Day One

It was a difficult thing to do but despite all the excitement, I managed a good four and a half hours of sleep the night before leaving. I woke up at 4:30am on the 19th of May. I had kept everything ready to leave and after a quick shower, I was on my way at 5am.The weather was surprisingly cold for this time of the year, when the mercury is normally knocking the roof of the 40s. The first change from previous trips became quite apparent. The desire to reach the destination sooner was much more severe when you're alone. It did not make me go any faster but it made me keep delaying any kind of a halt until I realised I had reached Ramnagar, which is the small town on the outskirts of Corbett National Park. It had been a delightful and peaceful journey, except for the one traffic jam at Moradabad, which one has now come to expect anyway.One sometimes wonders whether the journey would lose some of its fizz without Moradabad and it's speeding cyclists, pedestrians and cycle-rickshaws whizzing past you!

Although there is an ongoing discussion about their accuracy and dependability, pugmarks still form the basis of any tiger / panther census

I was in Ramnagar at 10am, just in time to receive my first shock. I had sent many requests to the authorities to try and put me up at the Gairal huts. This was for two reasons. They are my very favourite accommodating in the park and also the staff there have almost become like family. A majority of the 1999 census had been spent walking the jungles with them. However, I had been slotted in at the Bijrani Rest House. I wasn't too upset about the fact until I realised that unlike last time, this time tourists and day-trippers were being allowed into the park during the census operations. Bijrani is in the middle of the area that is frequented by all the tourists staying outside the park, including the picnickers. I was even more surprised to learn that vehicle movement was being allowed in the park after 8am. The previous time all vehicular movement was suspended in the park between 5am and 5pm. After a lot of talking and convincing, I was shifted to the Sarapduli Rest House. It was made to appear that lots of people were here this time for the census and everyone had to be rotated among the different beats. Somehow, once inside the park, one only got to know of 6 other volunteers. Two that left by the 3rd day and 3 that rotated along with me. Anyway, I guess the authorities must have had their reasons.

After refueling the car at Ramnagar, I headed away from the din of horns, hawkers, loud diesel engines and entered the park. The effect was as wonderful as ever. All muscles and nerves instantly relaxed, the mind was fresh and the eyes felt soothed. A hilarious signboard on the way to the gate also got me into a jovial mood. As all the talking at the office had taken a while, it was 12:30pm by the time I drove into the forest. I drove without paying too much attention to the jungle as I knew one rarely comes across too much wildlife at this time of the day. However, nature has it's way of always proving your thinking wrong. By the time I reached Khinanauli, to meet my favourite man in the park, I had already seen monitor lizards, barking deer, spotted deer, sambhar deer, elephants (from a distance!), jungle fowl, a mongoose and quite a large variety of birds. After some simple but delicious lunch with Tripathiji over excited discussion ranging from the recent elephant poaching incidents to my nonexistent marriage plans, we relaxed a while before it was time to head out for my first walk into the jungle this census.

Luckily the tusker decided to move in the opposite direction

We took a route that headed down from the Khinanauli forest rest house to the dry riverbed area known as Getheryo. We had gone just a little over 400 yards when Tripathi pointed ahead to the left. There ahead of us, staring straight in our direction, was a handsome and huge tusker! He watched us as we edged warily forward, never taking our eyes off him. These animals have become quite accustomed to seeing vehicles and ride elephants but one can never tell how they will react on seeing someone on foot.

As we were around 30 yards from him, he suddenly let out a loud trumpeting bellow. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks! Surprise - surprise! The tusker thrashed through bushes like they were huge balls of cotton but luckily he was heading away from us!

We reached close to the riverbed without further incident. Just as we were climbing down towards a small channel of water snaking it's way through the rounded white stones, we heard the loud and unmistakable alarm call of a spotted deer. It was to our left, in the direction of the sun, which was already quite low in the sky. The water in the stream shimmered and reflected the golden light in all it's glory. However, this totally blinded our vision. We crossed the stream, trying to hop from stone to stone in vain. Watching the others wobble over loose rocks and one by one slip into the water up to their knees, I decided there was no point even attempting it. I just splashed straight in. I'm really glad I did. The moment I stepped into that cool-cool water, half the fatigue in the legs from the long drive just vanished. We sploshed and squelched our way across the sand on the other side, trying our best to find some pugmarks. The only ones we came across were from the previous day, which was obvious from the amount the edges had been rounded off by the action of the wind over many hours.

On our way back, we could see Phoolkali (Flower bud) grazing in the grassland next to the watchtower. She is the ride elephant used from Khinanauli. As we went around a few bends we lost sight of her for a while. As we approached the watchtower, I turned around to see her behind us. I was quite surprised that she had covered such a large distance in such a short time. Then I realised my oversight!!

The next time I turned around, one elephant had turned into many !

That wasn't her! There she was, still merrily grazing ahead of us. I turned once again to look at the one behind. One had by now turned into four and there were still more emerging. We were a safe distance away and enjoyed watching them for a while before carrying on.

After getting back to Khinanauli, we were having a delicious cup of tea, when all of a sudden a rifle shot thundered across the forest. This was followed by a few more. Each one sent all the birds and animals scurrying for cover. We learnt that it was a VIP who had been obstructed by a tusker, whom we could now see in the grasslands ahead. I don't think the many deafening shots fired in the air had made any difference to him. I think just a little... more patience might have been a better option. I have quite often seen pretty calm tuskers get agitated and charge only after shots are fired in panic. We weren't even carrying a gun on our trek earlier. It was now 6:30pm and it was time to head to Sarapduli, where I would be spending the night.

I got to Sarapduli without further incident. As the light was still quite good, I got some decent shots of the mischievous tusker that had obstructed our esteemed VIP. At the rest house I made some great friends with a very like-minded trio who had also come to participate in the census. Geeta, Suresh and Guri were from the town of Bareilly and they sure made my stay at Sarapduli a much more enjoyable one. We had dinner together that night. They'd already been there a day and had had an interesting encounter the previous evening. While they were sitting out in the verandah, enjoying their refreshments, Guri had suddenly found a Krait that had quietly slipped onto his lap unnoticed! A close encounter not for the faint hearted!

The first day finally came to an end with me slowly slipping into a slumber amidst alarm calls of a barking deer that sounded terrified. I remember waking up for a minute at 3:30am. He was still barking his call and his voice sure sounded hoarse by then. Good night Mr. Barking Deer...I had to wake up at 5am and I was going right back to sleep...

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