We, I and Kakoli (my friend and wife), were in Bandhavgarh National Forest. The day was 23rd of December 2006. The time must have been around 3.30 PM. The situation was promising and that is why the decision to stay put.
There are two National Forests in Madhya Pradesh that we have visited so far – Kanha and Bandhavgarh. We keep going to Kanha every so often – so much so that the Joke among our friends is, “Hey, it must have been more than two months since you have been to Kanha – the tigers there must be missing you by now!” It is nearer to Nagpur and, actually speaking, we are in love with that jungle. Bandhavgarh is farther up north and one only reaches here by late evening having started from Nagpur early in the morning. Both jungles are mainly Bamboo and Sal (Shorea robusta) but Kanha has more Bamboo thickets. If one leaves these two trees out, Bandhavgarh has a more mixed forest than Kanha. Bandhavgarh is very hilly and Kanha less so. But Kanha has more diversity of animals. There is never a dull moment there – some animal or bird always vying for your attention while you are in the jeep driving the rough, dusty lanes. The guides in Kanha are just wonderful and those in Bandhavgarh are just another occupant of the jeep (there are exceptions). But if you want to see the tigers, you must come to Bandhavgarh. You see the Kings in Kanha too. But the tiger density is much higher in Bandhavgarh and chances of spotting the Royalty that much more.
We had taken a trip in the morning too. While passing through a remote area of the forest, we had come across a kill. We thought it was a wild buffalo. But our guide told us it was a domestic one which must have been let in by the villagers to graze in the richer pastures of the protected jungle. The guide further added that it must be a kill of a tigress that lived in this particular area and that it had two cubs. The allotted time in the forest was getting over so we had to retrace our steps back in order to get to the gate in time.
When we went in again for the evening trip, we requested the driver to move towards the kill. The kill was still at the same place and had not been disturbed at all – not even by the tigress. The oddest thing was that the kill was out there in the open just a meter or so away from the dirt road on which our jeep was standing. There was no tree or bush nearby and nothing was done to conceal the kill at all. This is not what the tigers do with their kill. They drag it away from any region where it is likely to be disturbed. They conceal it well so that it is not visible from the air to the eagles and vultures which will otherwise devour it when the tiger is away. It must ideally be also concealed from other land-dwelling predators who don’t mind stealing someone else’s kill. But this kill was lying out in the open inviting any and all sundry predators that chanced to spot it. And there was ample proof that other predators had indeed spotted it. But still it was a kill of a tigress alright. There were the telltale marks – the neck had been twisted, the tooth marks were too at the neck; the tail had been ripped off (tigers begin eating after removing the tail).
On both sides of the road was clear meadow (see diagram). There were not many trees. The meadow on both sides of the road extended along the road for almost 300 meters. At both ends of this 300 meter clear stretch was dense jungle. The kill was about 100 meters from one end of this stretch and 200 meters from the other. We were standing right besides the kill, our jeep pointing in the direction where the jungle stood 200 meters away. The nearest tree on our right in the meadow was something like 20 meters away from the road. And on this tree were perching something like 70-80 vultures. The tree on our left was slightly farther off. On this tree too there were vultures but much less in number than the tree on the right. Obviously, they were waiting to swoop down for a party.
The air was still. Not a leaf moved. But the whole environment was expectant. And ours was the only jeep there.
It was at this juncture I told the driver to stop and that our trip had ended for the day. For the rest of the allowed time inside the national park (till sunset) we had decided to stay put there and take a chance that the tigress will come to its kill. The calculations in my mind were simple. What if the tigress decided to stay off till sunset? That would have been normal, you see. We still would not be losers. There were vultures atop the two trees waiting patiently. They were sure to come down from their high perches to gorge themselves. In that case there would be a fight between their ranks for the juicy morsels and that would be every bit worth watching – well not as much as watching a tigress coming to the kill but almost as much. We had seen such a fight between vultures in Kanha sometime back.
One of the funkiest things in Kanha is the canteen that is situated right in the heart of the Jungle! When we had first come to Kanha and came face to face with this stark human intrusion into the otherwise natural environs, we thought the very idea despicable. At 9 AM in the morning there is such a hustle bustle here – a large throng of tourists enjoying hot alu-pakoras or bread-pakoras with hot tea to go along and jet black crows swooping down on the dustbins in search of leftovers. But I must admit that in the freezing winters of Kanha, these hot snacks are more than welcome. With time we have come to think that this does not disturb the general ambience of the jungle at all. You move away from this place and 100 meters down the road neither can you see the place nor hear the people (at least the sound is not audible to human ears).
One summer morning we were just moving away from this canteen. The time must have been around 10 AM. We took a turn and there was a large clearing in the jungle to our left. In this clearing was a large piece of meat which we could not make out clearly what it was from the distance. There were already around 15 vultures fighting to get a piece from that chunk. And more vultures were arriving from all directions. All three species of the vultures commonly found in Kanha – the white-backed vulture, the long-billed vulture and the rare King vulture were present here. The ranks went on swelling and very soon a fight broke out. These monstrous birds fight with their beaks, with their talons and with their wings. What is breathtaking is their fight with each other with their wings half extended. We watched this a long time till our backs burned from the summer sun. Very late, when we couldn’t stand the heat, did we move off. The fight continued even as we left. This is the fight that we hoped would soon ensue where we were standing in Bandhavgarh and would be our reward even if the tigress failed to make an appearance.
