Travel
with irony, for the British, during
the Raj, discovered teak in Nagarhole
and declared it government
protected land. This would seem
admirable, but it was only legalised
larceny, as the Brits then vandalised
the forest for lucrative teak.
I’m intrigued by what look like
mammoth mushrooms. They are
traditional thatch coracle boats,
sunbathing with their bottoms up.
When I’m invited on a mid-morning
coracle boat ride, I wonder how
these little circular “boats” will
accommodate three people: spunky
naturalist Shanmugam, the boatman
and me. Then we spot 30 villagers
packed onto a furiously paddled
coracle. An English tourist quips:
“Hope they aren’t immigrants...”
Sanjeeve, who specialises in
amphibians, shows me the bullfrog
pond with its sole survivor, an
enormous female who could mate
with five males, but sadly is
consigned to celibacy, as all her
lovers have been consumed by
snakes. So she pines alone in a
palatial pond whose vegetation
is violated by pestiferous snails,
migrated all the way from Europe.
I suggest the resort invites French
tourists to eat the snails and
Chinese tourists to eat the snakes,
although they might both finish off
the last surviving frog.
The afternoon boat safari ventures
into waters flowing between two
tiger reserves, Nagarhole and
Bandipur. Lush green landscapes
embroider the river’s hems, as fish
tack in and out of the water like
large silver needles. Birds with
slender necks and dainty feet pose
on stumps and stones. A pink-tailed
stalk, with its flush of pink feathers,
stands supremely elegant as a string
of birds takes off, beheld by nesting
cormorants on the stark trunks of
submerged trees.
Suddenly, our guide Narendra spots
elephants drinking at the water’s
edge. I think: “How fantastic it
would be if a tiger came out to
drink.” But this seems a tad greedy;
the secretive cat just wouldn’t.
Next, Narendra exclaims, “Tiger!”
Indeed. The striped creature in
all its majesty makes a dramatic
appearance as spotted deer elongate
in flight, looking like a flight of
arrows. The gold and black stripes
weave in and out of the woods and
then shimmer away.
If at dawn the sun seemed a gold
coin tossed out of misty gauze, then
the setting sun like molten gold
thickly daubs the skies. On the
horizon, as twilight approaches,
ancient trees seem stacked like
books covered in a dazed dust of
a thousand years.
Next day, on an afternoon vehicle
safari, we penetrate deep into tiger
territory. This wildlife circuit in the
Nilgiris Biosphere, amongst the few
knots of forests left in India, once
so expansively jungled, boasts the
largest Asiatic elephant population
(troops of 200 elephants together
aren’t unusual) and Asia’s highest
density of prey. Here’s where tigers,
leopards and wild dogs co-exist.
Burrowing into the forest, where
bright yellow flowers fall from trees
like golden ringlets and oriels flash
up like sprays of gold, we observe,
in addition to the natural strew of
trees, neatly packed files of teak
the British cultivated to fell. Our
naturalist Somashekar points us to
a peacock and announces, “We’ve
started our safari with the national
bird of India. Hopefully we shall end
with the national animal.”
We see samba dear poised regally;
monkeys misbehave and elephants
threaten to. The tiger eludes. They
were once so rampant in this jungle
that maharajas would sit around
shooting tigers from their lodge
verandas. Our safari is failing. Then,
just before the park’s stringentlyregulated closing time, we hear an
alarm call. Our guides with great
guile, track, uncover the tiger. Unlike
in South Africa where animals are “on
display,” here you experience
the romance and thrill of the safari,
which is the art of tracking animals.
The light fades, the tiger darkens. We
mightn’t have seen the rare “black
leopard” spotted in these parts, but
we’ve seen a “black” tiger! The
moment is sublime. Then, the little
children that the resort has
strenuously attempted to discourage
on safari begin to howl-bawl-bellow
and terrify the animals. Someone
says: “The only excuse for permitting
children on safari is to throw them to
the tigers.” But park rules strictly
say: “Don’t feed the animals!”
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