Jungle Tales from Ranthambhore (Koi Movement Hai?)

“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 1^st 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, 22^nd, 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 6^th or 8^th 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!