“Are you out of your mind? It’ll be burning hot in Rajasthan at this
time of the year”. And then as a
grudging after thought – “But it’ll be a good time for spotting wildlife, because
there’ll be little water and they will all come to whatever few waterholes
there are”. This was the usual response
when I mentioned to anyone that I was going to Ranthambhore from June 21-25,
2012. As it turned out – yes, it was
sweltering hot; yes, it took me 2 safaris to get acclimatized to the heat and
the wild rides in the Gypsy; yes, my ribs and backside were sore from being hit
against the metal frame of the Gypsy; yes, my tummy was a little unhappy with
the anything goes kind of food I put
into it; and yes, I was sleep deprived.
But ……. It was a great trip in every way I could think of.
We were three of us, all considered mad by
general standards. We were there for 3
days, from a Thursday late morning to a Sunday late afternoon. We went on the maximum possible number of
jeep safaris in that time, which was 6 – 1 each dawn and dusk. We had great sightings of birds which I never
even knew existed – their colours stood out in their richness against the stark
branches of the dhonk trees, even as the deer (sambhars, chitals so numerous,
we both became blasé at the sight of each other) blended right into the jungle. And in 6 outings, we had 4 sightings of
tigers …. Each sighting better than the last!
We reached Sawai Madhopur on Thursday
morning, around 10:30 am, and by around 11:00 we were at the hotel and enjoying
the cool of the AC rooms. We cleaned up
and somehow managed to stay awake till lunch, and then happily gave in to the
temptation to nap, with alarms set for 3:00 pm.
The Gypsy was scheduled to come between 3:15 and 3:30 to take us for our
first safari. Padmini, Soonoo’s friend,
a practicing advocate at Sawai Madhopur and the daughter of Fateh Singh
Rathore, the Project Director who conceptualized and set up Ranthambhore as a
tiger sanctuary, was joining us for this first trip. We were lucky on this first trip, as the four
of us had the Gypsy to ourselves. We
were assigned Zone 2, but our maverick driver decided to make a quick round of
Zone 3 before heading to Zone 2.
Accordingly, we headed to the lake at Zone 3, with
me getting excited at the sight of sambhars so close to the Gypsy that we could
have almost touched them and spotted
deer (Chitals) crossing the road barely 15 feet ahead of our vehicle. Langurs
were everywhere, many with babies clinging to their tummies. Sometimes, we’d see the baby getting
adventurous and being either taught or disciplined by mama langur. There were 2 typical sitting styles of the
langur that really caught my fancy – one style was to sit on a flat surface
with the forearms resting on the knees in a pose that somehow invariably
reminded me of my paternal grandfather (not sure he’d have been flattered by
the resemblance). The second common pose
was where the langur would sit at the base of a tree, with all four paws touching
the tree trunk – not clutching the tree trunk, just in contact. In this pose, the hind legs would be slightly
raised off the ground and I was convinced that the langur was somehow tapping
into the energy vibes of the tree by sitting thus. I told Mehroo and Soonoo I wanted to try out
the pose myself and see if I felt anything, but was hampered by the fact that
all the really good trees (lovely, lovely banyans) were all in the jungle where
we couldn’t get down from the Gypsy.
On this first trip to the jungle, I was
introduced to the Treepai and the Drongo and the Indian Pitta – took me a while
to learn to spot this last, but I then became quite expert at spotting the
flash of blue and then figuring out whether it was a White Breasted Kingfisher
or the Pitta. I soon got blasé about all
such sights though I still felt a thrill when I was the first to spot something. Mohammed, our guide, had an excellent eye,
and was great at coaching us to spot whatever he’d seen.
We then came to the lake where there were some sambhars wading at a shallow end, as were various kinds of migratory birds like herons and storks. Both Mohammed and Rayees (our driver) were looking around intently, eyes screwed up against the sun blazing away at 4 pm. Gazing towards a shady tree on the banks, Rayees said “Doorbeen dena” (Give me the binoculars) …. I passed mine to him and he raised it to his eyes without once moving his eyes from whatever he was looking at. All of us held our breaths till he finally pronounced the verdict – there’s a tiger sleeping under the tree. We all screwed up our eyes and looked, then tried through the binoculars, and could spot nothing. Until Mohammed coached us – look at the dappled spot of sunlight under the tree ….. well, it’s not sunlight – it’s the tiger’s belly as she lies there next to the lake edge! I was thrilled when I finally spotted her. See if you can spot her in these photos!
