she would not endure imperfection. She took her time and groomed herself, for she knew she would be admired so. She made herself up boisterously. Her actions were succinct. She first drowned herself in massive waters and then sat in a blazing furnace. The years went by and she only grew more beautiful. Everyone who knew of her also knew that she was one of a kind. Some envied in secrecy yet managed to appreciate and applaud. Enigmatic as her abysmal waters, tender as the lily petals in her meadows; strong as the towering cliffs and enchanting as her emerald greens. Mystique was her act. She made her own audience; she made paradise. Maaya.

.

But it just had to happen. One of her creations – he stepped aside. He looked at her and presumed he could do much better. That day he made rules for himself, betraying her.  A cascade of blunders began and we continue to witness. He was a mistake.

We, his descendants, have broken down what she gave us. We wander with a delusion that we can create better. We are at recombining her creations at random and calling them ‘inventions’.

.

Our very present is a bible of mistakes. Our species has effortlessly forgotten the very purpose of existence. It commences with shamelessly declaring ourselves to be the superior creatures. This, slowly topped with thoughtless unforeseen extreme empathy for our kin and ultimately treating anything other than humans to either be of benefit for the race, and if not beneficial then being completely worthless makes ‘us’ perhaps the most foolish of all earthlings. Befriending ‘self’ was the first mistake.

.

We have made our rules. We have made our own walls and our own boundaries. And with these continual walls and rules came the lawmakers. The lawmakers produced protectors and the protectors planted seeds for hierarchy. The ‘self’ part of us took over and made us hungry and desperate for power and position. Today, we all struggle amidst this induced bureaucracy. We find it easy to label it as ‘politics’ and blissfully fake ignorance. Befriending ‘greed’ was the second mistake.

.

We have always gone out of our way to make sure that another human life is not lost. Seldom does one ponder the purpose of this act. We have hospitals and doctors who are saving thousands of lives as this very moment passes. Any calamity, natural or unnatural, we make all the effort to ensure that our fellow humans survive through it. We have made a system where the disabled, the orphans, the homeless, the helpless – everyone who is visibly unfit to survive gets a chance to thrive in the world. And yet we are the same ones who complain of over population and population explosion. When a major chunk of the mass has no water to drink, we plan to burst open the moon to bring more water. We fail to consider controlling our numbers in terms of population. We have reached a stage where even questioning this empathetic system of ours would seem inhuman. Six billion humans in the world and still we find the death of a couple of us to be disturbing. It has been religiously, traditionally and culturally inscribed in us that doing a good deed begins with lending our hand for the one in need of it. Befriending ‘empathy’ was the third mistake.

.

It is not the first time that we are learning about our blunders. Time and again it has been announced and not without a loud voice. Every single creation of ours has been a destructive one. We have made ways to move around without having to put an effort. We have made cars and buses – each one in competence to poison our air. We developed a crazy desire to ‘create’. We made buildings, factories and industries – each one in competence to poison our waters. In this little tale of our own, one hundred thousand people have died in the previous year due to road accidents – and this is in India alone. Hundreds lose their vital organs due to firecracker mishaps every year. Cigarettes claim more lives a year than natural deaths. Yet, we do not seem to have problem with any of these. In a world with a few thousand of its kin, a wild animal strays out of the jungle and kills one human – every effort is made to either kill it or capture it and sentencing it to permanent imprisonment. ‘Ignorance of far-sightedness’ was the fourth mistake.

.

It is definitely not agreeable that the mistakes did not raise a few voices. We all have gone through school and ‘education’ trying to tell us that we are erring. We know of climate change, we know of pollution, we know of the contamination of our environment, we know of the continuing deterioration of the natural world. One is forced to question as to why none of the initiatives taken against the brutality is making a difference. While a very few voices are raised against the injustice, the rest are in a rat race towards selfish lives with pleasure and comforts. It does not take a genius to figure out the reason for the failure of these voices. Befriending ‘Negligence’ was the fifth mistake.

