KANHA

`Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, In the darkness of the night.' These words come to mind after I finished reading a most interesting book- `Potrtait of an Indian National Park - Kanha Tiger Reserve,' by Carroll Moulton and Ernie Husley. To me it's been an eye opener, mainly because it revealed many facts about this majestic and graceful animal, that I was blissfully unaware of.

Kanha evokes many fine memories, most notable being the sightseeing of six tigers and one panther all in the space of eight hours. Ten parks and a decade later I have still to spot the seventh, though I have seen pugmarks, spotted tiger kill, and heard tigers roaring in estrus. One chilly morning in mid February when the mist had barely cleared and the rays of the sun had just about managed to penetrate the thick forest foliage, we had our first encounter. We had barely entered the jungle when all of a sudden we saw the king of all cats, majestically cross the unpaved road.

 

It stopped. And posed inquiringly. We stood stock still and tried to recover our balance. No one had mentioned `you will see one withing minutes.' Normally it takes a lifetime, thanks to poaching and indiscriminate felling of the forest cover. There she stood, posing in the morning light a mixture of gold and black, with piercing eyes and an erect tail, for a full minute before retracing her steps into the maze of the forest. The next sightings were equally memorable. We spotted a mother and her two cubs in a meadow carpeted with golden grass. Brilliantly camouflauged and perfectly hidden from both the tourist as well as prey, they lay in wait.

 

One of the passengers on our vehicle was a village boy taking a ride in a jeep. He spotted the sudden moment in the grass and asked us to reverse. Moments later the threesome got up grudgingly and headed back. Can imagine the mother telling the cubs, 'Man when you see these creatures on two legs, avoid them like the plague, run for your life, for they feed on every pof our body, private parts included!' `What's the going rate, Mom?' the more inquisitive of the two inquired, hurrying to keep pace with the giant steps of the mother.

 

`It all depends, son, we normally produce about 10 kgs of bone. One kilogram would fetch about USD 3,000 in Taiwan and China. The poachers consider the upper bone of the front legs most valuable.' Then there is the skin, eyes, whiskers, claws and genitals to be considered as well. Traditional Chinese Medicine uses these parts mainly for arthritis and rheumatism, besides being used as an aphrodasiac as well. At times you can find yourself in store shelves of the biggescities in the world, Toronto, San Francisco, New York and Chicago. All in all you are worth about 50,000 bucks. And there are just about 2000 left. It sucks, you know.'

 

We patted the village back on his boy and gave him a big hug, before resuming our ride once again, this time up a steep hill, where we encountered the Great Indian Bison - a huge bull that gets immediately nervous if provoked and will charge. We moved further, and urged our driver to stop when we heard the cough-like alarm calls of the langur, followed by a sambar bell. When a langur calls, there is no doubt a wild animal is at hand. Probably two of the best `chums' in the animal kingdom are the langur and deer. The langur warns all animals of impending danger and the langur forages on all droppings of fruit and seeds from the trees.

 

The jungle was silent, we spotted the sambhar tapping her left foot on the ground repeatedly, a gesture that signifies both danger and nrvousness. The flurry of calls went on unabated, until moments later the panther leapt out from its cover, and strode puposefully into the interiors. The last two sightings were not of our own, instead they were spotted by a group of guides who try to trace tigers on elephant back. After they have been sighted tourists are taken on elephant back and allowed to spend a few moments in the company of the great feline. Its a daily ritual at Kanha, one which is being done with amazing success.

We left the precinits of the forest in a ramshackle bus, our appetites fully satiated by this inexplicable `find.' The book by Moulton and Hulsey only a few weeks ago at a bookshop in downtown Mumbai has been one more of my great finds. Am currently more than 10,000 miles away from Kanha, yet when I turn the pages of this paperback am immediately transported;rucksack, binoculars and camera - back to Kanha!!