Mohammed
and Rayees told us she was T17, aka Sundari, aka Rakhi Sawant – “kyunki woh
kissee ke saath chali jaathi hai – aaj isske saath, kal usske saath” (Because
she goes with anyone at all – today she’s with this male, tomorrow with that
one)! We couldn’t stop giggling over
that, though Soonoo insisted she hated the name and Sundari was not “like that”. She’d mated with various tigers over the
years it was true, but never had any cubs till 3 months back. According to the locals, that was because
until the last mating, she’d had a radio collar on, and that was somehow
interfering with her biological system and preventing conception. That far off sighting was a wonderful start
to my first visit to Ranthambhore, and we then made our way out of Zone 2 and
to our assigned zone
We
traversed through the most beautiful rock faces, where the layers of rock looked
almost like they were bound together by banyan roots. I would have loved going rock climbing in
such terrain, but of course, nobody, including the driver and guide were
allowed to get down from the jeep – the penalty being that both of them would lose
their licenses if we were caught outside the jeep!
We
went through some steep paths that seemed to be the ramparts of some ancient
fort and had a great bird’s eye view of the dhonk forest spread out beneath
us. The dhonk tree has a strange beauty
all its own – it has a short trunk and has thin branches that get progressively
thinner as the branches spread out. The
overall effect, when viewed in totality, is a lacy, gossamer effect. And when you look at a jungle of dhonks, you
suddenly realize that this ethereal looking branch actually ends up quite
dense, and you cannot spot a sambhar or a chital or even a neelgai standing in
its midst until it moves!
As we passed various streams, we saw a wild
hare drinking busily, a mongoose going busily about his work, a sand grouse
wriggling its bottom to wet her breast hair and cool off in the mud …. And none
of them were really perturbed by our proximity!
And as dusk fell, and the setting sun glowed red through the gossamer
dhonk branches, we saw a Stork billed Kingfisher, the largest kingfisher of
all, sitting on a branch and pretty much posing for us, presenting 1st
one profile and then the other. We
admired him for a while and then started to head out of the park and right near
the exit, spotted a pair of Brown Fish Owls!
Unfortunately, my camera was just not sophisticated enough to capture
the pictures of birds, and especially not in the failing light.
This was my
wonderful first introduction to the Ranthambhore jungle! We left the jungle and accompanied Padmini to
Maa Farm, where she lives with her mother.
I enjoyed a refreshing nimbu paani while the others had a cuppa, and we
all enjoyed Padmini’s tales of her recent visit to Manila, where her sister
lives with her husband and kids. We were
in splits at Padmini’s dramatics, and some of the choicest phrases and
mannerisms became part of our secret code for the trip. But we were pretty exhausted and by and by we
drifted back to our hotel, Hammir, had dinner and crashed. But only after setting the alarm for 4:15 am,
so we could be ready for our next safari at 5:00 am next morning.
The next
morning, 22nd, was great for birding. We spotted baby crocs, a monitor lizard or
two and birds whose names I’ve now forgotten.
Innumerable deer – sambhar, neelgai, chital. Innumerable peacocks and peahens and
juveniles. Peacocks dancing with tail
feathers spread in full glory, even with no peahen that we could spot. I think that was the day we spotted the
buzzard feasting on a piece of beehive that he’d got clutched in his talons as
he sat high on a branch. And the huge
turtle half submerged in a lake, looking for all the world like a boulder. Some of the guides have amazing eyes to spot
such things from a moving jeep. But I
had not quite acclimated and with the clock edging towards 9 am and nothing to
eat since getting up at 4 am, I started wilting. Perhaps that is why I can’t quite remember
anything spectacular that we spotted that morning. I learnt after that though, and started
carrying dehydrated fruit and nibbling the moment I felt my energy levels
ebbing. Guarding against dehydration I’d
been doing from the start, now I started watching this as well.
