In last one year I developed
a habit of going for trekking/trailing/hiking almost in every weekend,
continuously. Other than these small weekend trips, I have been to many places
in India as well. No wonder I love travelling, no matter what kind of place it
is. But one place I could never hit is Jungle. It doesn't matter whatever the
reason is, but the fact is I have never been to any jungle. So when someone
shares his experience of jungle, I don’t miss the chance to jump onto it. This
is a story I heard from one of my brother’s friend. I am trying to narrate the
story in his language.
It was around mid
November. We four friends planned for Bandhavgarh National Park. Our group is
full of passionate jungle lovers, so whenever we plan anything, we plan for
jungle only. When we reached Bandhavgarh, we didn’t know that this was going to
be our most thrilling adventure ever. This time we are carrying SLR cameras
also to capture the moments. Normally we do avoid cameras, because what we
believe is, a camera spoils the mood of the trip. In our schedule, we planned
only three days to stay in the buffer state of the jungle. Very first day we
opted for the elephant ride. It was fun. The mahoot took us to a 3 hrs long
ride. All eight pairs of eyes were searching for tiger. We were pretty sure
that it was an easy job finding something yellow in all different shades of
green. But unfortunately we didn’t find any until the mahot pointed out to
something. Yes it was a tiger, resting under a tree. But it was far away from
us. He didn’t even bother that we were around. That’s the only tiger we saw in
the entire 3 hrs journey. Next day we were looking for more. The mahoot said we
need to go deep inside the jungle for more fun, we agreed. But end of day, we
returned with a hell lot of disappointment. It was not that we didn’t see
tiger, but the entire day wasn’t thrilling. In the second day evening after
returning back we asked the mahoot to take us to the jungle by walking. We
wanted to feel the vibes of the jungle by standing on our own feet. He laughed
on our childish approach and denied our proposal straight away. We told him
that no need to go deep into jungle, only a km or so walking would be
sufficient for us. But he wasn’t ready as he was a government employee and he
might lose his job by doing so. But in these two days we heard so many stories
from the gatekeeper, the cook, the mahoot, a sense of desperation was boiling
inside us. In the night time we gave another try. In the attempt we got hold of
the mahoot’s nephew. He agreed to take us to the jungle by walking. Without
putting much effort we convinced the teenage boy for this for a nominal amount
of money.
Next day morning we
woke up very early with all the excitement. As per advice we put two layers of
socks just to avoid under bush insect attacks. Odomos and every other
precaution were already taken. The deal was, the guy will take us through the
lighter part of the jungle for one hour. We will give him some extra money if
he can show us some deer or any harmless creature. Definitely we were not
expecting more than this in the outer region of the national park. We saw a big
bolo knife kind of thing in his hand. It was required. Without chopping down
the big grass (till our chest height) we can’t even think walking in the
jungle. We took lot of snaps of birds and the jungle; it was really a thrilling
experience I must say. Once we were about to start our return journey suddenly
we realized a big silence in the jungle. Our guide just turned around and put
the index finger on his mouth indicating us not to make noise.
“If you give me 500 Rs
right now, I will show you something which you will never forget in your life”
– He whispered in front of us.
Within a second our
hearts started beating faster than ever. We understood he must be talking about
showing tiger, but we were not sure how can we see a tiger standing on the
ground. The question was, seeing a tiger here is not possible then what kind of
stuff he was going to show us.
We gave him 500 bucks
and asked him whether it would be risky or not.
“Sir you are
walking through the jungle of Bandhavgarh and expecting no risk!!! Just have
faith on me and don’t make any noise. Follow exactly what I tell you to do. And
please no camera at the spot.”
Once we said we are
ready, he put his bolo knife inside the scabbard hanging from his belt. Our only weapon to fight with wild animal is also
locked down into the scabbard. Till that
time he was chopping the grass, now he started walking by dodging the big
grass. We were just quietly following him. We walked for another 2-3 mins
before we stopped. Again he turned back and indicated us to keep quiet and not
to move from where we were. The next thing he did was walked two steps forward
and moved the grass aside to give us a clear vision to the other side of that
bush.
What we saw just made
us speechless. Something got stuck on my throat, my heart stopped beating for a
while. I felt someone was holding my hand firmly. My legs were shaking; I
didn’t know how I could able to stand there.
It was a tiger, just
100 ft away, sitting on a dead dear facing us. His mouth was red with the blood
of the deer. The stunning thing was, the tiger was staring at us. He was very
much aware of our presence. Later I thought why I didn’t try to find some big
tree to climb up (Though I never tried that). But the fact was, we lost
controls on our actions. I was just waiting for the time when the tiger will
jump on us. Suddenly I heard the guide whispering again.
“Just walk backwards
without losing the eye contact with the tiger”
We did exactly what he
said just like a robot. After taking 10-15 steps backward, he asked us to run,
the sweetest command in that situation. We all had five minutes of
directionless running before the guide stopped us. The moment we stopped, we
all pounced on him, scolding him for his irresponsible behavior. But he didn’t
move at all with all the comments.
”You all were
safe there”, calmly he said.
“I was pretty sure the
tiger won’t leave his prey, as he doesn’t get that majestic lunch very often.
Moreover if you keep the eye contact maintained, it will never pounce on us.
That’s the basic rule of jungle; no one attacks till the eye contact is
maintained.”
I don’t remember how
we managed to drag ourselves back to the cottage. But honestly this is the most
thrilling experience I ever had in my life.