Nothing, nothing at all, happened for the next fifteen minutes. The vultures kept sitting where they were. No new bird or animal arrived on the scene. There was no breeze and not even a blade of grass moved. And then another jeep bearing around 5-6 tourists arrived. Our hearts sank.
It is a religion in National Parks that if a jeep is observed to be stationary at a place for longer than a few minutes, the other jeeps in the vicinity too converge there to investigate – may be a tiger has been spotted. It is impossible therefore to be alone at a place for more than a few moments. And the moment there is a crowd, the shy animal(s) make themselves scarce. So, the moment this jeep arrived, our hearts sank because we knew that several more will gather around now. The occupants were a bit noisy. “Yahan kya hai? What’s there at this place?” The guide showed them the kill and told them it must have been a tigress that killed the buffalo. The fellows decided to wait it out like us. Soon another jeep arrived and then yet another and yet another. In a matter of next five minutes around 20-25 jeeps assembled on the road on either side of the kill. There then ensued a rivalry between drivers and guides and each jeep started making maneuvers trying to secure the best spot to view the tigress on the kill whenever the tigress arrived. Dust flew from the tires and there was a haze in the evening sun. More than that, there was noise from people and from the jeeps. We thought the chance gone – the tigress would never arrive in such a situation.
Our guide said otherwise. “None of these jeeps is going to stay here more then the next 5-10 minutes. Sir! They don’t have any patience. Just don’t worry. They will go away and there is ample time still remaining. At the most there will be just two jeeps left after some time. That is alright.”
Whether we believed him or not, we had no choice. We stayed put. Then one of the jeeps started and left. Another minute and another jeep went. Gradually, the road cleared. Soon ours was the only jeep that remained. Good. Human nature. Everyone wants to see a tiger. But to achieve something one must be constantly active. To sit still in order to achieve something is a gift that we have forgotten.
At 4 PM (we think) a crow arrived on the scene. It flew over the kill, went past it, turned back, went over the kill again and then alighted on the nearest tree on our left. From there it watched the kill for a few minutes and then swooped down on it. Just as it was to settle down on the kill it seemed to change its mind and flew over it and went to the tree on our right. The black bird alighted at a small vacancy between two white-backed vultures.
“Why are the vultures not coming to the kill?” I asked the guide. It was more a loud musing than a question.
“Probably the tigress is hiding nearby,” the guide offered.
“From their position on the tree, the vultures may be able to see the tigress while we are oblivious of its presence.” That was Kakoli coming up with a possibility. The guide nodded his head.
The crow dived down again and this time sat on the shoulders of the kill. It craned its neck in either direction and then sank its beak into the kill where there was a tiny tear in the flesh. It kept picking up tiny bits of flesh from the kill and gulping them down. A few minutes of this and it flew away. A curious thing happened now. Size is respected in the jungles. So you would expect that the crow is duly afraid of the vultures. This crow flew to the tree on the right, alighted on a branch and shoved a wing at the nearby vulture which duly moved slightly away giving berth to the smaller bird. The crow now shoved the other wing at the vultures sitting on the other side and this one too yielded space! We had never thought this possible. Perhaps the vulture respected the bird which had showed the courage to appropriate a bit of the kill belonging to the king of the jungle!
The crow now flew away to the tree farther away on our right. When it came back, it had a companion with it. Both crows settled on the kill and both began eating. Even while this went on a King vulture made an appearance on our left. It flew low over the kill and went away. Like the crow, it returned again and perched on the tree to our left. A king vulture, in spite of its name, is actually much smaller than the other vultures. But it looks every bit a king. It has a red beak in an otherwise black head. The wings too are black but the underside can be white. This contrast of dark colors gives it some character which the other vultures just don’t possess even though they are bigger.
The crows flew away after having filled their gizzards with as much as they could. The King vulture flew again only to alight on the other tree. It kept repeating the same flight path, kept reconnoitering, but did not seem to have the pluck to come to the kill.
It was getting late now. It must have been almost 5 in the evening. At 5.30 we would have to make a move because one had to be at the gate before 6 and this part of the jungle was on the other side of the gate (we did not know then that there was another gate from which we could move out and that gate was quite near; this gate is called the Lohadi gate and eventually this was the gate that we got out from). Neither had the tigress come nor had we seen the vultures fighting over the kill.
And then the King vulture lunged down at the kill. It sat there exactly where the crow had sat and began tearing the flesh. A moment or so later, the vultures on the tree to our right stirred. One of them flew and dived down on the kill. Then the second, then the third and in no time, the entire kill was invisible. All over it, the wings flapped and then began a fight that we will not forget in a hurry. It was every bit the same as the one we had observed in Kanha but this one we were observing from a ringside seat. It is almost as if we could feel the air stirred by their angry wings on our cheeks.