.

Darwin’s theory of ‘Natural Selection’, as I see it, will take a nasty morph in the near future. The theory, once applicable to the entire living population will so forth be exclusively seen in humans. The over prodigality is already in place. The variety has been brought about by the kind of lives we lead, revolving solely around our earthly possessions. The ones with money dominate and the have-nots see each passing day as a challenge. The farmers continue to die in large numbers with poverty taking over. The rich ones bathing in glamour-filled lives are fit enough to survive. Only this theory would be called ‘Monetary Selection’.

.

Maaya is said to have appeared time and again in the guise of a human to correct her blundered offsprings. Some of us called them ‘Gods’, others called them ‘Messengers’ and ‘Angels’. We succeeded in worshiping them dutifully – either blindly or thoughtlessly. But we failed miserably to follow what they came to impart. We have failed to understand the parable that each one of Maaya’s incarnates tried to bequeath.

Maaya’s child, the green one said “I wish to grow higher”
Maaya’s child, the second one said “I wish to go further”

She let it swim in the sea; it looked at the land
Said “I want to move away, lend me your hand”

She helped it onto the sand, let it slither and hop
Said “I want to glide away, take me higher up”

She gave it legs and let it run; gave it wings and let it fly
She then made one mistake; all he said was “WHY”

She knew she had erred and amidst her love to develop
She saw her death coming and mournfully, she gave up.

.

She sits there sideways, in nudity, with white linen wrapped around her waist. Her long hair ending in delicate curls cascading till the middle of her back. Blood is seen in glorious scarlet, dripping slowly down her back. It spreads evidently as it touches the white linen at her waist. She has been stabbed. She will now face the brunt of her mistake. He will first put her through the blazing furnace and eventually manage to drown her in her massive waters. As she sat there, she sees her son approach grimly; in a sooty hooded robe and a scythe clasped in his hand. Following him is Lady Death, her attire extravagantly made with blood and rot. She has that vicious glee in her eyes. The man, to behead his mother, raises his scythe – fails to realize he is next on Lady Death’s list.

The Dandeli Anshi Tiger Reserve[DATR] is a tiger reserve in Karnataka, sprawling over an area of 875 sq km in the Western Ghats in Uttara Kannada district. The ‘Tiger Reserve’ comprises of two protected areas – Dandeli Wildlife Sanctuary and Anshi National Park that are contiguous to each other and form a single tract of protected area. In the entire region of Northern Karnataka these are the only two protected areas located in lush green and diverse forest area.

The undulating streams, bamboo groves, diverse wildlife and innumerable trekking trails make it a dream destination. River Kali and its tributaries, Kaneri and Nagajhari, meander through the moist deciduous and semi-evergreen forests. The Dandeli forests also play host to the graceful Virnoli Rapids, the magnificent Supa Dam, the sinister Syntheri Rocks, Nagajhari Viewpoint, the Kulgi Nature Education Camp, and the Kavla Caves with its Shivling-like stalagmite and Sykes Point, which offers a stunning view of the Kali Valley. Anshi forests also offer quite a different experience with typical evergreen forests rich in Amphibians, Reptiles, Avifauna and a wide variety of elusive mammals.

I visited DATR in the month of August 2009, again, as a part of Dr.Krithi Karanth’s project. While I was still working around Nagarhole, my short trip to these lush green forests of Uttara Kannada was a much needed break. With one volunteer dropping out, cancellations in train ticket, inevitable mix ups and an evident share of confusions, my visit to DATR got confirmed. I rushed back to Bangalore and got ready to leave with the rest of the team on the very next day.

.

The Sheep-jeep

Only six of us ended up going by train to Hubli. A jeep was booked before our arrival itself, which would take us to Dandeli and further serve as our vehicle for ground truthing. Dandeli is a two hour drive from Hubli town.