Back to the
hotel for breakfast, nap, lunch, nap (don’t recollect a bath that day, I think
the nap took priority) and the evening safari.
This time, we had another guide and driver. A youngster called Asok was our guide and the
driver (whose name I don’t think I caught) was a gruff older guy. He was a good spotter himself and would point
out various birds to us, and then sarcastically congratulate Asok – “Good eye”
– when Asok finally spotted it! We were
assigned Zone 5 and as we drove in, kept looking at the various
birds and animals around. And then we
suddenly came upon a small manmade waterhole (Bhootkhora road to those who know Ranthambhore) with some 4 Gypsies clustered
around it and there was a tiger cooling off in it, not 12 meters away from
us. Speculation was rife between our
driver, guide and Soonoo. Since we
couldn’t see whether it was a male or a female, they thought this was one of
the 2 motherless female cubs, 18 months old, who were being brought up by their
father – an unusual event in the tiger species.
We
must have waited there for something like an hour, with the tiger on alert and
turning to face every new movement of a Gypsy.
I felt sorry for her – she wanted to relax in the water, kind of like
lolling in a bathtub after a tiring day.
And here were a bunch of gawking tourists, just standing around and
staring at her. But all the pros were
convinced she would move soon, and they were keen to identify her (they often
have their own agendas like “T-so-and-so has not been spotted for a while, hope
she’s not wounded or killed by poachers …. Be on the lookout for him”) so we
waited for something like an hour. There
were sambhars walking around just about 20 meters behind us, seemingly
unconcerned, or maybe unaware, of the tiger in the vicinity.
By
and by, a sambhar felt thirsty and headed for the waterhole. He sensed danger however, and walked very
cautiously, stopping at every step to sniff the air and keeping one front hoof
raised to stamp a warning at the first sign of danger. The tiger too came on full alert and stood up
in the water, watching the sambhar unblinkingly. But the sambhar had spotted her and gave its characteristic
bark-like warning and walked on by.
Tiring of trying to outwait the tourists and the sambhar, the tiger
finally decided to come out of the water and lie down in the shade of the
jungle.
To
our great appreciation, and the clicking of umpteen cameras, she emerged wet
(and as Mehroo put it – gundoo (mucky)) and strode her majestic stride to the
jungle, where she sat down in the grass and all but disappeared from our
view. We knew where she was sitting, we
could see her and see that she was watching us, but if we took our eyes off her
for a second, we’d then have to spend the next 10 seconds trying to spot her
again. The camouflage is unbelievable –
you need to see it to believe it. And
now I believe what I’ve read before – you can pass 5 feet from a tiger, the
tiger will be sitting there watching you, and you will not spot him/her. Knowing the limitations of my camera, I
didn’t even try to photograph her at this stage.
Having had a
good look at her, and her swollen teats, Soonoo and our guide and driver pronounced
that she was T17 again – Sundari of the 3 month old cubs. She’d left her great big lake of the previous
day to come and bathe in this tiny manmade waterhole for some inconceivable
reason. I’m sure she thought to herself
– “kal sone nahin diya, aaj nahne nahin diya” (yesterday, they didn’t let me
sleep, today they’re not letting me bathe).
The jeeps
all quickly dispersed in different directions after this (obviously some of us
were in zones that had not been assigned to us, since only a few jeeps are assigned
per zone and we were 5 clustered around her).
We headed out of the jungle – anything after this would have been an
anticlimax, though Mehroo kept clamouring for a bear sighting or a leopard
sighting (considered the rarest of all).
I was just amazed at my luck – having been repeatedly prepared by Soonoo
for no tiger sightings, I’d seen 2 tigers in 2 days (or more accurately, 1
tiger twice in 2 days).
