The Walk

This is something right out of a story book, however true.

It was a warm dusty evening when we ventured into the jungle in Kanha National Park. Then I was a teen and very new to jungle safaris. We were a moderate sized group...parents, Aunts, cousins and close family.

My cousin who is a few years younger than me and I decided to avoid the Elephant safari. For no particular reason. After some time we got bored and decided on taking our Ambassador car into the jungle.

As is the rule there were the four of us apart from me, my cousin, the driver and the guide. The guides there are locals, villagers who have been displaced by the creation of the park and earn their livelihood as guides, "chara cutters", mahouts, and even forest guards.

The guides are very well-versed with the park and know it inside out, since they were born and brought up there. Not only the geography, they know the flora and fauna, animal behavior and are only happy to tell you in English and Hindi the names of various animals, birds and trees.

Tourists mainly go to these National Parks designated as Tiger Projects by the Rajiv Gandhi Government to see the majestic Royal Bengal Tiger. Most of the tourist are mighty disappointed when the have taken a couple of trips to the forest, be it a gypsy safari, elephant ride, or in their own petrol based vehicles and have not seen a tiger.

At that age, that was my prime concern, I wanted to see a tiger, or at least a leopard. And I made it quiet clear to the guide. So the guide with all his jungle acumen took us to a point where he thought we would come face to face with one. We waited with halted breath, car engine turned off, absolutely silent... to get some clue of a tiger nearby.

The romance lies in the jungle fauna, how they converse with each other, how different species help each other. One such classic example is the relation between the Spotted Deer and the Langurs. The Langurs from their tree perch shake branches so that fresh leaves litter the ground below them. The deer in turn stay with these groups of Langur as they get easy feed. The deer in turn keep watch for predators at ground level, the Langurs at tree level. They are thus able to warn each other of any suspicious predator movements.

It was just after a couple of minutes that we heard a Sambhar's alarm call, rapidly followed by Langur calls too from the trees nearby. We waited hoping the tiger would come our way. Unfortunately the jungle soon quietened and the tiger was nowhere to be seen.

It was getting late now and the guide asked the driver to take us to the barrier and out of the park. Visitors are not allowed inside the park after sunset. We needed to turn around so as to go back. It was then that the unthinkable happened!

The driver took the car off the dirt road just a wee little bit and the rear wheels got stuck in mud camouflaged in dense grass! He tried his best to move the car in a rocking fashion so as to be able to get some momentum... unfortunately every movement took the wheels deeper into the mud and soon the rear axle too was properly stuck!

It was 5 PM then, being summer the sun would set around 6:30 PM. We had some time to get out, provided someone accidentally bumped into us! The guide informed us that it would be against the rule to walk back to the barrier that was about 12 kilometers from where we were stuck, according to him. So we waited...

By 6 PM we were getting apprehensive. The guide assured us that the forest guards or at least the officials at the barrier would send someone to bail us out. Little did we know that those people would not come to know of our predicament till much later when it was time for all visitors to leave the park. Only then would they know that one vehicle had not come out yet.

By then it would be dark and not knowing where in the 990 square kilometers of forest would we be, the forest officials would not take any action. The rule in such cases was to lock up the car, roll up the windows and remain inside till dawn!

However, very soon my cousin started saying he wanted out of the jungle, following which the driver too started goading the guide. The guide too, after very little persuasion decided that it would be best that we set out for the barrier on foot!

There was a catch though! It was getting dark... and we did not have a portable light source! That is when the driver took out his pack of "bidis" and a matchbox. The guide quickly found a dry bamboo stick and lighted it. Dry bamboo burns rather peculiarly... it does not light up as in flames, but burns slowly just like embers of coal.

In pitch darkness that bamboo stick provided us with sufficient light to be able to walk without groping! And so we began our walk to the barrier, with my cousin who being younger than me, but taller, under my left armpit, all scared and trembling.

And that is when the fun began! The jungle is all about melodies, sounds made by birds and animals, bamboo rubbing together in the breeze, crickets, owls and other night birds a symphony that would probably sound ecstatic, provided you were listening to it in the comfort of your home!

Here, the stereophonic calls of the the barking deer would appear to surround us starting at one end on the left, to right around us and back to where they began in the first place... one little twig cracking behind us would make us walk faster, just hoping it was not the tiger we were trying to spot... was it just the breeze that was causing the leaves ahead of us to tremble?

You have to be in such a situation to believe it. There is nothing you can do, you are at the mercy of the wild, absolutely...

That burning ember lasted all the way through the two and a half hour walk to the barrier... there we had a grand reception committee, our family, the forest officials, a sobbing mother... and emotional return!

It was only after we had reached our destination that we felt the hunger and the thirst and the extreme physical and mental stress that we had been through! We ate well and fell asleep.

We found out in the morning that the guide had been penalized for walking us through the forest against the rules... and also that the tiger we had missed seeing was actually a tigress with cubs... we had been lucky she did not consider us a threat... in fact, we were lucky to have come out of our adventure alive and without a scratch!