OUR FIRST TRIP TO BANDHAVGARH: I

Reaching There

The first time we visited Bandhavgarh was in 1997. Kakoli, the two kids (Maitreyi is my daughters name; she was 10 and Udayan, my son, was barely 8 years of age) and I went to this National Park which is much farther off compared to Kanha. We did not even know the route properly and went to Bilaspur by train. From Bilaspur we wanted to take a taxi all the way to bandhavgrah. I did talk to a few taxi drivers but rejected their offers since Kakoli did not like the look of them. I have to admit that Kakoli overall is a better judge of human beings than yours truly. After talking to people at the railway station we decided to take a train to Shahdol. I do not like train travel and therefore was loathe doing it. Also, I love travel by a car and so was fretting and fuming about Kakoli’s decision. But this I did internally. There are two reasons for this. First of all I like to be taken as an accommodating husband (internally I may be just as good as any other husband!). Secondly, Kakoli does not take it kindly if you oppose her decision (call me henpecked!).

But the train ride proved to be good against all my assumptions. First of all it was a passenger train. These trains are to be hated because they pause for a long time at every small station. This one did too. But the terrain through which it progressed was so beautiful, you did not mind the slow progress at all and as time went on my nerves were calmed and I got lost in the beauty of the surroundings. Secondly, it brought an assortment of passengers from all stations. Many of these passengers wore very colorful dresses and they were lost in their own conversations which revealed their simplicity of thinking (I did eavesdrop). One rather interesting passenger boarded the train at a station.

Right from the beginning there was something odd about this passenger. I looked up at him and then again and then yet again and just could not understand just what was striking me as odd. The fellow was very fair and rather feminine by the texture of the skin and the cut of the face. But many males are effeminate. That couldn’t have struck me as odd. The guy had a bushy moustache. But that is not at all odd – I myself sport one. The guy took out a potli (a small cloth bag) and brought out a few eatables and started eating. Even the manner in which he ate was quite dainty, more like a female. For the life of me, I just could not guess what was gnawing at my mind about this person. About 5-6 stations later he disembarked. As the guy got up I noticed that he was wearing a rather gaudy red sari. HE WAS WEARING A RED SARI! It was not a he. It was a she and she had a bushy moustache. God! One male character and you are fooled enough to take the whole package as male – the power of the moustache.

We reached Shahdol at around 3 PM. It was quite difficult to get a taxi from there to Bandhavgarh. In fact nobody knew of Bandhavgarh! Gradually we found out that the name of the village is Tala and people know about Tala but not Bandhavgarh. We got a taxi after about an hour. The road was bad. The travel jarring. Eventually it was about 9 PM that we reached the MPTC resort. It was winter and it was freezing. The manager at the counter was gulping down a highball and there were quite a few people in front of the desk. We talked to the guy, showed him our reservation papers and were taken to a cottage that was situated at the farthest point of the resort.

The resort was not what it is today. There has been fresh construction and several new rooms have been created. However, the serenity of the past is lost at the cost of accommodating more tourists. But back then, when we reached the cottage, it was quite isolated. We bathed, and almost immediately dressed to go for dinner. The way to the restaurant was quiet and dark with dim lamps at the ground level to show you where you walked and to bring to light any serpent or other creatures. My children huddled together. My daughter does not like cold and she complained a bit. The son is the other way round; he loves winters and the harsher they are, the better. I and Kakoli are more or less like him.

The dinner was not so good. Although I must admit that if you give me a drink or two, the pain of bad dinner is not felt so much. There was one saving grace though. The waiter realized that we had not liked the food. He came over asking what was it that spoiled the experience is. My son and daughter enthusiastically explained to him how they want the things. From the next day, the things improved considerably.

After the dinner we got out into the open. The sky was dark but laden with sparkling stars. The air had the fresh quality that is there in winters and especially so in the jungles. We took a short walk till we came to a wicket gate. There were instructions there that one should not venture beyond this gate. We normally abide by the rules. In this one instance though we broke the rule and walked through that gate. We knew that it could be dangerous. Also, come to think of it, it was downright foolhardy to do that. But we did for god knows what reason. We walked for about 200 meters before we thought we should retrace our way. The jungle was getting too dense and we could not see our way beyond. So we retraced our steps back.

Just how foolhardy our action was became clear the next day. Talking to workers in the resort over lunch, we were told,

“Sahib, do not go beyond that gate. Previously, just a year back, there was no boundary enclosing this resort. But leopards and some herbivores used to come over right up to the cottages. So we enclosed this in barbed wire fencing. The gate is a part of the fence. A few months back, a leopard got caught in the barbed wires just besides the gate. Some employees come through that gate – that is why the gate is there. These employees report seeing leopards quite frequently in the area near the gate.”