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Wild India Notes: Rare Earth in the Press:
Source: Bergen Record, Sunday, June 21, 1998
The Tiger VanishesBy JILL SCHENSULGod, it was hot. Four in the afternoon and still 100 degrees. I swept the sweat from under my eyes, realizing it was a futile gesture. Our jeep swerved and rumbled down the dusty streets of Sawai Madophur, around women in saris carrying bundles on their heads and plodding camels pulling overloaded carts. A group of villagers—little boys in Western T-shirts and women swathed in saris and skin-and-bones men with simple dusty bits of cloth wrapped around their loins—walked in a happy crowd of chatter toward us as we neared the national park. Smudges of red and gold powder on their foreheads indicated they had been to the temple that day, making the pilgrimage to one of the old temples within the park's boundaries. Beyond them stood a large stone arch draped in a tangle of weeds and shadows. Our jeep stopped at the entrance; I tried to make out the conversation, fast and totally foreign Hindi, even the facial expressions not giving a thing away. A great confusion of words, and then a few nods and our jeep jounced, growling back to ramshackle life, over the rocky hard ground and into the waning slants of sunlight shooting through Ranthambore National Park. And then ... quiet. A drop in the temperature as the forest grew around us, and just us. We were here, in a protected place, a last stand for tigers in a last stand of nature in northeastern India, miraculously preserved, at least till now, the Chinese Year of the Tiger. I thought back over the last 24 hours to when I first arrived in the middle of the night in the Delhi Airport into an enormous melee of humanity—a fomenting din of arriving adventurers and reuniting families and hustling taxi drivers and emaciated homeless "untouchables," as those even below the lowest caste in India have come to be known. Dumped into an unreal scene, a smudge of gray whose details I was afraid to make out. And with no sleep to speak of, continuing the motion, in a six-hour train ride stuffed into a tin can called a first-class car with people eating things that smelled bad for lunch, and nobody wearing shoes. And finally getting to Sawai Madhophur, the closest town to Ranthambore National Park, and throwing my stuff into a room at the hotel, a former ruler's hunting lodge, and being bustled into a jeep for a wild ride through the camels and the stifling heat to here. Peace. It seemed almost a miracle that this oasis of jungle had been protected, when a country of more than 1 billion people could undoubtedly use all the space it could get. But since 1973, this 152 square miles of dry, deciduous forest in southwestern Rajasthan, where the Aravali and Vindhya mountain ranges meet, has been protected, and the tigers within it, too. More or less. We trundled over the paved roadway, used by villagers before they were relocated when the park was established in 1973. Our dust swirled around our topless jeep. My cameras and I rattled with the tires; I nearly slid off the bench and fell out the back on the occasion of several large bumps. The park has four designated "tracks," and the number of vehicles per track is limited to two. At the park headquarters, we had been appointed to Track 4; the buzz is that a tiger has been spotted on Track 1. My guide and a guard standing near the side of the road, before a turnoff to one of the tracks, exchanged a few words in Hindi, and the guard turned and walked away. "He is allowing us to go in, just quickly, to see if we can see tiger," my guide whispered. I smiled a thank-you at the guard, a dashing gray-haired man with beautiful twinkling eyes and an aura of gentle understanding, as we rumbled through his gate, past some thick trees toward a lake. A jeep was stopped on the track, a man with a tripod pointing a huge zoom lens through the trees at the water. We pulled over and turned off the engine. Chandra, my guide, stood up for a better view. He abruptly grabbed my arm with one hand, and pointed. "There!" he whispered. I followed his finger, but saw nothing. "In the water!" he said urgently, as our driver stood up and said something in Hindi. I held my breath and looked hard through the branches into the water. Movement; the flick of an ear, round and furry. Tiger attached. Fifty yards away, half a tiger was rising out of the still silver lake, a long figure of gold fur and black stripes. Having never seen a tiger in the wild, and also having never seen a cat in the water of its own volition, I was too amazed to think. He turned his head toward the shoreline, obviously aware of us, showing a pink triangle of a nose and two pale eyes stuck