The reluctant ‘Animal Lover’ (Bandhavgarh)

A gush of cold air on my nose and then a voice calling from some faraway land: Wake up sleepyhead we have reached! I hate cold nose especially if the nose happens to be mine and I HATE the word ’Wake Up’. I checked my watch and it was 10 past 3 in the morning. I pulled myself up from the backseat of the car. So, finally we are at Bandhavgarh!
Till then my escapades were confined to family trips to whom the wildest thing on this planet was me and hence they never felt the need to travel for a rendezvous with wilderness.
But this was different! I had just finished my Masters and started earning and was staying away from my parents and my city and had got my first tattoo. This was my first self-sponsored trip, my first trip without my parents and my first trip to a forest!
Aviroop was saying something about tiger sightings and morning safaris but I couldn’t care less, all I wanted was a warm bed. The manager was kind enough to have kept our food in the room. We hogged like hungry hyenas (I am not sure if hyenas ever get that hungry though but then anything for a good alliteration! ) and went off to sleep with pullovers, socks, gloves, cap et al. Around 5 am we got a wakeup call…we are supposed to go for a jungle safari! I was an ‘animal lover’ till it was confined to male Homo sapiens and I am certainly not the sort to lose my sleep over love.
However, with a lot of determination and courage I ‘unblanketed’ myself and the moment I stepped out of the room I could feel my pores freeze one at a time--it was 2 degrees! As I looked out, the silhouettes of the trees standing tall against the cloudless sky had a mystical glow on them, the moon was still visible but had started to lose its sheen, there was mist rising from the ground—it all seemed straight from a dream sequence. We wrapped the winter night over us and hopped onto the open jeep.
Apart from a very cheerful driver, we had a forest guard to keep us company. He told us that Bandhavgarh is the best place to see tiger as it boasts a very high density of the striped beast. Also, the tigers of Bandhavgarh are Natgeo and Discovery channel regulars and love being ogled at!
It was still too dark for a ‘sighting’. However, that didn’t stop an overenthusiastic Aviroop from discerning a striped fellow every now and then. As for me, I was too mesmerized by the beauty of the sepia-toned forest and intoxicated by the smell of the dew-drenched foliage.
The night died a slow death imbuing life into the forest and as the mist started to lift its cover we spotted quite a few other inhabitants of the forest- Nilgais, Chausinghas, Chitals, Chinkaras, Langurs, Monkeys, Wild Boars- if some were sucker for limelight and kept posing for photos, the others were too camera shy, whereas some simply chose ignore us—I had never imagined these creatures to be this endearing even outside Disney!
However, it was almost four hours and the god of 'sightings' was yet to smile upon us. All we had were a host of ‘false alarms’ in the form of langur and chital ‘calls.’ Unlike Aviroop, I had no fixation for tigers (till then) and was lapping up each smell, sound, sight of this new experience. But, finally the news came! There has been a ‘sighting’! The next few minutes were like a chase scene from a Bond movie. It was a mad race to be the first to reach the spot for the best ‘view’ and our jeep was the third to arrive. We got down and climbed an *elephant to take us closer to the tiger. Ours was a two-seater baby elephant with absolutely no manners and not an ounce of interest in tigers--all he seemed to care about were fresh leaves which he kept on munching. But, when we finally we reached the spot; my heart almost skipped a beat‑‑ there were four of them! Nestled in the bushes a doting mom and her three playful cubs feasting on a wild boar! It was one of the goriest sights I had come across and yet it was so breathtakingly beautiful! I instantly realised why Aviroop was obsessed with these creatures and what made William Blake write "What immortal hand or eye dare frame thy fearful symmetry?" If Michelangelo has his David, and Cezanne has his apples, Mr. God surely has the tigers!
Aviroop was still engrossed in the tigress and her cubs when I spotted a large full-grown tiger walking by. It had the gait of royalty and looked every bit like the king of the jungle. And it was so close to us that I almost stopped breathing and with as little movement as possible, I adjusted my camera and managed a perfect frame. I was about to press the shutter, when all of a sudden I heard a whisper in my ear: ‘Hey I love you! How about not being ‘just friends’ anymore? ’
Ahh what a perfect timing! I felt like bludgeoning him with a sledge hammer. “Do you realise I just missed my masterpiece because of you?” I was furious.
“Ah, that would be a yes then,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice and shifted his attention back from the lioness to the tigress. I somehow managed to stop myself from pushing him off the elephant.
However, while on our way back to the resort, as the warmth of the morning sun started to thaw my anger I realized I was in love as well. I was in love with the free-spirited wild animals and their antics, the first rays of sun piercing through the trees, the heady smell of the wet woods, the terrible beauty of the tiger, and also somewhat with the tiger-obsessed Aviroop!


*Elephant safaris are now banned in Bandhavgarh.