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Wild India Notes: Rare Earth in the Press
Source: New York Times
Travel Section May 7, 2000
The Maharajah Wore StripesBy LYNN SHERRA national park in the heart of India provides brief but unforgettable audiences with royal Bengal tigers. THE Indian jungle is unpredictable," said my guide, Navneet Singh, a dedicated conservationist with an intimate understanding of its secrets. "Suddenly something will happen right in front of you. But two minutes later, nothing's there. You think it was a phantom. That's the mystery. And that's what kept the British fascinated for 200 years." I listened with growing apprehension. I had come to India on assignment just before New Year's, but then set off on vacation to see wildlife. Like most first-time visitors to Asia's natural world, I wanted to see tigers. But that, it seemed, was easier dreamed than done. No one knows exactly how many tigers still live in the wild, but the number cited most frequently is around 5,000 worldwide. Most -- members of the subspecies Pan thera tigris tigris, or royal Bengal tiger -- live in India, where a network of reserves under the government-sponsored Project Tiger protects this perilously threatened resource. Although hunting is illegal, tigers are still being slaughtered by poachers -- for their skin or their bones, which are ground into spurious medicinal potions -- and rampant development is obliterating their habitat. Hard-core pessimists predict free-roaming tigers will become extinct in the 21st century. My trip to the bush was littered with the footprints of frustrated sightseers. "Never saw one," said an American tourist I met in New Delhi. "Just go to see the scenery," a veteran traveler told me before I left. "Good luck," a naturalist friend said with a sympathetic shrug. Even my guidebook pointed out that many travelers "feel hard done by when it comes to tiger spotting." The only positive voice belonged to my New York travel agent, Nina Rao, who seemed utterly assured I'd be successful if I went to Kanha National Park, the jewel in Project Tiger's crown, where some 100 tigers live in what has been called India's best-protected, best-monitored tiger reserve. The hitch was, it was far away, in the middle of the Indian subcontinent. So from Bombay, on India's west coast, I took a predawn flight to the city of Nagpur, which is roughly the equivalent of flying to Omaha from Los Angeles. It took under two hours by jet, but that was just the beginning. From Nagpur, where I was met by a car and driver, I had to travel another five and a half hours, a gentle climb on mostly decent roads into India's central highlands, through countless villages, rice farms and pastures. But while the car was comfortable and my driver skilled, any road trip in India is a trial. As far as I can tell, the Indian gas pedal is attached directly to the horn, which means the trip is accompanied by a constant beep-beep, at trucks, camel carts, bicycles, mopeds and pedestrians -- humans and cows -- often at 60 miles an hour. I closed my eyes against the chaos. Finally, the traffic yielded to trees and the horn fell silent. We had arrived at the grandly named Royal Tiger Resort, a peaceful six-acre camp of 18 stone bungalows, set around a wide lawn and an open-air dining room, amid the undisturbed greenery of Kanha's buffer zone. This would be home for the next three nights. My hosts were the Singhs -- Navneet, a distinguished former army captain in one of India's oldest rifle regiments, and his wife, Deepika, an artist whose delicate renderings of Kanha's tigers and birds decorate the walls. They welcomed me, instantly and warmly, over a hearty Indian lunch of chicken, rice, eggplant and dal (lentils), then outlined my schedule for the next few days: wake-up at 5 a.m., with tea or coffee delivered to the room; first game drive just after 6, with a stop around 9:30 for the packed breakfast; back to the camp around noon for lunch, followed by an afternoon game drive from 3:30 to 6 or so. They also introduced me to the other guests, all personal friends, or friends of friends. Since I had come to Kanha alone -- unable to talk any of my usual traveling companions into such a remote holiday -- I was delighted to be adopted by the Indian families and their children. I was especially encouraged that they had all seen tigers. Just after 3 p.m., with the sun still high and hot, we piled into the open-roofed Maruti Gypsy -- the local version of a Jeep -- and drove to the nearby park entrance, where we collected our park guide and entered the forest. Kanha, where Rudyard Kipling wrote "The Jungle Book," is a 360-square-mile expanse of meadows, lakes, streams and trees -- tall, slender sals, clumps of bamboo, teak and other hardwoods. I thought I knew what to expect, having spent a good deal of time viewing wildlife in Africa. But I quickly discovered that unlike the African plains -- broad, open, sweeping panoramas where you can spot a giraffe miles away -- the Indian jungle is dense, closed and protective. If the Serengeti is a stage set designed to show off its wildlife, Kanha was a veil, designed to conceal. Which it did at first. To be fair, I did see some remarkable creatures that first afternoon: a magnificent Indian blue jay, or roller, showing off dazzling turquoise when it flew; screeching peacocks, dashing for cover and dragging their shiny blue tails; silky-haired monkeys called langurs, with inquisitive black faces. I saw five-foot-tall termite hills that looked like drippy sand castles; wolf-sized wild dogs, or dholes, frolicking like terriers; majestic deer, including stately sambars and the lyrically named barasinghas. But mostly I saw herds of white-spotted deer called chital, gentle Bambis whose sweet vulnerability makes them key players in the forest drama. As the tigers' meal of choice, chital serve as Kanha's early warning system, uttering their singular alarm call -- a high-pitched bark that sounds like "ow, ow" -- whenever they see the striped cat. The alarms we heard that first afternoon meant a tiger was nearby. But we never saw it, and that night over the campfire I required serious reassurance. By 6 the next morning I was dressed for the early January frost: turtleneck, sweater, jacket, scarf, hat, gloves. With a cold mist still hovering over the park, I got my first solid evidence of the elusive tiger. Navneet, who'd been concentrating on the dusty track that served as a road