When we got to the railway station, we ran around in the parking lot, looking for our jeep. To our surprise, the ‘jeep’ that we rented was more of a vehicle that would transport cattle around the city; or so it appeared. It was a reddish brown colored jeep with a seat in the front and a middle row. But the backside was open and had grills on all sides. So the six of us drove through the towns, leaving many heads turned, for we looked like a bunch of people on a mission to end cattle trade in Hubli. In my head, I named this vehicle of ours, ‘Sheep-jeep’.

.

The Sock-ness Monster

Our stay was booked at Kulgi Nature Camp – a beautiful resort run by the Karnataka Forest Department. The entrance with a big arch led to a wide staircase. The steps eventually opened up into a large lawn. All around the lawn were rather fancy tents, each one named after different birds common to that area. The tents were not the typical basic structures. They had comfy beds, a little cupboard, a table and they opened out into a rather clean bathroom at the rear end. Kulgi Nature camp was a calm pleasant place.

After the first day’s work we were back in our tents to freshen up. We put on our floaters and went out for a night walk. The dinner happened thereafter, all in benevolent humor. After a rather peaceful night, I find one of my socks missing. I had rolled them both up and put them in one shoe each the previous evening. How could only one of them have gone missing? I marched up and down in that little tent, with a sock on one foot, worried, and haplessly looking around for the missing sock. Did I put the other sock somewhere else by mistake? I questioned myself this way and that to test all possibilities. Nothing seemed to solve the mystery. Being my regular self, I announced it out to the rest of the group that my sock was missing and that I almost felt like Cinderella.

It was getting late and we had to start the day’s work. I grabbed a random sock and put it on. Later during the day, I learnt from Girish – a field staff of CWS in DATR, that there are mice in the tents of the nature camp. And when I explained to him about my missing sock, this was the conversation that followed:

Me: One of my socks went missing! There aren’t any rodents in the tents are there?

Girish: Of course there are. There are rats in that place and they run all over the place at night.

Me: Why do you think it took my sock??

Girish: It must be a female. It’s probably building a nest. She will be laying babies in your sock.

Me: Tch! And this is a regular problem here?

Girish: Yes it is! They have bitten through our bags several times when we have stayed in the tents. They do it mostly when they smell snacks and biscuits in the bags.

Me: Spare me! Is there anyway we can stop them from biting into our bags??

Girish: We generally leave the bags open so that they don’t have to bite through them.

Me: > puzzled look <

Girish obviously was not aware of his talent in plaintive humor. But the mother rat in our tent seemed to have too much brains for her kin. She would somehow switch on the light inside our tent during the evenings. Although she took away my sock, for some unexplainable reason, I remain glad for having lived in her presence during my stay in DATR.

.

The best and worst of it

The second day in DATR, I got to go ground truthing. It was one of the most amazing road routes as we passed through many forest patches, serene and secluded villages, mountains in every hue of blue, several waterfalls – the best one being Magod falls, the Kaiga area with the nuclear power plant, the Kaiga Dam and many more.

During the afternoon, the clouds descended and we got a taste of Dandeli rains. We were driving along the mountain roads when the rains took over and the entire surrounding was just shiny white. We could see nothing beyond a couple of meters from the sheep-jeep. Foggy wet roads, the chill in the wind and some good music that was playing in the jeep stereo put us all in an ecstatic mood. It was however the longest ground-truthing day that I have been on.

The volunteer team of DATR was the most sane and silent team of Krithi’s. While two ‘Santosh’s added a bit of confusion, Chinna remained more or less unavailable for most comments. This time round, Vishnupriya was on the team and so was Amith [from the Periyar team]. Meeting Girish [ not the same Girish from the rat story; there were two ‘Girish’s as well] and befriending him was quite a pleasant twist in the tale; for, in the prelude he wanted to kill me.