in a massive, round head. He looked like a magazine photo. He yawned, and turned away. The branches and bushes crisscrossed maddeningly through my sightline. I held my breath as if I could hold back the rustle of wind, to keep him in sight. But one blink, one wafting of leaves, and the tiger vanished. "OK? We must go," said Chandra, and the driver started the engine and slowly we rumbled back to the gate. I had been in the park 10 minutes, and had already bagged my tiger. Just a peek. But even a peek at a tiger—which is all anyone can ever hope for in this life, anyway—is a straight connection into the heart of the jungle. "You are lucky, you are lucky!" Chandra repeated happily, triumphantly. "Did you get good pictures?" "Well, not really," I said. "There were lots of branches crisscrossing in front of him." "Ah, that is perfect for your story—that is the tiger's situation." Chandra was the kind of guy you needed to pay attention to. He had a lot to tell me. Statistics on tigers are as elusive as the animals themselves. In my research before and during the trip, I received all sorts of conflicting information. First of all, it is difficult to keep count of an animal as secretive as the tiger. Sometimes those in charge of counting aren't well trained in the procedures; other times different groups either inflate or deflate the numbers, depending on their agendas. Some say the tiger populations in India, which has 75 percent of all the tigers in the world, has stabilized. Others say the tiger is doomed to extinction. In any event, seeing tigers in the wild is all a matter of luck, and some people can go through a two-week trip and never catch sight of one. I had told myself tiger would be just one of the reasons to visit India's national parks, and I would be content just to see the huge variety of wildlife. But most people involved in tourism here seem fixed on the tiger; Chandra explained that some of his passengers have turned surly when he doesn't present them with one. I assured Chandra that the rest of the ecosystem would not be denouement. On our first drive, I literally had a chance to get the lay of the land: A fine, laissez-faire sort of place, with skinny dhok trees gone almost brown in the dryness of crescendoing summer, just waiting for the monsoons. Meadows with tall golden grass and valleys shaded by their own walls and towering sheer cliffs upon which one enormous 11th century fort, for which the park was named, remains. As if all this wasn't fodder for National Geo pix, the park is also dotted with the ruins of mosques and temples and the 16 villages that were relocated when Ranthambore became a national park. Oh, but enough of this. It was the animals that did, in all honesty, command my full attention. They were everywhere. Watery-eyed spotted deer, rough-coated sambar, bright green Alexandrine parakeets screaming from tree to tree, massive crocodiles looking sneakily from rivers and lakes, and the occasional ground squirrel scurrying past in a panic were just a few of the creatures I saw on my first 2-hour ride. Peacocks were everywhere; and I never quite got used to the idea that there were as many of them as there might be sparrows in Teaneck. Our first ride, and I was just about in shock from the wealth of jungle I had seen and the amount of travel I'd endured over the past few days. I had seen my tiger, and pulled my eyes back from hunt mode. And then our driver slammed on the brakes just a short distance from the park exit, and we looked up to our left at two more young male tigers on a hillside. One was rather hidden, but the other just sat up and looked right at us, from his perch, not 30 feet away. His demeanor is what I had been saving the word "regal" for. His golden eyes blinked sleepily, and he put his head back and yawned, showing sharp teeth and a dark pink mouth. Bored with us, he moved back into the jungle and settled down behind a rock. Disappearing momentarily, we saw two ears and a bit of eye show behind the rock, as he checked to make sure we were still watching. Which we were. The next pair of tiger eyes were staring down at me glassily from the "trophy" over the fireplace in the dining room of my hotel—this one long-dead tiger reminding me that the Taj Sawai Madhopur Lodge was a former hunting lodge of the maharajah of Rajasthan. While hunting is no longer permitted, evidence of the long tradition could be found every place I stayed in India and Nepal, with men and women with guns standing proudly behind flat, ruglike tigers. While at the turn of the century there were an estimated 40,000 tigers in the world, today an estimated 4,000 remain; five subspecies are extinct. Poaching apparently continues—although most of the guides and