through the park, abruptly stopped the jeep and pointed: "Look," he said "pug marks." That's tiger-talk for paw prints, and they were astounding: clear four-toed impressions that were the surest indicators yet a tiger had passed by. The marks were huge -- a hand spread seven inches across -- firmly set into the ground. As it turns out, we weren't the only ones to spot them. Kanha has a herd of Asian elephants, imported from another Indian park and trained to track and observe tigers. Very early each morning they are taken out by their handlers, or mahouts, to look for tiger signs. A sighting is relayed to a central station by walkie-talkie, then passed along to the guides, who are given chits -- like numbers at a deli -- to establish their viewing order. When Navneet learned of a sighting, we headed to the designated spot by the meadow. There were several dozen visitors to the park that day, but the line-up of jeeps was orderly and unhurried. We were first, and as the elephant emerged from the forest, I was hustled out of the jeep and up onto the howdah, or platform, along with two other members of our group. "Have you done this before?" I asked Lali, a tall, turbaned Sikh, as I clambered aboard with mild misgivings. "Oh sure," he said casually. "This is the best way to see them." He was right. Slowly, mightily, the elephant marched through the tall grass, down the gentle slope, prodded on by the constantly moving bare feet of the mahout perched on its shoulders. I held on to the bar of the howdah, my legs dangling over the elephant's broad hide. Fifty yards or so on, the elephant stopped. "There," the mahout pointed. And there she was: a gorgeous, sensuous tigress stretched out in the grass -- hidden except from this extraordinary perch. And sublimely unconcerned with our presence. I heard myself gasp. I felt my jaw drop. I had no idea she would be so stunning: brilliant orange fur slashed by black stripes, with patches of white highlighting her face and underbelly. She didn't do much; she didn't have to. I was happy to stare at this magnificent body at rest, amazed that such a vibrant pattern could provide such fine camouflage in the dappled light. Too soon, our viewing time was over and we headed back to the road. Reluctantly, I climbed down from the elephant and back into the jeep, yielding my seat to another from our group. Before I could murmur my gratitude, Navneet drove off to another spot along the road. "If the tiger moves, she'll come this way," he said. Sure enough, in a few moments, we heard the mahout commanding his elephant, clearly in pursuit of the tigress. She had gotten up and moved off -- and as we watched, walked across the road right in front of us. It was a thrilling moment: fluid motion and solid determination. I considered myself quite lucky. But not, as it turns out, as lucky as the two fellows who had boarded the elephant behind me. They wound up on an spine-tingling tiger chase, clinging to the howdah as the mahout tracked the tigress -- across the road and through the forest -- then witnessing a kill, as the powerful beast attacked a young chital with unimaginable speed. "It was like a streak of gold," one of the observers later told me breathlessly. "I've never seen anything move so fast." Back at camp, we heard the story over and over -- as one of the lucky spectators sprang for beers all around to celebrate his fortune. Navneet reminded us that tigers were very, very dangerous. A male tiger could charge an elephant," he said, but the animals have grown accustomed to each other here. "There's been no incident in more than 60 years," he added, saying the reason we humans are so safe sitting on the elephant, so close, is that the tiger thinks we're part of the elephant; unable to see our legs, it doesn't realize we're humans. He nodded when I hinted that my five-minute viewing time had not been enough. "That's part of the suspense of the forest," he said. "Once you've seen something, you're never satisfied. You want more." I got what I wanted the next morning. There had been another sighting, another tigress with two male cubs. Once again I climbed onto an elephant and lumbered through the shoulder-high grass. This time, Navneet had arranged for us to be last in line, entitling us to linger over this amazing family scene: mom lazing beneath a bamboo tree, with at least one golden eye on her toddlers at all times. They behaved like backyard tabbies, tripping clumsily over their big paws, whiskers twitching in the sunlight. Alternately wary and manly, playful and curious, they tested and sparred like two little boys, even drawing a laugh from the mahout when one of the youngsters sidled up to its mother, tried to crawl atop her, then flopped over instead. We all were grinning. On my last morning at Kanha, as the orange ball of the sun rose over the rolling meadow, Navneet asked if I was satisfied. "Yup," I said, feeling confident, "but I'd like to see a male now. Walking across the track." Suddenly, as if in response, we heard the chital alarm calls, close by the road, and Navneet followed the sound, inching the Jeep toward each new outburst. A tiger was on the move, and so were we. After half an hour or so of listening and waiting, we heard another cry and shifted to a position down the road. Now Navneet was working in tandem with our forest guide, Tirath Singh, a tall, slim young member of the local Gond tribe, with the elegant bearing of a Masai warrior. As we sat tensely for 15 silent minutes, Tirath stood nearly motionless on the fender. Then, wordlessly, he stretched his long fingers toward the trees. Navneet motioned for me to get up. "He's coming, he's coming," he whispered. Then I saw it, too: a flash of orange. A wall of stripes. Out of the woods and onto the road emerged an immense male tiger, easily 10 feet from nose to tail, a quarter-ton tank of muscle and power that fairly shouted, "I'm in charge here." He ambled regally across the road, then stopped and stared at us with gleaming almond eyes. I knew that this was the king of the jungle. Finally, I understood the mystery. As suddenly and silently as he had appeared, the beast vanished -- totally -- into the forest. I knew I'd seen it; I'd seen five tigers in all. Five! But now there was nothing, only prints. I realized that I, too, would have stayed 200 years just to see them again. Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company |
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