The forest cover of DATR is perhaps the best of its kind that I have seen. Towering teak trees, moist deciduous and finally semi-evergreen forests stretch obliquely to make up the reserve. Since the entire reserve is included within the Joida taluk, there is a lot of human habitation well within the forest area. The amount of research work done in DATR is far less compared to the other protected areas in Karnataka. In fact, DATR does not even have a well defined park boundary yet. There is rampant hunting and poaching that happens in and around the park; which is said to have come down in the recent times.

It is a pity that I got to spend a mere two and a half days only at DATR. It remains one of the places that I would surely want to visit again in the coming years, atleast to get a glimpse of a black panther for which this place is in fame.

This one is for the Mama rat of Kulgi, the Sheep-jeep of Hubli and the misty mountains of DATR. This one is for Krithi’s team of Dandeli-Anshi.

There are people all over the world facing various problems – big, small, simple, complicated, inevitable and self-made ones at that. But some problems exist which do not wholly fit the definition. I shall try and elaborate one such dubious issue on the sorry state of the people around an Indian forest where human-animal conflict does not seem to have a solution. I shall tell you the stories from Rajiv Gandhi National park.

Nagarhole National Park, also known as “Rajiv Gandhi National Park”, is located 94 km from Mysore in Karnataka in Southern India. It is spread between Coorg and Mysore districts. Located to the northwest of Bandipur National Park, Kabini reservoir separates the two. The exclusive hunting reserve of the former rulers of Mysore, the park has rich forest cover, small streams, valleys, and waterfalls. It stretches over 640 km², protecting the wildlife of Karnataka. Together with the adjoining Bandipur National Park and Mudumalai National Park, it forms the largest protected area in southern India.

My work around this park was as a Research assistant in Dr. Krithi Karanth’s project during August 2009. It extended for about a month and involved interviewing the local people from the villages around the national park. The interview involved documenting benefits of tourism and animal related conflicts in these villages.  I had always read quite a lot about man-animal conflict being a major problem around forests. But for the first time, I got to witness through my own eyes, the gravity of the issue. Nagarahole National park may be vaguely divided into two halves- the left [Coorg district] and the right [Mysore district]. While the left half with dense forests forms the eastern mountains of the Western Ghats, the right half is less dense and slowly gradients into semi-scrub at the extreme.

.

Gaurs [‘Kaati’ in Kannada]

Gaurs or often incorrectly called as ‘Bisons’ are the largest species of wild cattle in the world. The largest population of gaurs in the world is found in India. Their appearance is almost like that of a domestic cow; only better built and with added charisma. Sporting a large and heavy built, with a pelt of glistening ebony and a pair of gorgeous horns that majestically rise and curve towards the end, they look no less than a group of thugs. But the lower half of their legs being milky white makes it appear as if they are wearing delicate linen socks. They usually move around in herds and the movement is not without a certain amount of grace. Altogether, they look like a bunch of thugs who are all set to go ballet dancing. When you are in the jungle and manage to make your presence known to them, they inquisitively rise their heads and look at you cocky eyed, giving the most adorable expression on their faces.

I spent the first half of the month on the Coorg side of the park and all the people living in the villages on that side seemed to have two problems- Elephants and Gaurs. Every person whom I spoke to complained of damages caused by these two herbivores being a massive problem that could not possibly be solved by anyone.

The gaurs come in large herds, silently, and destroy titanic amounts of planted crops. Although they are shy creatures who would generally scoot at the very sight of humans, they could not seem to stop themselves from savoring the more delicious crops- as if they had gotten bored of the forest fodder.

.

Wild Boars [‘Handi’ in Kannada]

Wild boars are plainly the wild ancestors of the modern day domestic pig. They are also referred to as ‘wild pigs’ or wild ‘hogs’. They are chocolate brown in color and the entire body has stickle-like hair. A tuft of hair starting from its forehead runs along their backs, giving them a Mohawk look. The protruding short tusks, especially those of a male are used in defense. They generally live in groups consisting of males, females and young ones.