park managers deny it—and with a carcass carrying a price of $1,000 for the man who kills it, it is understandably difficult to stop. Of course, this is only a tenth of what the tiger parts fetch on the black market in the Far East. The animals'—and the jungles'—level of protection seems to depend almost entirely upon the political caprice of the times. Fateh Singh Rathore, a legendary conservationist and founder of the national park, noted that recently, the manager of the park didn't enforce park protection, and 50 tigers were poached in the space of six years. Fateh Singh is something of a controversial figure himself, since he was one of those responsible for uprooting his own people, who had lived for generations on land that is now the park. "The day the vehicles came to take them out of the park, they were weeping, they were clinging to the tree trunks," Chandra recalled. "You can imagine the love they had for the jungle. They don't know from the world. They just knew this was 'our firewood, our animals, our home.'" The trade-off was increased services for the people: closer schools, a hospital, their own land to cultivate as they pleased. Still, the land is feeling the pressure of development. Fateh Singh is an energetic, kind man with a passionate commitment to the tigers, yet he is surprisingly pessimistic about the future of this little oasis of jungle. Right now there are about 28 tigers in the park, Fateh Singh said. If left to their own devices, they will do well. But India's human population continues to go unchecked, and the pressures are rising. And this was before the nuclear rtesting situation had escalated tensions in the region. "They [the government] are ignoring this, when they should be giving it the highest priority," Fateh Singh lamented, looking out the window of his leopard-spotted curtains onto his little farm in Sawai Madhopur. "Everyone wants human rights; nobody talks about animal rights. You can't blame poor animals, they are in control of nature. People are not in control of nature." Conservationists have gone to the people to involve them in the efforts to protect the tiger. Murlidhar Parashar, sitting cross-legged on the floor as he meticulously painted each hair around the eyes of a golden tiger, is one local man hoping to make a difference. Murlidhar began the Ranthambore Art School eight years ago to help the local people get ahead. Each summer, when the children are out of school, he takes on a dozen or more students, introducing them to the forest, teaching painting techniques, assigning them to paint what they see. The children, from 5 or 6 to the late teens, create wildlife art. Much of it is good enough to sell—to the tourists who visit, as well as in galleries in the bigger Indian cities. Murlidhar's theme is always the tiger, and the beauty of the jungle. Which has had an impact, he said. "It's a grass-roots effort," he smiled. "Now you will see the children stopping the parents from going into the jungle to cut the wood. They will say without tiger, no rain. Without rain, no jungle, without jungle, no world." A bumpy 20-minute ride from Murlidhar's studio is the Women's Craft Center. In the heat of the afternoon, women in colorful saris sit in the shade of a traditional whitewashed Jaipur home, each carefully sewing small squares of fabric onto her own large quilt. They arrange themselves in a square, their handiwork forming a great heap of fabric in their midst. Some smile when I ask to take their pictures; others pull their fuschia or orange veils completely over their faces. These local women, ages 15 to about 40, have been hired to produce crafts such as quilts, block prints, embroidery. Some of their work, bedcovers, beautiful skirts with jangly little mirrors, saris, and fabric chickens, are sold here to the tourists who stop by. The work is also exported to shops in bigger towns, and some even finds its way to Europe and the United States. The crafts school was opened eight years ago, and has become a profitable business, a way to bring new income into the town. After three nights in Sawai Madhopur, I returned to the Imperial Hotel to overnight in Delhi and have dinner with Toby Sinclair, a big bear of a Scotsman and a much-welcomed sight in his khakis as I met him in the hotel lobby. Sinclair has studied and written about wildlife in India for 20 years. We sat in the bar and he gave me his take on the state of nature in India. We got into the complex problems of the protection of wildlife and the jungle in an age when corporations rule the world, and Disney is in the zoo business, and funds never seem to go quite where they should. Sinclair mentions a prominent zoo in the United States that has received a $5 million