The Hindu Business Line : The forest never ceases to fascinate

One rode some of the worst roads to reach Kanha and Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserves with the Gypsy sinking into holes to disappear temporarily. Only the besur (tuneless) singing of old Hindi film songs by my good friend Nishibhau, who was at the wheels over the worst patches, helped us live the misery.

One smiled at the strongly built speed breakers slowing the pace further when the roads in Madhya Pradesh make vehicle movement generally difficult. A curious feature of Kanha and Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserves is that the roads are smooth and black topped for some 34 km leading to the two forests. Maybe the idea is to get the tourists into a good mood over the last stretch after the bumping and blowing.

We touched Kanha and Bandhavgarh past cold midnights to wake up sleeping watchmen for the keys to our rooms. And the watchmen at the two tiger sanctuaries were nice enough to get up from their warm beds to help us. One has always found the common people in Madhya Pradesh polite and decent, trying to make one comfortable.

On an evening, we set out from Bandhavgarh and halted at a petrol pump on the Jabalpur Highway, when the owner told us not to take the road as our Gypsy would surely break down. He advised us to go to Jabalpur via Katni and that helped us reach Jabalpur by about 11 in the night. One has not been able to grasp the logic of laying new highways across the country while refusing to repair the existing pathways. If the present road links could be improved and freshly cemented, there may not be any urgent need for quadrilaterals. But then bureaucrats and politicians have to satisfy contractors.

At Kanha, one has to queue up at the gates opening into the forests by about 5.30 p.m. There is bedlam at the lone counter near the gate with one official accepting the prescribed forms, payments and assigning a guide to every vehicle. Till about 6 a.m. everyone is shouting at each other before the guides climb into the queued up vehicles and the gates open to the sanctuary. They say the confusion peaks during the peak seasons such as Christmas, New Year and Holi, when getting a hotel accommodation and a Gypsy is more uncertain than a throw of dice. "Please do not come during the peak months," advised one guide. This despite, the large number of hotels built anyway outside the two reserves.

Many come and go without entering the forests. Yet, the irritants wear off and one is in a cheerful mood travelling into the forests early in the morning. The forest is packed in a cellophane of thick dew for one to pocket and take away. The dew rests on the tall sal trees and the elephant grass till the sun comes out and wipes the forest clean with sunlight. The early moments in the morning and the last seconds in the evening are quiet and get passed on to the tourists.

We were four of us — Kishor, Nishibhau, Giri and myself. Kishor and Nishibhau have had finer memories having been to sanctuaries for years. "Yet, every time, the forest is as new and fresh as on the first visit. Every time one notes a new facet of forest life and no number of visits is enough," remarked Nishibhau, who has been selected by Sanctuary for the Green Teacher Award along with Ladda sahib, a teacher in Amravati.

On the Digdola route falls the enticing Sounf meadow, where roams the barasingha. This deer is limited to India and there are two races: the swamp dwelling duvauceli of the Terai, Uttar Pradesh, Assam and the Sunderbans distinguished by its splayed hooves and larger skull, going by The Book of Indian Animals of S.H. Prater. The branderi is found in the hard open ground of Madhya Pradesh with smaller well-knit hooves.

From a distance, one watched a female barasingha with a kid moving away from the meadow, while hidden deep in the tall grass was a male with its curved antlers giving it away. In Madhya Pradesh, the barasinghas, "live in grassy maidans in the proximity of the forest where they appear to be less dependent on water than spotted deer," writes Prater. Perhaps, the defining feature of Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve is the Bandhavgarh Fort on top of the Bandhavgarh hill.

In the afternoon, when we were waiting at the gate to enter the forest, a guard requested us to give a lift to 60-year-old Mishra, a temple priest. The local populace offered their pranams as Mishra climbed into our Gypsy. A white dhoti, a white jibba and a white head made Mishra who told us of the Lord Rama temple on top of the Fort and where he lived with three young helpers. "Tigers and leopards come near the temple and spend days over kills but they have never attacked me or my helpers. Siyaramji hai na (Sitaram is there)," he told us.

On Janmashtami, the forest department allows the local population to visit the temple on foot. It's a steep climb through dense forests over about two hours and Mishraji takes the route regularly with only a thick, wooden stick for company. We dropped him at a spot in the forest from where he would make it to the top by late evening. He blessed us and was sure we would sight tigers. That did not happen though we saw two tigers in the morning. At Jabalpur, we spent a night at the 200-year-old home of Navneet Maheshwari and took the road to Nagpur in the morning past water bodies with deep red and white lotus.

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