“Only
when you go to the forests you start understanding how much civilized wild
animals are & how much uncivilized we the humans are actually”…
This is what I felt (I mean once again) while I was on the dusty roads with summer heat of tadoba, & if you wonder why suddenly such a criticism for our human race then let me tell you, every time when I visit forests there is something new to learn. Rather put it like this, it’s always there, the knowledge, but I understand it in a new way & this can happen with anybody, all we need to do is, be in sync with the forest we are visiting! As of late if you come across the news in our concrete jungle what you read, it’s all about frauds, cheating, road rage fights, drugs & yes abusing women (rape as per the latest news from Jharkhand that too of an international tourist who was our country’s guest) & yes, road kills of wild animals along with ever encroachment on wildlife habitats & nobody speaks a single word or raise voice about it; can we call this as a sign of civilization & culture, no, is the answer! Each of us hear, see, read about wrong things being done by other humans but we ignore them saying we are not part of it & move on, this is what I call as an uncivilized act of the humans! Because in the forest when a monkey or a sambhar deer or a spotted deer which are prey of tiger, sense a predator around then they immediately raise the alarm call in a typical voice alerting all other species about the presence of the tiger which is a danger & helps in saving respective lives! And they keep raising alarm till the tiger doesn’t moves away from their eye-sight & here the tiger is not wrong on its side, as hunting these animals is his only way to feed itself yet for these animals a tiger is a threat & they raise voice against it! Actually, when a sambhar or a spotted deer or a monkey see or sense tiger’s presence then as that alone deer can skip saving its own life yet it take risk to alert all other animals because it knows that today it has seen the tiger first but tomorrow some other deer may see the tiger first & this way only all can be safe!
Guys, every day we see
some vehicle jumping red signal on our city’s roads, some goons misbehaving
with school girls on the streets or somebody selling illegal things or doing
any wrong act such as tree cutting, but we don’t raise alarm as we just think
of our own comfort & forget that tomorrow it may be our turn to become
victim of such wrong deed & that time had anybody alerted us we would have
saved but that’s possible only when we raise an alarm today by our self, right? This reality, I understood during my recent trip to
tadoba as we were waiting at a water hole, it was hot noon & Central Indian
summer was sinking in & surprisingly there was no animal on the water hole
even when there was no water nearby in that area. This means, there was a tiger
somewhere around which the deer & monkey must have sensed, so they too were
keeping away from the water hole. We decided to wait & to our confirmation
there was an alarm call of a smabhar deer behind the bund-wall of the water
hole, confirming presence of the tiger. Sambhar deer’s alarm call (a peculiar sound animal makes to indicate
danger) is considered as guaranty of a predator around as unless it actually sees
the tiger or leopard, it won’t give an alarm call but this time it just gave
call twice & everything went silent. This means the sambhar deer has seen
the tiger but it must be sleeping so the sambhar stopped giving alarm calls but
it didn’t come to water hole & we decided to wait. We waited for nearly an
hour during which other gypsy’s patience evaporated just like the pond water evaporates
in the tadoba heat & most vehicles moved away to search elsewhere (tiger,
what else) but we relied on the civilization of forest world (sambhar call)
& decided to wait & suddenly head of the tiger appeared on the bund-wall
of the water hole with no alarm calls because by that time all the deer must
have moved away! After that, the tiger relaxed in the water for nearly one more
hour, here again till it won’t drink the water & yawn for three four times
it usually won’t get up from the water & we waited to happen that! After
one & half hour the tiger drank water, yawned & got up from the water
started swimming towards us & suddenly the alarm calls started ringing all
around as now the danger was on move, we have witnessed the perfect civilized
show of the forest life!
This is how the Year 2024 has started & what better
destination could it have been than tdaoba for the first forest trip of the
year & so I reached Kolara gate! The best thing was, in the entire last
year's forest trips, every time it has rained at least for at least a day &
during this trip sky was clear blue when I reached Tadoba & fortunately
remained so for three days, which itself was the good omen, lol! I don’t blame
nature god & I love to be in forests even in rains but sitting in a gypsy with
its hood pulled up, it becomes a bit difficult to enjoy the wilderness, is a
fact! This trip as usual was full of highs & lows with luck shining for
just a few minutes with some special sightings (though every minute is special
in the forest) such as sighting of blackie, the melanistic leopard of tadoba! Here
are some more stories from the trip…
Luck can meet you in Black also...!!