grant from Exxon for a captive-breeding program for tigers. So there will be more captive tigers in zoos; none of these captive animals are ever released into the wild, he said. Sinclair, who's lived here for 20 years, said it's probably just a matter of time before Ranthambore's tiger population self-destructs because of inbreeding in such a small habitat. But he wryly points out, "Tigers will never be extinct, because we'll always have them in zoos. But think how much could be done with that amount of money out here." Especially in India. We had feasted on mutta paneer and papadum roti and samosas and local Kingfisher beers, and the bill is just under $10. Sinclair had that kind of wild look in his eyes that tells you he's got a few stories to tell, but I had to do some writing and catch a plane at 6:50 a.m., so we shook hands reluctantly and the bear lumbered off down the vestibule and out of the Imperial Hotel. My next tiger hunt is in Nagarhole National Park, in the south, a much different landscape. Nagarhole, in the state of Karnataka, which has several national parks and protected areas, is a best-case scenario. Nagarhole National Park is, at 643 square kilometers, a much bigger, less contained space than Rathambore. It is also lusher with vegetation: teak and sandalwood and some ebony trees primarily, although the forest is still growing back from a spate of arson in 1992, when farmers and anti-poaching officials had a run-in. Near the Kabini River, which floods during monsoon season, the government has also allowed trees that would otherwise be at least partly submerged to be cut down for wood, and so there are vast landscapes of stumps. Ranthambore seemed to have a lot more animals per inch, because it was so crowded. Here, however, the population of tigers is bigger—about 50—and there are also 60 to 70 leopards. The roads are better and the jeeps can go faster, and the guides don't seem to be looking as hard. On my first game drive here, I shared a jeep with an Indian family, including a grandmother who said she has been coming to Kabini almost since the park opened 15 years ago. She has never seen a tiger. That seemed to be OK with her. She has seen several leopards and wild dogs, which are just as hard to spot. She sat with her tawny hands crossed in her lap and looked around with great acuity. This family is very, very quiet, and unlike some is excited at everything in the jungle, from a golden oriole to an elephant. The grandmother told me the park has changed little since she's been coming, but every year, there is more and more planting, more land around the park cut for agriculture. It is pressing in on the park. India is a breathtaking whirl of gorgeous temples and stunningly beautiful women in gorgeously colored saris, and filthy streets and dying sacred cows. Nepal—and Kathmandu in particular, where I flew into from Delhi—seemed like paradise. I came here because Nepal's Royal Chitwan National Park is supposedly a great place for seeing tigers, and also because Tiger Tops Lodge, within the park, is one of the oldest and best-known tiger-viewing establishments. Also because we can ride elephants, rather than in jeeps, on treks to see the tigers. Unlike jeeps, the elephants go wherever they want, and as the sun set on our first day in the park, 12 of us set off on the backs of six elephants, each with a guide on the back and a mahout, or elephant trainer, steering. We lumbered away from the round stone Gol Ghar, or meeting pavilion, at the lodge, where we have our meals, watch wildlife movies, and drink lots of strong tea and the occasional martini, into the forest. I have been on elephants before; their movement is a lovely, hypnotic sort of thing. The group dispersed as we came upon a wide meadow full of tall elephant grass, strawlike in the last days of the dry season. Looking over the field, we saw small masses of gray, little elephants floating in a tan, waving sea. My guide, Deni, ordered the mahout to hurry, he has seen something, and then started making angry sounds in Nepalese, which sounded like they were being directed at my elephant, who was obviously not going fast enough. The mahout pulled out a metal rod with a hook and a poker on one end, and banged my elephant on the head. I was horrified, and shouted, "Don't!" before I even had a chance to think. I shot a look of amazement at my guide, who said something to the mahout, who put the metal rod away and went back to his wooden pole to deliver commands. We reached our destination: a huge, wrinkled one-horned rhino, standing in a pool of mud, chomping on grass. The rhino, too, is on the endangered species list. I was awestruck that he was just standing there, oblivious to his fate. We passed