We returned
to the hotel, had a bit of a wash up and headed to Maa Farm, where we’d been
invited for dinner. After enjoying the
cool breeze and starry sky and Padmini’s dramatics for a while, we headed in
for dinner, where we experienced typical Rajasthani ghar-ka-khana (home food)
with lots of achaar (pickle) made by Mammaji (Padmini’s mother) herself. By the time dinner came to an end, we were
dropping on our feet and toddled across the road to our hotel and tumbled into
bed with the alarm set for 4:15 am.
Saturday morning …. We were past the midpoint of
our trip, having done 3 safaris and with 3 more ahead. Today, we had Mohammed as our guide and a
driver whose name escapes my memory. We
were again assigned to the same zone as the previous day, but since we’d not
gone past the waterhole where we spotted Sundari that day, we decided that was
no bad thing. So off we went, with
Mohammed again showing his amazing spotting skill, spotting the head of a snake
barely peeping out of his tree hole, or a monitor lizard sunning itself on the
ground totally camouflaged … .and all this spotted from a speeding Gypsy
bouncing over the rutted paths!
That
was another ride where I have no clear memory of spotting anything
spectacular. We saw quite a few woolly
necked storks, dancing peacocks … every trip was a joy of discovery even if
what we saw was not a great sighting.
That was the day we planned to visit Divya’s shop, Dhonk and then
accompany Padmini to Khem Vilas, where her brother ran an extremely swanky and
exclusive hotel for tourists. So after a
quick breakfast, we headed across the road to Dhonk and made our very
reasonably priced purchases. Divya
kindly agreed to deliver the bags to Maa Farm, from where we could collect it
after the evening safari, and we headed into Padmini’s car (she’d come to Dhonk
to collect us) to go to Khem Vilas for lunch.
We
cooled off with nimbu paani and admired the lotus pond and spa with Padmini
before we heard her other guests arrive.
She went off to welcome them, while one of the hotel managers continued
to show us around the cottage accommodations.
We all admired the open air bathroom most of all – the fittings were
absolutely modern, and it was open to the sky.
With trees all around, you could enjoy an open air shower if you so
wished! We then came back to the main
building and sat around chatting waiting for Padmini’s other guests to arrive
and the social chit chat to be gotten out of the way before lunch could be
served
By and by,
we joined the others at the formal dining table, where there were some 10-12
guests, a district judge, some magistrates and other senior court officials,
all sitting stiffly around the immaculately set table. They turned to look at the three of us enter
– casually dressed for the jungle, me with my loose pants drooping from my
waist like some kind of pajama! Too bad
– nobody had told me to pack for a formal sit down lunch when coming to
Ranthambhore! Padmini was least bothered
by such trivia and we enjoyed a wonderful typical Rajasthani, rather heavy
lunch followed by dessert. The judge
left, after which the formality reduced somewhat. Padmini showed us to a room where the 3 of us
could nap till it was time for our evening safari – both she and Divya were
joining us. We lolled around and dozed
for a while, and then Padmini joined us, having seen off the last of her
guests.
After some
confusion about whether the Gypsy would come to Khem Vilas to pick us up or we
had to go to the main gate of the sanctuary to catch the jeep, we headed for
our second last safari. We again had our
maverick driver Rayees, this time with no guide. We were assigned zone 4 and we headed into the jungle. We visited one water body after another,
since everyone was convinced we’d spot something momentous on this trip. Suddenly Padmini froze (we had paused by a
stream) and told Rayees to cut the engine, she’d heard a sambhar call from the
7 o’clock – 8 o’clock position.
We
all froze and then Rayees headed back the way we’d come, up a cliff path to
peer over the top at a water body at Bakhola - the junction of Zone 4 and 5. Padmini
kept insisting – “sambhar kabhi false call nahin detha” (the sambhar never
gives a false call). And appropriately
enough, it was Padmini, the true daughter of Fateh Singh Rathore, who was the
first to spot her – she was lying on her side under the shade of the trees, as
we peered at her from the cliff above, barely some 20-30 feet above her and
barely some 5 -10 meters lateral distance!
