In tiger land

As efforts to save our national animal from extinction gather momentum through campaigns such as "Save Our Tigers", Lieut-Gen Baljit Singh (retd) visits Kanha National Park, known to many as Kipling country. It was the inspiration behind Rudyard Kipling’s famous classic The Jungle Book

BIRD song and bird sightings are an exciting part of an excursion to any wilderness refuge. But when a national park of some 2,000 sq km is known to harbour over 300 of India’s bird species, it is natural that dawn literally "explodes" with bird song. So for the moment one happily reclines in the Gypsy-seat, enjoying the rare, three-dimensional avian symphony and relegating bird identities per se to another time later.

Shortly, the sun crested the treetops and penetrated the morning mist, lighting up the jungle pathways. All eyes shifted focus to the edges of the treadways because that is where mammals would have left their footprints upon the fine, dust carpet. It is natural that one strains with anticipation to pick up the pugmarks of the charismatic tiger, above all else. But more often than not, the presence of the tiger will be revealed by the alarm calls of the jungle folks. However, in the instant case, just when chances of sighting appeared bleak, we were jolted upright by the unexpected roar from a tiger himself.

It is not usual for tigers to roar, even in a sheltered wilderness. However, in the mating season when a male chances upon the scent-spray of a receptive female, he spontaneously responds with an inviting roar. As we happened to be at the terminal phase of the annual breeding cycle, the male roared twice again over a 20-minute span. And of course there is just no other jungle sound that is both mesmerising and at the same time fearful as the tiger’s deep throated "a-oomh"!

Our experienced guide adduced the three spots the tiger had called from and headed towards the spots. We sped to the Kanha-East meadow and indeed, witnessed the tiger cross the path about 50 metres ahead. The sun was high and the tiger moved with haste both to reach the cool of the stream ahead, as also to the shelter of bamboo thickets from heat and inquisitive eyes.

On either side of mid-day, bird song diminishes to a few chortles now and then. And that is when birds’ identities are easier. The high point of the visit is not necessarily to spot the unsighted species, as even the once commonest of birds of our countryside have been now rendered rare by the rapid march of urbanisation. One bird that can be sighted in abundance at the Kanha tiger land is the red-breasted barbet.

Interestingly, the vernacular names of birds are often so suggestive and expressive that pegging a bird’s identity is quite fun. Take for instance the red-breasted Barbet that to the earlier generations was better known simply as "The Coppersmith". Now almost every township in India had a street where copper sheets were daily hammered into a whole range of kitchen utensils. The sound of the copper artisans at work and the call of the bird are so alike. Hence the name! But even more specific of our culture is the other colloquial name of the bird chota basantha derived, no doubt, from his multi-coloured, rich plumage.

Kanha is also the only home of the last population of about 300 hard-ground barasinghas, a majestic sub-species of the Indian swamp deer. My cup of joy spilled over when a regal-looking stag stood revealing his soulful intent to a group of females and at the sometime posted a warning to other stags on the margins of his home range.

At another location the next day, there was this family of five langoors in perfect domestic bliss. A year-old specimen scratched for termites from a decaying tree trunk, while the grandmother tenderly cradled an infant as she also kept vigil, and yet another picked lice from the scalp of the mother!

My luck had not run its course, quite yet. On the penultimate evening in the company of a scientist from the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, we got inordinately delayed inside the park. We were some 3 km short of the Kisli exit gate when a tiger suddenly strode across the Gypsy’s light beam. He was on a crossroad, so turning left we closed to within 5 metres and followed him for nearly 2 km.

Unmindful of our proximity, the tiger appeared possessed by the millenniums old, procreative genetic code whose deeply embedded sensors were now guiding his actions. Every 10 to 20 paces, he would check his stride, leave his bodily perfume by rubbing against a tree trunk to signal his availability to a female and at the same time post a warning to any males speculating in his domain. Occasionally, he would spray liquid on a tree trunk and then turn to check on its olfactory potency, as is a tiger’s wont!

In the pitch of darkness, all I could see and clearly was the tiger in the light beam. My adrenalin was at full flush, or how else would I account for 20 film frames exposed with a 30- year-old, manually controlled, non-digital camera. The adrenalin was to reach a new high when a few days later the processed film showed three photographs which complement William Blake’s famous lines to perfection:

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