a few more on our trek, including a mother and baby cooling off in a river. Deni has good eyes; all that showed were two pairs of ears and one pointed horn above the waterline. The elephants gathered at a meeting point halfway through our three-hour ride. It was time to start back; the sun was getting low in the sky. The guides compared notes about where they thought the tiger might be—in Nepalese, so we were not privy to the conjecture. The conversation ceased abruptly, and we all turned around and headed off in different directions. Deni had noticed "pugmarks," or footprints, of a tiger; he even knew which one. It was Nuna, a male, and the oldest tiger in the park. Our mahout steered the elephant slowly but purposefully toward a water source. Without warning, Deni hissed, "Tiger." I, of course, saw nothing. "Where, where?" I asked. "Open your eyes, girl!" Deni said. I looked harder, frustrated by my ineptitude as well as the tiger's dastardly perfect coloration. Finally I made out a pink nose, and saw the tiger lying in the grass by the water. The other elephants had been steered to the site, and there was a great commotion as the guides tried to form an orderly herd. "You see him? Take pictures, take pictures!" Deni shouted to me, low and urgent. Each guide wants his charge to be happy that he has seen a tiger and gotten evidence of it, too. The tiger was just a head in thick grass; through my telephoto, I could barely make him out. I shot anyway, and hoped for the best, as we backed up and went forward and the guides all yelled at each other. And then, the tiger roared. You have not lived until you've heard such a thing. A long, ominous, primal warning from the mists of time, it slices right to your marrow before you understand what's happened. So Nuna was springing forward even before the sound registered in my ears; his open snarl of a red mouth became the immediate center of my universe. The elephants, I am sure, have their own interpretation of this tiger language, and they began a panicky trumpeting and chaotic jostling. I wondered if tigers attack elephants, or vice versa. I wondered if I was about to be mauled and eaten by a fed-up tiger or simply crushed by hysterical vegetarian elephants. I thought, "This is a good way to go. Lots of fanfare." I kept an eye on the tiger and held on tight as the mahouts beat the elephants into further chaos. Then Nuna's golden fur melted into the grass, and he disappeared. We remained, shaken and sheepish. I don't blame Nuna for growling. I don't blame tigers for occasionally eating people. A tiger can take only so much. How much? How many more tigers can be spared to the poachers before the point of no return is reached? I have come back with conflicting reports, conflicting emotions, conflicting loyalties. The roar of the tiger echoes in my ears, its yellow eyes have burned an image into my mind's eye. I remember, too, Fateh Singh's observation, that you can tell people there is danger on the road ahead, and to turn back before they are destroyed. But some people just won't listen. "Tigers have a lust for life," Fateh Singh said, noting that they have been able to survive in all sorts of environments, from the heat of India to the icy world of Siberia. "If the tiger leaves the world, the world dies. The tiger is the current, the power. Once your power is gone, your strength is gone." IF YOU GO TO INDIA GETTING THERE: I flew into Delhi on Swissair via Zurich. Air India is the national carrier. By the way, Swissair has really great personal video screens in coach, with options for video and card games—really passes the time. Air India and Royal Nepal are the national carriers of their respective countries. Connections between India and Nepal (Kathmandu) can be made on various airlines; Jet Airways is reputed to be the best of the lot. I went on Indian Air, which was serviceable, although the food was some of the worst I've ever laid eyes on aloft. WHEN TO GO: June through October is monsoon season, when it is also extremely hot. November is a nice time to visit weatherwise, but the drier and hotter it gets before the monsoons, the better your chances of seeing wildlife, as they congregate near the diminishing watering holes. Of course, during these times of tension with Pakistan, you might want to check the poliotical situation before making plans. HEALTH PRECAUTIONS: It's a good idea to keep current on tetanus shots, and get a yellow fever vaccine. Also make sure to take some sort of anti-malaria regimen. Bring along medication for stomach viruses and other gastrointestinal ailments. My doctor told me I would almost certainly have problems, but thankfully I didn't. Delhi has beaten Mexico City and been crowned the most polluted