A sambhar deer gave an alarm call from the dense jungle to our right on the far side. There is a resonant quality to this sound and goes something like dhank! You can hear it even from a kilometer or so away. We knew that the tigress had made a move. A second alarm call came. The very air was now charged. Our limbs went dead, eyes peeled to the place from where the alarm calls were coming. And out came a jeep from that side. Shit! Now the tigress will take longer in coming if at all it did.
“Dushyant Kumar,” said the guide.
“What?” I asked irritated.
“Dushyant Kumar. He is a naturalist. I had told you that only one more jeep will remain here with us. Well this is the jeep I was talking about. He was not to let go of such a chance. He has patience like you people and he knows and takes his chances.”
The jeep stopped alongside with us.
“The tigress is coming along that side… we just saw it fleetingly.” Dushyant Kumar said.
“We heard the alarm call,” I said curtly.
“Why don’t we move back slightly? That would be better. Otherwise the tigress may not break cover,” This was the naturalist’s suggestion and we found merit in it. We moved back about 50 meters.
The vultures were still at the kill, fighting over it, trying to tear it when one got hold of it momentarily before it was displaced by another from the ranks. The sambhar gave vent to its fear again – dhank! Then two, three alarm calls came in succession, each more accentuated in their urgency. From the corner of our eyes we detected movement at our far right just out of the jungle on that side and about 50 meters away from the road and 200 or so meters from the kill.
There are two things about the tiger that have always surprised us no matter how many times we have seen them now at close quarters. You would think that with the black stripes on the dark yellow coat that this majestic animal wears it would be visible rather easily. Not so. In fact these very colors make it so beautifully camouflaged in the dry yellow and bark black of the jungle that it is hardly visible until it makes a movement. And then too it takes a trained eye to spot it. Secondly, if you miss seeing it at first, the next instant you see it out in the open as if materialized from the soil beneath it and it would dart away as suddenly too. It would seem not real then but an apparition. This is even more so with leopards. That is the reason why so many more people actually get to see the tiger than get to see the leopard. Because these animals are so well camouflaged, your guides tell you that for every one tiger that you see in the jungle, 10 have seen you!
The tigress was moving towards the kill. It probably could not bear to see the vultures degrading its kill. It broke cover now and made a sudden rush towards the kill and we were grateful that we had moved slightly away. And then while running it jumped and then again and once again! In three great jumps it arrived ON the kill. All through while running and during the three jumps the tail was raised and taut. And it was angry. The moment it arrived on the kill there was a rush among the vultures to get away. These tertiary predators ran, there was a veritable stampede and then they rose into the air – all of them almost all at once. The tigress stood on the kill and looked angrily all around. Its tail was still up. It looked at us, looked down at the kill, looked at the vultures which were now flying higher, looked at us, looked at the kill. It was a remonstration as well as an assertion that the kill was rightfully hers. Its gaze now fixed upon us.
“Why don’t we move a little forward?” I murmured.
“It is angry sahib. You don’t know what it will do if you make a move.”
“Nevertheless, why don’t we, just an inch may be then another,” It could have been highly foolish of me to think that way at that moment. But I wanted to see an angry tigress from as close a quarter as could be.
The tigress was still staring at us and its tail was still up. It had not as much as touched the kill so far. Probably it was in no mood to eat – it had only come to claim it back from the vultures. And with the vultures gone, it now probably wanted us gone too.
“Let’s move ahead slowly,” this from Dushyant Kumar, the naturalist. And with this, his jeep moved and so did ours.
We watched the tigress with a mixture of awe, and fearful expectation as to what it would do now. Would it charge? They rarely charge at humans but such things are not unheard of either.
We inched ahead. As we moved, a look of hesitation crossed the tigress' face. It looked down at the kill and then looked at us; then again down at the kill and then at us. We kept moving. As we came almost abreast of it and when our hearts thudded in our breasts, the tigress moved – away from us and the kill. A sigh escaped my mouth. The tigress retraced its steps and went back from where it had come. We kept on moving slowly and watched it till it disappeared into the overgrowth.
We kept on moving, crossed the entire meadow, and as we came to that part of the road passing between the dense jungle, to our right we saw the sambhar which had given the alarm call. It was standing between two dense bushes, its body taut with tension, its eyes fixed in the direction in which the tigress had gone, its rather short tail turned completely up and showing the white underneath it. Then it gave another alarm call. We kept on moving because we had to be at the gate before sunset. But this was another treat for us – we had heard the alarm call several times but had never seen a sambhar actually engaged in calling.
(It’s a pity that we did not have a camera with us. But we never take one. We have so far believed that it is best to capture the scenes on the magnetic tape of our minds. But since this scene, we have decided to buy one just so that others can watch what we have.)
4 comments:
Well Papa,
Its awfully riveting n intriguing!!!
All i can say is...this sure is "A view to a kill"!!
Excellent. While reading felt like I was a part of the incident.
Absolutely breathtaking description.....i had been to Kanha with our friends once but we were not lucky enough to spot him from farthest distance our eye can see. But how beautifully u ve described yr experience, i felt if i was at the same jeep with u. Now no regrets :)
Post a Comment