A date with Tadoba Tiger

Spread over 625km² in the Chandrapur district, Maharashtra’s oldest and largest National Park, the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve is rich and varied with tropical dry deciduous forest. Though Tadoba is a teak realm with crocodile bark trees, Tendu and Mahua prominent amongst the other species, I was seeing Bamboo everywhere! A healthy tiger density, virgin forest, indigenous tribal culture, eco-sensitive and less commercialized tourism define Tadoba. From January to March, Tadoba explodes into a riot of colour, painting the tiger-downtown yellow and red. The Park is rich in wetland, too - the Tadoba and Kolsa Lakes and marsh vegetation. Jamni Village is situated inside the core area and is soon to be resettled outside the park which is awfully needed.

We reached Tadoba via Nagpur at 11 o’clock on a late December morning. That afternoon around 2 o’ clock, my friends and I decided to go on our first safari inside the “Tadoba zone” of TATR. Sighting a tiger in the wild is always a chance, and we must take ours!

It was just an hour we had been into the park when we noticed a large number of vehicles parked on the main road. As we joined the gang, we saw huge Pandharpauni (P2) tigress coming out of the thickets towards where we parked ourselves. No scorching summer; on a chilling winter afternoon, we got our first and most awaited “darshan” of this magnificent beauty crossing the path mutely and majestically giving us a good 10 minutes to stand, stare and capture the grandeur in cameras and memories forever. This is what incredible tadoba is. And being rewarded with a sighting of the apex predator so early on in the safari, made it even more incredible! 

She was fully grown 4-years old female searching for her mating partner in the wild and came across “well-informed” us sitting in gypsies and yearning for a glimpse of her appearance. Her skin texture was rich, those black stripes standing out gaudily against the orange. Such natural elegance! She looked relaxed about the presence of our jeeps, and yet alert - looking out in every direction, sniffing around for clues. Was she worried about us - the intruders, or was she herself intruding? She went about her business of inspecting and soon vanished into the undergrowth.

We moved our gypsies and followed her pug-marks along the trail wondering if she was lurking around or has moved on, leaving us breathless and fanatic. That “if” caused all our excitement to meet an anti-climax. After about half-an-hour, we found her again on the bank of a lake. She was getting ready to take her afternoon bathe and we, waiting at a distance of a few feet, were getting all the more obsessed to witness and arrest each of those wild moments. She took a swim, head above water, paddling to the shallow edge of the lake and climbed back onto the land on the other side of the lake. She sprayed urine on one of the Arjun trees over there to scent-mark her territory and soon managed to disappear again into the bushes leaving no clue for us to stalk her any longer.  

It kept us in awe for quite some time. We were left to wonder how vulnerable this wild young Tigress to us – the humans. What if she gets too close to us - radical, social networkers? What if she falls prey to the poachers? Certainly this gorgeous young girl of Tadoba is worthy of a fair shot at life - to be able to have her own sphere of influence and raise her cubs.

Following that, Tadoba surprised each of our next safaris with a galore of extraordinary flora and fauna.

The highlights are Marsh or Mugger Crocodile found in Tadoba Lake, strong and massively built Indian Bison sloppily browsing on tree leaves, a pack of 8 Wild Dogs crossing our way and feeding on a dead crow, sloth bear scrapping trees with his fore-paws and a variety of birds, besides a plenty of Sambar stag, barking and spotted deer, Wild Boar, feisty Ruddy Mongoose and Hanuman Langur.

Here is my story of Tadoba! And my experience is surreal, to be treasured for all time….!

Somnath Darshan - A Divine Experience

A powerful experience – when you stand in the majestic courtyard of the Somnath Temple with an endless vista of the Arabian Sea ahead of you roaring and rejoicing the presence of one of the first of the 12 Jyotirlingas towering along the seashore. 

We reached the temple at around 6:30 in the evening by driving 55 kilometres from Junagarh where we stayed. The maha-aarti started sharp at 7 PM with thousands of awestruck devotees who came together, filled with reverence and unworldliness. The elaborately decorated jyotirlinga deeply fascinated us. There was a big LCD screen telecasting the live aarti of Lord Shiva jyotirlinga. Watching the aarti was beatific – all our sophisticated senses were numb – sharing a feeling of oneness with the mass – the unprecedented religious zeal that kept intensifying with the sound of dhol kartal being played at its loudest best. 

The aarti was a booster in the true sense, it knocked up our life force, we felt elevated emotionally, and found a discreet calmer soul within that unlike our usual egos and super-egos wanted to sink into the sheer goodness of humanity – spirituality achieved in all sense. 

To see the sea waves breaking over the beach at the base of the Temple was as invigorating as it could be – like a slice of watermelon on a sweltering afternoon, it kept us entranced until we realized that we had to make a move as the way back to Junagarh passed through the jungles of girnar. 

Nevertheless, you are religious or not, remember - no vehicles are allowed near the temple due to security reasons. No Camera, purse, bags, belts are allowed - there is a locker room where you can keep your belongings, lock the box and keep the key with you and return it to take back your belongings. 