I spent the second half of the month on the right side of the park. The people here by default had two major problems- Elephants and Wild pigs. They all complained helplessly of the pigs which have reached populations beyond possible control. They are rather short and hardly make any noise while moving around. The farmer is kept in the dark about their presence until the very end. Only when a major chunk of his produce goes missing does he realize the disastrous doings of the wild pig. Upon being spotted, they are chased away, but they shamelessly return the minute the beater retreats.

.

Elephants [‘Aané’ in Kannada]

Painful as death itself stands the elephant. People have narrated stories to me teary-eyed, trying to explain the misdoings of this so called ‘god incarnate’. They claim that their numbers have gone up ridiculously in recent times and that they have an irresistible crave for agricultural crops. They move around singly, in small groups or even in large herds.

The summers are spent in the jungle eating available bamboos and other vegetation. But come monsoon and there is no stopping these pachyderms. The crops begin to germinate and the giants come to relish them and thus shattering the hopes of a decent livelihood for the poor farmer. Some farmers in these places have switched to cultivating Tobacco since it is the only thing that neither the elephants nor the pigs eat. But that has not made things any better for even as the herds move through these fields, they destroy everything along their path. The forest department has made the effort of digging a ‘trench’ of around 8 feet depth along the forest border. Some areas are also equipped with solar powered electric fences. These fences are broken down with ease and the trench crossed over with better ease and the giants commence their mad feeding venture.The farmers keep vigil all night long, sitting on tree top ‘machaans’. They usually have only a flashlight or some fire-crackers as defense. But even these efforts have proved futile, for, when the herds decide to feed, then there is nothing that can stop them.

The irony lies in the fact that people from all over the world do everything they can and come to these forests just to catch a glimpse of these magnificent creatures; on the other hand there are these local residents who are ready to do everything they can to never see these creatures again.

.

Gangothri and the gang of Gaja-gaaminis

My month long stay in Nagarhole was nearly pushing me off straight thoughts and normal life. Sanity was restored when the rest of the team arrived and we got to stay in the forest department lodge called ‘Gangothri’. It is located right inside the Nagarhole range of the Rajiv Gandhi National park. The three day long stay in Gangothri came with a series of blessed sightings. This includes my very first encounter with a pack of Dholes or Indian wild dogs and Striped neck Mongoose. The cherry on the cake however came on the night before we left Gangothri.

The dining area was next to the dormitory, located a little away from the lodge. After dinner on the last night, Natasha, Chinmayi, Krithi, Praveen and I began to walk down the road that led to the lodge. We heard a group of people making loud noises and clapping hands towards our far left. Being the only one in the group who had a torch in hand, I flashed the light in that direction to find a large herd of elephants that had lingered into the lodge area being chased away by the forest department staff. The rest of the volunteers were a little behind us and were quite unaware of the scene. Praveen left us and went back to shut them up. Feeling glad that we saw elephants, the four of us continued walking down the road and reached the Range office. Two men in the office yelled at us for walking around in the jungle and that there were elephants around. Assuming that they were referring to the elephants that had just passed, we continued walking towards the lodge. Little did we know that there was a part of the herd that was left behind and the staff members were chasing them right towards us. With only one flash-light, we hardly saw anything properly until it became too late. The loudest and scariest trumpeting noise at 30 feet distance from us and a glimpse of around six elephants at that very same distance-running towards us aroused panic. We turned around to run along the same path, for there was a big drop next to the road in the other direction. Krithi fell down in the process but managed to get back on her feet. Grabbing Chinmayi and Krithi by their arms I began to drag them towards a bus that was parked close-by. Chinmayi noticed that the bus door was open but Krithi failed to do so. While Chinmayi and I ran into the bus, Krithi and Natasha ran away into the darkness in the direction of the lodge-in the same direction in which the elephants were moving. Neither of them had a torch and tiny little Natasha was carrying a bag twice her size on her back. Never have I heard my heart pounding so loud. Chinmayi and I stood inside the bus, with a rush of emotions-fright, concern, relief, hope and several unaccountable ones.

