Off late, I have started finding interests in photography. Rightly someone said, a good photograph stops a beautiful moment from passing by. I won’t be a regular blogger but at times there are a lot of ‘things’ that populate my mind and I’ll try to pen them down as they peep out. I’ll start today sharing my wonderful experiences I had in Pench National Park. Before I start, let me tell you, it’s the passion for photography and the love for nature; I was attracted to this place. Pench National Park is located close to the border of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. The closest city is Nagpur which is around 92 Km away from Pench. It was late in December, 2008 when I started planning for a trip to Pench. The desire to visit this place got intensified as I started seeing some exciting photographs of Pench and its habitat over the internet. I could not wait more to click some of those exotic species and hence one fine morning I finally did my booking in Kipling’s Court Resort at Pench.
January 23rd, 2009
We arrived at Nagpur by flight in the evening and took our cab to Pench from the airport. It was a little more than two hours journey. We took National Highway 7 to reach there. For most of our journey we had jungle on both sides of the highway. It was very dark outside and the headlight of our Indica was the only disturbance in that darkness. On our way we did find other cars passing by but the frequency decreases as you get closer to the Park. After crossing the border we took left from the highway for Pench and the woods started getting thicker. I was alert anticipating animals to cross our road. But alas..!! Didn’t see anything that night. With a heart full of hope I had a grand dinner. Can’t forget the delicious mutton curry. For the whole night tigers and leopards did cross my path several times in my dreams.
January 24th, 2009
It was around 5.15AM that my cell phone was on an unusual melodious tone. It was the alarm call. On any other weekday morning, I find this call as the most irritating of all. But today it’s different…!! We were ready by 6.30AM as the sun began the day. I had already booked my gypsy for the safari. After having my cup of tea, we started for the Park. My heart was beating fast and I could realize it even in that chilly morning. It was beating hard in some unknown excitement. I never had visited a jungle before. This was the first time my imagination has an opportunity to meet the reality face to face. I was only hoping that this tryst with the wild should not differ much to prove me wrong.
After some regular checking at the gate, we entered the jungle. Our driver Ashok and our guide Sudama welcomed us with warmth and so did the jungle. Early morning sun kept everyone busy from the tree tops to the forest floor. I never heard so many birds chirping, chattering around me. I felt if Heaven exists, it must be here in this place where peace prevails. The first sight was of a Sambar Deer, He was enjoying his morning walk with some snacks here and there. We kept moving and suddenly Ashok stopped the gypsy. I could see both our guide and the driver were anxious and they were trying to hear something. Sudama whispered “It’s a deer Call, she must be here somewhere. Let’s wait for a while; it’s the time of the day when she crosses this road.” Oh God, am I so lucky? What I dreamt all throughout this month was going to be true..!! We were expecting a tigress to cross our road. “It’s a tigress”, this time Ashok murmured. They saw her yesterday too. I didn’t realize till now, but I found five more gypsies waiting behind us for a glimpse of the beauty. We waited for almost 20mins there and never felt how time flew off. I kept on searching for her in the woods with my inexperienced eyes and even sounds of falling foliages made me feel that the tigress just moved there. After a long wait, we started moving again. Later in the day we heard that the, tigress played a trick with us and she did cross the road but from behind as we were waiting. Clever...Clever, only these two words came to my mind as I heard it. One lucky family could see her as they entered the park at that moment. We had almost travelled 8-9 Km on our way by now; we saw a jackal family, varieties of birds (I didn’t know the names for most of them) and of course Chital with their cubs. “There..!! Look sir. Isn’t it beautiful?” Sudama whispered once again. Oh, is it the tiger then. I was about to scream in joy but realized the third point on the checklist before entering the jungle. It read as “Do not make noise in the jungle.” Ahh…!! He was showing me an Indian Roller. It’s a beautiful bird with blue color on its wings. At first sight it does look like a kingfisher. But it is indeed bigger than that. Honestly speaking I didn’t notice it for a while. It was perfectly camouflaged. I had another tough time later on locating a collared owl. I think, that was the ultimate advertisement of camouflage. I could not spot the owl even from 5 feet away. However, I clicked some good snaps of birds, Mammals’ etc. Still the king of Pench was not filmed. It was around 8.45AM in the morning, we passed one gypsy and the driver of that vehicle told Sudama that one tigress with a cub is resting and the tiger show is going on. Tiger show is basically getting close to the tiger on an elephant. Sudama and Ashok drove us there. We were waiting for our turn on the queue. By then it was a long queue of 7 vehicles. The news spread so fast. Tiger after all…!!
I always had mixed feelings about the Elephants. Since long, elephants are considered one of man’s best friends. However, his size and unexpectedly cool attitude did infiltrate some awe and honestly speaking fear in my mind about this species. I’ve always avoided any close contact with this animal but today I can’t. In the middle of the jungle, far from the luxury of Bus, Taxi and metro, I have no other choice but to trust on this primitive means of communication. I was shaken back to reality soon. My wife of course, she could not hide her excitement of first elephant ride and on an unique way of expressing her joy she put a punctuation on my philosophic thoughts about Elephants and Human civilization. I found they have already set the ladder and I have to climb on his back. With my 2kilogram lens I did best as I could and was seriously thinking for a trekking in my next trip. The elephant started in its brisk pace. I was surprised to see how he was choosing his path to avoid all tree branches that may cause some discomfort for the burden like us on his back. We were four people riding apart from the “MAHUT”. It was a five minute ride and after that I was experiencing one of the best memories I could ever have. A tigress with her two 7 months old cub was lying under a tree. The elephant stood up close to this family and for a moment I did forget to click photographs. I saw a colorful exhibition of pride, fear and beauty. The entire family was so reluctant to our presence that it made me feel I am not a member of this part of the world. Yes, human are the global citizens but still there are places where they are inhibited. On my way back to the gypsy I had on my mind the picture of the tiger family flashing up repeatedly. I felt my trip to Pench is now fulfilled. I am not sure how to phrase this kind of feelings I was having at that time. It is really beyond the words. For the rest of the day we searched for leopards but in vain. We didn’t see any. We found some more birds and a group of monkeys. We came back to our hotel around 11.30AM and had our brunch there.
Since then on, till the end of my journey, every single time I thought about the jungle, I could see the tigress and her cubs resting under the tree, I could see colorful birds playing peacefully without any fear, I could see the woods standing tall and monitoring trespassers like us. Their indifference towards the civilized and our excitement to see them more had a strong appeal to me. An appeal that says SAVE US…SAVE YOURSELF.
