One Hour in Bandhavgadh

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.