KANHA: SUMMER VS. WINTER

Most of the time we have visited the jungles, we have done so in the winters. We love winters. But then that has not been the only reason for our winter trips. The reason is more practical – I have Christmas holidays during that time, my children too had their winter holidays coinciding with Christmas holidays while they were in School and Kakoli can take leave. The jungle winters are harsher than the city winters, especially when the city in question is Nagpur. But we have come to love even these winters however harsh they may be.

One of my friends always goes to the jungle in summers. The reasons are simple. First, winters are too much for him. Secondly, everyone will tell you that you spot the animals, including the tiger, more easily during summer. There is a paucity of water and so the animals have to move and that is why you spot them easily and in more numbers. For us these reasons have no meaning because we love winters and have been exceptionally lucky to have witnessed scenes that more seasoned tourists have not seen.

Therefore, when this friend of mine persuaded me to go with him to the Kanha National Park in the summer, I was quite excited. First and foremost, I wanted to see how the jungle looks in the summer. Secondly, I was not going out with my wife. And changing the partner is always exciting even if it be of the same sex (do not get dirty ideas in your mind now).

The things were different right from the word go.

First things first. This was mid-May. The month that you associate with heat that singes you and even the morning sun spews fire. When we entered the forest early in the morning, it was cool. So cool in fact that you could have worn a light sweater.

The jungle was not dry. Kanha is a mixed jungle predominantly of Sal and Bamboo. None of these dry off in the summer. There were a few trees that were dry but that was all. The rest of it was green. But the green was not van Gogh green – it was a shade much lighter, as if a very little yellow had been mixed in it by the artist. There was the dark yellow of the Amaltas in full bloom that you do not see in the winters. The grass looked like the hair of an ultramodern girl – blond edges to the brunette mass. The air was lighter and dryer and went easily down your trachea. The winter smell was completely gone and a smell that sat lightly in your lungs had replaced that. The dust of the road was loose and flew behind us more lightly and farther hazing out the scene behind us.

But the surprise was the festival of sounds. The winter jungle is quiet. If there are sounds, they are mostly of the jeeps moving around, or the human sounds of the excited tourists or of the birds that are happy all year round. But even from where we were staying, I could here loud, piercing sounds right early in the morning. Since I had never heard these sounds before, I was at a loss for what they were. The guide had been with me countless times in earlier trips and so thought that I was quite knowledgeable. He kept his own counsel. I had to ask him and then he seemed to understand that this was the first time I had been out in the summer. These were the rutting calls, he informed me. Rutting calls of the deer stags. Rutting calls of Barasingha. These were different from each other and within minutes I could tell the difference. Right from the morning, these animals were busy announcing to their females that their current hormone levels were quite high. That they were in the mood. This was the biggest contrast from the winter jungle.

This particular summer, there were hordes of Bison to be seen almost everywhere. The guide told me that this is not a summer phenomenon. It is just this summer that you are seeing so many near the roads. But we were exceptionally lucky. The barking deer, which so shy and elusive in the normal circumstances, had decided that they wanted us to see them. We saw so many and at such close quarters that all the books and all the descriptions of their shyness in them appeared to be a pack of lies.

The summer eventually becomes evident. In winters you can roam about in the open jeep even in the afternoons. By 10 Am, however, we felt that the heat was enough for us to start back towards the gate.

Back at the resort, it was still cool in the shade of the large Halda tree in front of the canteen where we ordered a beer each and sat sipping and enjoying the view. This done, we thought, we should wash and then come back for lunch.

The resort has half the rooms air-conditioned and the other half air-cooled. In these other rooms, noisy desert coolers are fitted outside one of the windows. Their bottom tray is always kept full of water. As we walked back, we saw a langur going towards the rooms. When we turned the corner we saw something that you do not see in the winter. The langur was sitting on the edge of the bottom tray and was drinking water from it.

It is definitely true that they are our ancestors. Like us, these langurs find out perfectly relevant but unmeant uses for things that have been designed for a completely different purpose.