A cool
morning but with complete silence engulfing forest & just an alarm call of
sambhar from deep within the bamboo ocean around & nature's call to myself,
we decided to go for the rest-room at tadoba centre via the route from where
the alarm call has come & on the turn saw long ahead a black dot walking on
road!! It was the melanistic black leopard akka Blackie of tadoba! Here the
driver's experience matters as excitedly he tried to slightly raise the speed
which was enough to make the shy animal get alert & vanish into thickest
along the road, yet we could see him was a big luck!! Whenever in the forest if
you encounter animals like leopard, civet cat or sloth bear it's better to stop
the gypsy where ever it is, get shots from that distance and then slowly try to
get a bit closer as this way you at least get some shots because these animals
are not like the tiger which is unruffled by your presence & keep walking. I
have been reading about presence of this black leopard in tdaoba since last
three years & I must have visited tdaoba nearly ten times in the last three
years yet it took this day for the sighting of it, that’s how things work in
the forests!
Moods of a Tiger!
It was late
evening already & we were on the opposite side of Navegaon gate & in
front of us was a forest vehicle & a tiger male subadult was sitting right
in the middle of the road, giving a hoot for anything! The RFO saw our cameras
(and our face anxiety) and pulled his vehicle aside & let us go ahead, a
great gesture & keeping one eye on watch I tried to get one shot where the
tiger will look in the camera but the fellow was just to engrossed in his mood
& I kept clicking & just when we decided to give up & turn back,
for a moment he obliged us by looking at me straight in camera & bang, I
could click it! Though the one look he gave me from the corner of his eyes just
before looking at the camera was special, like he was teasing me for the shot I
wanted, that's what a tiger is, it lives by its own rules & not ours...!
--
And many
such stories I caried back along with the images & post my trip I
encountered some interesting incidences about wildlife which I will be sharing
here. On FB somebody posted series of images of kill of a domestic bull by a
tiger on main road in Pilabhit sanctuary (UP) & on those images few people have
commented about immorality or say it’s a wrong thing to post such violence of
social media & glorify the same! My reply was as below…
... Actually, it’s an excellent documentation that how
tigers are adopting loss of their habitats due to humans only! As cow or
domestic buffalo is not its real food but poor fellow doesn’t have any choice
but to come in open & kill domestic animals for its hunger, keeping due
respect for their fate but had it not been cow then it would have been some
deer or wild boar! And do mind we the humans are more savage than the tiger who
has forced it do so! I understand your feelings that its cruel to watch an
animal being killed by a tiger but humans are lot crueller than that; check
internet & you will see that in the time of any accident most people are
busy in shooting the scene & making reels than helping the victims, here
what is happening is nature as that bull is natural food of the tiger & no
wild animal ever kill without reason, unlike we the humans do many such things!
And then, in the gym during a short break from work-out a
fellow lady member commented that she wanted to see a tiger but she has decided
not to go to the forests as she thinks we are disturbing the animals by going
in the forests to watch them! With due respect to her care & sentiments for
wildlife I tried my best to explain her…
... Miss, I come from Vidarbha where still human pulls
rickshaws manually & it’s a torture to watch them pull another human’s load
in hot summer or rains but that’s how they are supposed to earn their livelihood
as they are not beggars to accept money without efforts, is what I used to tell
the guests at our home from Mumbai/Pune when they used to refuse to sit in such
manual rickshaws! Same way, if we want to make the wild animals & forests
to be protected then we must make sure that the people around these forests
survives & the only possible way is wildlife tourism! And if somebody
doesn’t ever see a tiger then how it will love it & will make effort to
protect it, right? And one more aspect, had our presence been so disturbing
than how come the numbers of the tigers is increasing in tadoba, this means if
we visit forests with some rules to follow & keep safe distance, we can achieve
both things that is protect the forests as well enjoy being in them, is the
way! Hopefully, she understood & agreed!
--
Friends, as I said, forest is a
school which is open twenty-four hours & three sixty-five days of the year,
it’s up to us how & when we want to enrol our name in this school &
what we take out from it & how we use this knowledge; with this
understanding I said bye to the tadoba forest with a promise to return soonest...!
tiger mowgli full show of swim, check at the link belwo..tadoba feb 24
-
Sanjay
Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
Please view my sharing about finding a Right
Home/ Office in Pune, at YouTube link below & share if liked...
https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?si=-ODYBxVI2Dl_C345
Please do visit my blog links
below to read about real estate & home buying!
https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2024/01/choosing-your-home-along-with-future-of.html
http://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2023/02/blog-post.html
Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345
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www.punecorporation.org
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www.sanjeevanideve.com
/ https://junglebelles.in/
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