The setting was spectacular. The conversation wasn’t.
The sun had just set, painting the expansive Ram Ganga reservoir a breathtaking shade of pastel red. The grasslands, where a playful herd of wild elephants was wandering about, turned from gold to a deep orange while the folds of the Kumaon Hills to the north became a bit darker. This is where the magic of Corbett National Park comes alive — a picture perfect setting. It is little wonder that the lodge at Dhikhala, beside the reservoir deep inside the forests, is always so popular with wildlife enthusiasts.
But that dusk, there was a jarring note. One could hear rumbling from within a group of tourists who had just returned from an afternoon safari. As they came closer and then huddled together on a corner of the lawn, their grumbling broke through and drifted towards me.
“This is a scam. There’s no tiger- shiger here.”
“What shall we tell our friends back home? That we saw some funny-looking owl?”
“I want paisa vasool . Show us a tiger or refund my money.”
To this last one, there was a round of approval.
I moved away and wondered at how the elusive tiger was now being treated like a museum artefact, an attraction, somewhat like the Taj Mahal or the Eiffel Tower, which would always be there for everyone to see. A natural wonder that had always to be on call, show up diligently and without fail just because one had bought a wildlife package tour. Or is it because most of us still imagine the jungle to be a zoo where every creature big or small can be seen? It’s a bit of both, I guess.
The dining hall of any wildlife lodge is a hive every evening, where stories of the day are exchanged. Where a dyed-in-the-wool wildlife buff will silently share a table with an exuberant first-time visitor. Dhikhala was no exception.
“Did you see tiger?” a young lady suddenly asked me at the buffet counter, as I was choosing my salad.
I wasn’t prepared for the icebreaker. Before I could recover, she added, “We saw it during the afternoon safari.” Her companion, a man in his mid-thirties, nodded proudly.
“Wow. Congratulations. Did you take photographs?” I asked. her.
“No,” said the man, “We were on the elephant safari… could not aim and shoot so fast, you see.”
After dinner, I decided to meet Chacha for a round-up of the day’s sightings. Old Munawar Ali, Chacha to everyone, and his younger colleague are the two mahouts who conduct the elephant safaris from Dhikhala. A veteran of 26 years at Corbett, he is an encyclopaedia on the jungle around and always has a bagful of tales to narrate. I soon found the two men sitting in the darkness under a large jackfruit tree near the staff dining centre.
“We saw many birds and animals today,” Chacha said. “Barking deer, blue bull, wild boar, Asiatic jackal… and lucky to see a pair of great Indian hornbill.” Looking at his companion, he added, “They spotted a brown fish owl by the stream and a smooth-coated otter.”
“And tiger?” I asked.
“No tiger sighting today,” he said. “A kill was there...” he paused and continued, “And I knew the tigress would be around. We waited and saw some movement in the bush. But no sighting.”
I thought of the young lady and her companion at the buffet counter. Before I could say anything, Chacha put a finger on his lips and whispered, “Shhh. Can you hear the bird singing? Like a soft whistle? It’s the Blue Whistling Thrush.”
Barring hardcore wildlife enthusiasts, for large sections of tourists, wildlife tourism is something that has become cool and fashionable, aided by aggressive marketing by tour operators and some State governments. And with good reason. If well thought out, and this includes factoring in the carrying capacity of a jungle, wildlife tourism can achieve a lot that is positive. It can help conservation, serve to deter poaching, and even rejuvenate the local economy. But somewhere along the way, the idea that wildlife viewing is very different from other ‘touristy’ activities hasn’t caught on.
Unfortunately, bragging rights are primary. ‘Have you or have you not seen the big cat?’ And the pressure to be on the right side of that divide is so great that one may even imagine a tiger in front of you every time the bush rustles. It’s all about ‘what shall we tell our friends back home?’
This craze for a sighting is understandable but comes at a price — of near-complete indifference to the other amazing species of fauna and flora that you can find in the jungle.
It’s in the forest that you can distinctly see the amazing web of life where plants, animals and other elements of nature are all connected. Here, even a tiny wood spider lends its support to the ecosystem it cohabits with a mighty tiger. The jungle is where we humans can discover our own place in nature’s scheme of things — as a node in a continuum. The jungle is a serendipity waiting to unfold itself, if only we could learn to keep our social media compulsions under control and allow ourselves to be enveloped by its power.
Shafiq’s words still resonate in my ears. Shafiq was my guide when I was in Gir in Gujarat in search of lions. As we drove through the jungles, he said, “Two things city folk lack, sir.”
“What?” I asked.
“Patience.”
I nodded with a smile, little knowing I would soon get a crash course in it while waiting for lions.
“What’s the other?” I asked.
“Gracefully accepting what is offered by nature.”
This time I did not smile. We indulge in philosophical aerobics every day in our cities, buried behind our desks and computers, but the people close to nature realise them with ease and without pretention. The jungle is a great teacher.
Ashis Dutta is a Bengaluru-based software entrepreneur and wildlife enthusiast and a freelance writer. His articles on travel, music and culture feature regularly in publications in India, the U.S. and Canada. An avid traveller, he also speaks on Responsible Tourism and has published research papers, nationally and internationally, on tourism management.
ashisdutta@gmail.com
