and Tigers...

The desire to visit a jungle sprung up when my school friend Sumit mentioned about his desire to visit Tadoba Andheri Tiger Reserve, Nagpur, Maharashtra sometime soon to add to his elaborate list of forest visits… well, they are not ordinary forests, but have to be tiger reserves, that’s how passionate this friend of mine is about tigers and seriously concerned about their dimming count. I was sure that irrespective of the Oppressive (with a capital O) summer heat, tiger sightings or not, I will have a good time with him given his experience in the wild. Another friend Debu, from my college tagged with me, so it was a threesome gearing up for a ride of expectation.

We took a train that starts from Kolkata in the afternoon and reached the heart of India, Nagpur early morning the next day. Then it was a car ride till a town Chandrapur, and then another 30 km ride to reach Tadoba. In-between Sumit’s experience warmed (literally) us to the fact that we have to purchase (and eat) lots of water melons to keep the body cool. In the meanwhile we had come to know that the temperature touches mid forties easily and the effect could be felt at Nagpur or Chandrapur… everyone on bikes seemed to have hit the road after robbing the bank, that how they have their faces covered, revealing only the eyes. We managed to load our car with two jumbo water melons, lot of grapes, and of course our bottles of chilled bear and headed towards MTDC (Maharashtra Tourism Development Corp) resort.

When we reached Tadoba, it was 2 PM and the first ride into the Mohrali Range set off at3 PM. We changed, had a light lunch and hit the open green Maruti Suzuki jeep that we had booked. We were told that only petrol jeeps are permitted to ply in the forest area, keeping in mind the pollution and probably the sound that the diesel engine creates. The driver Bandu was a confident, strong lad, for whom we developed a liking in an hour of conversation. Slightly late for the first trip in-between a sea of cars, we set into the core with lot of expectations and thrills. Add Stayed at MTDC Resort. The first animal we saw within the first km was a langoor busy shuttling between trees. Our fingers started clicking the camera shutters to savor the moment of the first capture. One thing we, the first timers observed that there were lots of pools of water, locally called Taka constructed by the side of the road which feeds the animals with much needed water during the hot days and gives us opportunity to take their pictures in the process.

As we went a little deep, we saw few cars huddled by the side of such a pool, waiting in expectantly with their cameras outstretched. Their cameras wore huge lenses and our digicams looked like toddlers to those. Bandu was quick to understand the situation and parked the car instantly to join the rest. The forest rule does not permit us to get down from our cars, all we could do is wait patiently without making much of a fuss in the stinging sun.

The Royal family crossing over

Then came the moment when the tigress made a grand entry and became centrestage, the cameras went berserk in burst mode. Content with everything going around, we thought “And it is just the start”. From that trip onwards, once we became bored, we came back to that waterhole for a sure sighting of the royal family, and they barely disappointed us.

In-between, we saw various kinds of deer, the spotted ones were plenty, the barking ones (they actually bark and also the smallest variety) and the sambars (the biggest and as legend goes, the stupidest). The sambars were never scared to have their profile been shot, and it was fun filling up our cameras with their pictures. Then there were huge bisons (Indian Gaur) sipping from some waterhole or the other. In a place called Katezari (a range), which is greener of all ranges in the forest and holds subsequent amount of water even in the oppressive summer heat, we found bear footmarks on trees laden with honey bees, but always remained short of coming across one of them.

A lush Telia-dharan (Telia dam) in the midst of otherwise dry forest

Been through so much in so little time, the male tigers stole the show. There were two of them one of which fondly called teri-poonch, meaning slanted tail (nothing more than a demarcation). We reached that in a cinematic way when our car followed the trail of a male tiger in a narrow road. After almost 20 mins of search, finally got to check out the huge species. Our meeting with the second male happened when we were only 20 feet away from each other, almost ignorant of our presence, he walked the other way and into the forest.

Going through this, we may feel "Aal Is Well" with the gorgeous beasts, but it is far from so. Poaching is still active is few reserves, villagers in-between the forest throw tantrums when asked to be shifted somewhere else, politics in taking up responsibilities, are all burning issues. So much so that our PM Manmohan Singh had to step up and comment on the conservation of tigers in India. Precious little are being done since while we keep our fingers crossed that the count of tigers surpasses all expectations and crosses the official figure of 1411 till now.