city in the world. My asthma was absolutely aggravated, so I was glad I had extra-heavy-hitter medicine with me. Come fully armed. It is best to err on the cautious side always when it comes to water. DO NOT drink water from the tap, carafe, or flask, even though you may be told that it has been boiled and filtered. Stick to bottled drinks (bottled water is available almost everywhere in India and Nepal). AVOID brushing your teeth with tap water (use bottled or bring mouthwash). As a general rule, be mindful of anything you might put in your mouth, including postage stamps. For more information on health precautions, contact the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta at (404) 332-4559; fax, (404) 332-4565. WHAT TO BRING: No need to dress up while on safari, even in the former lodges of the maharajas. What is important is to be prepared for wide swings in weather from early morning through hot middays to cool nights. Wear clothes that blend in. Khaki, olive greens, or neutral colors fit in well in the game parks. It is best to cover up against the sun. Cottons are best, and hats. I found long, light cotton skirts were coolest and also fit in best with the tendency toward a more modest way of dressing in both India and Nepal. Sunglasses are a must. Big cities will have necessary supplies, but they may cost more than in the States. Jungle lodges are not terribly well equipped. Make sure you have enough batteries, film, and medication. Also pack a first aid kit, sunscreen, insect repellent, a supply of tissues, travel alarm clock. It's also a good idea to bring binoculars and a pocket knife. CURRENCY: The monetary unit in both countries is the rupee, but don't confuse them: Conversion is currently 42 Indian rupees, and 65 Nepalese rupees, to $1. Foreign exchange counters are at the airports, hotels, and banks; there are a few ATM machines in big cities. Usually the most convenient place to change money is in your hotel (in the cities), and the rates are competitive. Be sure to get some small rupee notes or coins for tips, items purchased in bazaars, etc. This is especially important if traveling to outlying areas away from major cities, where change is almost non-existent. Change money only with authorized money-changers and insist on a receipt, as this is required to reconvert unused rupees on departure. VOLTAGE: The usual voltage in India and Nepal is 220 AC, 50 cycles. Wall plugs are round, two- or three-pronged European type. It is important to bring adapter plugs for your dual-voltage appliances. ACCOMMODATIONS: In Delhi, I stayed at the quiet Imperial Hotel. At Ranthambore, there are no places to stay in the park itself. I stayed about 20 minutes away at the beautiful Sawai Madhopur Lodge, former hunting lodge of the maharajah of Rajasthan. It has 16 rooms, a pool, and peaceful surroundings. Call 91-7462-20541, 20247, or fax 91-7462-20718. At Nagarhole National Park, you can stay in the park at the Kabini Lodge, which has rooms, cottages, and tents. The tents are the cutest, set right in the woods. The wonderful buffet meals are in the Gol Ghar, a central pavilion where you can mingle with the other guests. In Nepal, Tiger Mountain offers three options for staying in Chitwan National Park: a tented camp, a treetop lodge, and a small lodge next to a local Tharu village, all in the park. For information, contact Tiger Mountain at P.O. Box 242, Kathmandu, Nepal; telephone 011-977-1-411225, or fax 011-977-1-414075; you can e-mail the company at info@tigermountain.com, or visit the Web site at www.tigermountain.com. TOURS: Numerous companies offer tiger treks, among them Mountain Travel-Sobek, (888) MTSOBEK, and Himalayan Travel, (800) 225-2380. Cox and Kings, which has been running tours in India forever, is another good bet. In Nepal, Tiger Mountain is a major tour operator. I worked with a New York-based company, Rare Earth Explorations, run by Nina Rao, a native of India and an expert in safari travel. She leads two tiger treks a year, and can also customize trips for individuals or groups. Contact Rare Earth, call (212) 686-7411, fax (212) 686-2366, e-mail info@rareearthexplorations.com, or check out www.wildindia.com. INFORMATION: For INdia, contact the Indian Government Tourist Office, 309 Rockefeller Plaza, Room 15, North Mezzanine, New York, N.Y. 10020l (212) 586-4901; (212) 582-3274 (fax). On line, begin your surfing at www.tourindia.com or www.indiagov.org. Nepal is in the midst of a (quiet) tourism campaign: "Visit Nepal '98." For information, call the Nepalese tourism contact in the United States at (818) 286-9092, or check out the Web site at www.south-asia.com/visitnepal98. — JILL SCHENSUL |
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