The angle was pretty terrible for all of us except Mehroo sitting next
to Rayees. She literally had a front
seat view. I did click some photos of
T41 as she was identified, but she was hard to spot without a whole lot of tree
branches, not to mention our jeep itself, coming in my line of sight. We admired her for a while, as she slept on,
periodically waking up to blink at us and then go to sleep again, and then
headed off.
The
light was beautiful, and we clicked some beautiful pictures of the dhonk trees
– every so often, we’d come across a stretch of dhonks that were bursting into
leaf – the most refreshing shade of green.
And with the sun shining across the tops, the effect was truly
beautiful. This was the trip where we
saw a colony of painted storks nesting on the branches of a tree – great to see
these huge, somewhat ungainly looking birds, perched elegantly up on the tree. And as we drove out, Divya spotted a piece of
beehive that had fallen to the ground, raked by the nail marks of a bear. We picked up a piece and felt it and sniffed
at it (rather nice sweet smell to it) before we threw it away again. In the fading light, we drove out with
Padmini scanning the jungle hill sides on either side, hoping to spot a
leopard, and Mehroo telling Rayees “mereko bhaloo dekhna hai” (I want to see a
bear) but no luck. And with that, we
were almost at the end of our trip, with just one safari left the next morning
We didn’t spend
long socializing that day, and headed to the hotel for some quiet time with
fresh lime sodas before dinner and bed.
The next morning, I had no great hopes of any spectacular sightings,
since all our tiger sightings till now
had been in the evenings, with the mornings tending to be uneventful. We had a guide and driver whom we’d never had
before, and who were unknown to Soonoo as well.
It appeared as if they were the “nothing but a tiger will do” variety,
as they sped from one water body to another in Zone 4, briefly pausing to scan for a
tiger before saying “chalo” (let’s go) and heading off. All of us (the 3 of us + the other party of 3
jungle lovers from Jaipur) were getting somewhat exasperated with them.
By and by,
we came to a water body at Berda and some sambhar and chitals grazing nearby. The sambhars were periodically going on
alert, but we were not sure whether it was because of us, or something
else. Suddenly, a langur gave a call. The sambhars were on high alert and we all of
looked around keenly in the direction they were looking till we decided it had
been a false call (the sambhar had not called, had only raised his tail and
stopped grazing). We headed off, meeting
a Cantor (open air bus) and the drivers and guides exchanged notes. Just then, the langur called again. The driver and guide unilaterally did a
u-turn and came back to our earlier spot, insisting there had to be a tiger
around. After looking for a long time,
they finally spotted movement. The tiger
was hidden behind a tree not 20 feet from where we’d been parked both this time
and the previous time!
The
driver drove to get a better angle behind the tree, and there he was, with
his fresh sambhar kill, so intent on satisfying his hunger, he couldn’t care
less about us. For about 15 or 30 mins
(time is always so relative, who knows how long it actually was), we watched
him feast on the sambhar, tearing it open from its asshole to pull out the soft
innards and eat. At one point, he stood
up to turn the sambhar over and get better access to its soft underbelly. For Mehroo (for whom this was the 6th
or 8th visit), this was a first – she had never before seen a tiger
with a fresh kill. We were all thrilled
at the sighting – it was a really close look, barely 20 feet away and as close
to stark nature as one can get. After
some time, we decided to leave – the driver and guide suggested we move to the
waterhole and wait for him to come there to slake his thirst after eating, but
they agreed with Soonoo that that would probably be something like an hour away
and we decided against it.
So
we left T6 to his sambhar meal (not quite the sambhar shaadam of the
Tamilians!) and drove away. Having shown
us a tiger, the guide and driver were more relaxed now, and willing to slow
down for bird sightings and sightings of “lesser” animals. As we drove out of the jungle, we got a close
look at a most majestic neelgai and then, on the main path of the sanctuary,
next to a nullah, were a family of chitals posed all on a row …. Unfortunately,
by the time I could get out my camera to take advantage of the composition,
they moved and we drove on. But it was a
good way to end the last safari on my first trip to Ranthambhore. I knew I was (am) hooked, and this was not
goodbye but au revoir!