Aarti is performed 3 times a day at 7 AM, 12 PM and again at 7 PM. The Darshan is well-managed, quick and easy as there is no one inside the main temple who keep harassing the devotees for anything, unlike other Hindu temples. While at Somnath, make sure you are fully and decently clad while entering the temple premises, especially if you are a woman.

Gir National Park

Initially when I started my expedition with a miniature pocket-candy – a 5 megapixel camera, only the big cat would allure me to visit jungles, until I actually started understanding and cherishing the wildlife in toto. The fascination of seeing a Lion (particularly the Male one, with glistening mane and persona) was only after I saw Lion King - the animation movie, and yes, funnily enough, after I realized there is even another big cat besides our own royal bengal tiger! 

We headed for Junagarh by Saurashtra Mail during our extended diwali weekend. We drove about 60 kms to our abode for the next 3 days “Gir Birding Lodge” in Sasan. An exquisite property sharing the same boundary wall with the Gir National Park and situated next to the Gate No. 2 check post.

Gir is one of the largest tracks of dry deciduous forest. The park has a vast landscape covering hills, plateaus, valleys and is drained by seven rivers and a waterbody called Kamleshwar dam which makes the topography of the forest picturesque.

I guess it’s not hard to spot a lion resting or sleeping at Gir National Park, but to find them with a kill, or drinking water needs some patience and lots of luck!

Unlike Tigers, lions are family animals and 2 male brothers can stay together, share lionesses and territories.
MA Wynter-Blyth, a famous naturalist pointed this fact. He said, “The lion is much bolder, more fearless of man and less cunning than the tiger and so is much more easily shot. This explains the disappearance of the noble animals from all its other Indian haunts whilst the tiger manages to maintain its numbers.”

The ideal way to look for a lion is through pug-marks and alarm calls. There are no Lion shows like Bandhavgarh or Kanha, but the Rescue team of the Gir forest does an early round to locate the lions / groups and check if there is any medical/emergency need.

We spent two days at Gir National Park in Gujarat - the last abode of the Lions in India – and had three lion sightings on the first day itself. Wonder how? Well, I guess it had something to do with the park being less packed with less of noise during the morning safari at 6:30 AM. We got ready for our first session in the forest. The sky was jet black and it still felt midnight at 6:30 AM with the temperature as low as 10 degree Celsius. Ours was the first jeep to enter the forest. This was just right as we could spend more quality time undisturbed photography of wildlife not alarmed by the noise made by tourist vehicles.

As we ventured deeper into the forest carpeted with golden wild grass and jade bushes all around, we could feel our pulse beating faster; we kept camera at the ready.

The first female we spotted in our safari was fast asleep at quiet a distance; with no more movement there, our guide suggested we move on for the lookout of others and soon we were able to locate the two personas just a leap or two away. We felt the first chill of the trip up our spines. 

We could not afford to miss spotting a few of Sambar, Spotted Deer, Chowsingha (Four-horned Antelope), Chinkara, Nilgai, Langur and a Jackal on route 2,6.

Gir boasts of numerous bird species like White Necked Stork, Paradise Flycatcher, Black headed Cuckoo Shrike, Bonneli's Eagle, Crested Serpent Eagle, Painted Storks, Pied Woodpecker, Woodpeckers Flamingo etc. And as someone rightly said, that if there were no lions at Gir, it would have been the country’s biggest bird sanctuary! We spotted many of such rare species of birds along our way back.

 Gir is also home to a number reptiles like Marsh Crocodiles, Monitor Lizards, Pythons and a wide variety of snakes. No, we did not spot any. But hey, we don’t regret, after all we saw what we came to Gir for – the lion king!

Contented with having spent enough time with the lions (wouldn’t mind spending some more but then we have to adhere to park timings), we went back to the hotel to rest and get ready for the next day.

Around 7:30 PM the next evening, while having a good time over coffee and phaphra, we heard our security guard of the resort yelling at the security guard standing at the check post of the forest next to our resort gate, “એક ચિત્તા છે ! પાછા પગલું !” (There is a leopard! step back!). We came running to the main gate and all we could see was the tail of the leopard. The security guard at the check post told us later that night that leopard is a shy animal as far as human beings are concerned unlike lions.  It came out of the wild, crossed the tar road ahead of resort and quickly slinked away into the thickets without giving us anytime to track it down.

The exceptional side to Gir is that it houses the local tribals – Maldharis- cattle grazers who live upon cattles and milk, Sorathi Rabaris and Siddi’s who look like Negros and speak Gujarati and are believed to have come to Gujarat in medieval times from African countries. Ideally, Maldharis and Lions stay together in the same domicile - the Gir forest.

However, please be aware that there is strict following of a route. For eg. if you are allotted route No. 2, you have to be there and follow the same till the exit. Gir allows 30 Jeeps per safari, which is lesser, but across 3 timings 90 jeeps are okay. But in the peak season like summer, this would become a key challenge from tourists’ perspective in peak season like summer.

So, overall 3 days in Gir alone should be a great fun for sure. But if you act like a staunch tourist wanting to cover Diu, Somnath, Veraval, Junagadh, Gir etc. in all the 3 days, then, my recommendation is don’t insult and bother Gir all the way – please visit the zoo or circus nearby to see the Lion!