After around 15 minutes, the herd had moved on and two forest department staff members escorted us back to the lodge where we found Krithi and Natasha safe yet panic-stricken. I failed to fall asleep that night. At 4 am the next morning, I opened my room window after I heard some noises outside. I saw the large herd of around sixty elephants slowly moving back in the path along which they were chased. The unmistakable Gaja-gaamini [meaning ‘the characteristic walk like that of an elephant]. The moonlit forest with the backdrop of black shadowy trees and ash colored gentle giants marching away – lost in their own world- the only one that they know of.

.

Kabini and the Kiruba

After completion of work in the Nagarhole side, we shifted to the Kabini side of the park.

The Kabini, also called Kabani and Kapila, is a river of southern India. It originates in Wayanad District of Kerala state, south India from the confluence of the Panamaram River and Mananthavady River, and flows eastward to join the Kaveri River in Karnataka. Close to the town of H D Kote it forms the huge Kabini Reservoir. The backwaters of the Kabini reservoir are very rich in wildlife especially in summer when the water level recedes to form rich grassy meadows. The Kabini reservoir divides Nagarhole and Bandipur National parks. The place where we stayed was called Jungle Lodges and Resorts – a fancy place where one feels like being in the lap of luxury.

As a part of the booking, the package included a boat ride in the Kabini reservoir and rides in the jungle. In both cases, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves as we sighted innumerable Chitals- who always made it a point to look at us when we drove by, Sambhar deer that rarely appeared, Wild boars which did the least to care for our presence, Elephants in all their might, Gaurs, Langurs lost in play, a Marsh crocodile and an assortment of birds. The catch however was something that I did not expect. On our first jungle ride, we saw all the regular herbivores. I was already contented that we saw countable number of Gaurs- for I love them. It was 6.30 in the evening and we were on our way back, heading towards the exit. Almost everyone was convinced that we had seen our share of wildlife for the day and hence had a relaxed attitude. It was getting dark and suddenly a feline figure flew across the path a little ahead of us, from the left side towards the right. At once a babbling chorus of whispers filled the jeep with each one voicing “Panther! Panther!”, at the same time trying to remain as quite as possible.

We drove a little ahead to find perhaps the most beautiful cat species I have seen. It was a sub adult leopard with golden chestnut colored coat and beautiful black spots. It crouched down amidst the grass, with ears erect and alert, looking at us in part fear and part intrigue. We silently admired the sleek creature for around a minute after which he presumed that we might be of danger to him. He got up in one jolt and scooted away into the green thickets. I saw my first leopard inside a national park. Kabini will remain a special place since I saw my first Kiruba [local dialect usage meaning ‘Leopard’]

.

The month long survey also included some incidents like a domestic goat which tried to eat my data sheets while I interviewed its owner, a young pet Sambhar deer who thought he was a dog, three drunk men- one who wanted to complain to the government that I was doing a survey, two-who wanted to eliminate a one rupee coin because he had issues with it, three- who emphasized innumerable times that he was a tribal and I should ‘resich’ [he meant research] his village right away. I should also mention the overly hospitable home stay owners of Kutta and their talented cook, the old attic-like room where I stayed in Gonikoppal, the lodge room of Hunsur which had a detached commode that moved around independently and the weird Chicken shop-cum-lodge room of Karapura.

The team that joined later was a wide assortment of the most amazing people. I credit Vasu for his hard work, Praveen for his support, Natasha [Boo] for naïve humor, Chinmayi for her silence and Amal for remaining belligerently calm and composed-even while being chased by elephants. Two prashants showed amazing driving skills while the third one interviewed resort owners with ease. Having three people named ‘prashanth’ in the same team was a little confusing for the rest of as well as for the prashanths.

To the Aane, Kaati, Handi, Kiruba and a million other things that happened over a month in Nagarhole.

This one is for Krithi’s team of Nagarhole.

Boo