Kanha, paradise

(click on photo for larger view)

I made a whistle-stop trip to Kanha Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh last week, flying out from Kolkata to Raipur in Chhattisgarh on Wednesday the 29th and returning on Saturday evening. It was well worth all the money and all the physical strain 😊

The last time I had visited was with my boys from the school, back in December 1991, a few months after returning from America. That, done in youth on a shoestring budget, remains a very rich and happy memory (I hope reading this post will ring a bell with some of the boys who went with us if they are reading this – they are almost fifty now!); this, done in much more luxurious style, will remain another treasured experience lifelong.

My companions this time round were only three (I think the ’91 team was 42 strong): my very good friend-cum-mentor Saibal, his wonderful wife Kulbeer, and young Abhishek, who is on the way to becoming my fellow traveller of choice on future jungle safaris.

The road trip to Kanha Jungle Resort, in Bamhni village, tehsil Baihar, district Balaghat, a couple of kilometers from the Mukki Gate which leads into the forest, took four hours and a half, so we arrived a little before 9. The resort was a delight, very leafy, with plush cottages adorned with hurricane lanterns hung from hooks out on the porches, and auto-dimming lights all around the garden. Even a swimming pool, though it was too early in the year for that. The staff was smart, efficient, and very, very polite. Saibal, being an old Kanha hand, was on friendly terms with everyone, from the proprietor to the drivers and guards and waiters, so we had special treatment all through. A couple of nightcaps before we turned in, knowing that it was going to be a very long day ahead.

On Thursday we woke up at 4:40 a.m., and were in the forest department Gypsy by 5:30. The Mukki Gate opens at 6 sharp, and a long procession of vehicles, each provided with an enthusiastic guide (many of them young and earnest women), trooped into the forest before diverging along different trails. We made four trips in all – one on Thursday morning (five hours and a half), another that afternoon (three hours and a half), and the same again on Friday. It was gruelling, trundling along on rutted kuchcha roads through clouds of dust, but the scenery was breathtaking – everything from vast sal groves and limpid lakes, man-high anthills, long stretches of grassy meadow and trees curling up other trees in out of the world shapes to peacock, langurs and monkeys, jackal and mongoose and cormorant and lapwing and crested eagle, Indian bison (gaur), spotted deer, barking deer, sambar, barasingha, leopard, bear, and, hold your breath: tigers every time we went in, ambling so close by you could reach out and touch their flanks, utterly indifferent to human presence, lords of all they survey. Only real wildlife crazies will know how fortunate that was: we met people, including professional photographers, who had been on the ‘hunt’ for whole days at a stretch without a single sighting. The only major species we missed was the wild hunting dog (dhole). Though it was chilly and foggy at daybreak, it quickly grew hot, the maximum rising to 32 degrees and minimum never going below 12 – most unfortunate, since traditionally it is supposed to be icy cold at this time of the year…

I cried off the third trip, firstly because, being the only senior citizen in the group, I couldn’t miss my beauty sleep four days in succession, and secondly because I needed some quiet, still time to myself for all-round enjoyment of everything that was on offer. So I awoke late, had a very leisurely breakfast, then spent several hours sunbathing outside my cottage, feet up on the wicker table, listening to birdsong and the wind whispering among the trees, watching butterflies, sometimes listening to music and sometimes meditating. It was as close to heaven as one can hope to reach on earth. I must not forget to mention that, to top off everything, every meal was absolutely delicious, leaving me struggling not to overeat.

Setting off on the road back at about ten on Saturday morning, I was back in Durgapur just about twelve hours later, Firoz having picked me up at Kolkata airport as he had dropped me off before. I slept like a log.

Kanha well deserves its reputation as one of the best maintained wildlife reserves in India. There are 100 odd tigers on the prowl right now. I bought a book, Shaping Kanha, which details all the loving and painstaking effort that has gone into it over many successive decades – and, strange to say about government officers (in this case foresters), they sound truly committed and passionate about their work. I also learnt about various NGOs which are giving yeoman service to the cause, including the one which had trained one of our guides; find them at natureguides.in if you have time on your hands and truly want to engage with something fulfilling, something that can change your life. I wish I were not too old for that sort of thing.

Bibhuti Bhushan wrote in Aranyak (I am translating as I quote from memory): ‘A day is coming when this earth will have been laid bare of all flora and fauna. May this forest survive for the material and spiritual sustenance of the unfortunate generations who live in such times’. These words kept haunting me as I travelled, every mile of the way, as well as that ominous prediction by some old Red Indian chief, ‘only when the last tree has died, the last fish has been caught, and the last river poisoned will we realize that we cannot eat money’. Thank God some people have paid heed, and I pray most earnestly that many more of our young will. In sharp contrast, here is a lament from the book I mentioned above: ‘In spite of living in the internet age, with so much progress (sic) in education, specially in urban areas, the state of awareness about nature and wildlife conservation is abysmally low in the young generation. The importance and role of wildlife and protected areas are hardly understood, let alone appreciated’. Will things change for the better before it is too late?

For some more photos, click here. All the best photos were taken by Abhishek.