----
“The time I spent in the jungles
held unalloyed happiness for me, and that happiness I would now gladly share.
My happiness, I believe, resulted from the fact that all wildlife is happy in
its natural surroundings. In nature there is no sorrow, and no repining. A bird
from a flock, or an animal from a herd, is taken by a hawk or carnivorous beast
and those that are left rejoice that their time has not come today, and have no
thought of tomorrow.”— Jim Corbett.
“Every time I have visited forests, it has taught
me something new about life” … Me.
When the subject is forest & wildlife then I
don’t need anybody else’s words to start but that of the man who himself has
become immortal with a forest by his name & his words only have made or say
still making me wiser every moment I spend in the forests! If you don’t know
about Jim Corbett then don’t google or check Wikipedia but read his books &
they are available in most of the languages. As well once you are through
reading even one of his books then do visit forest, any forest & try living
that forest from the perspective of Jim & then you will start knowing him
better! Ok, the sharing is about forest (but not tadoba) which I accidently
bumped on, as I was on hectic work plus forest exploring trip, for two Super
Moms, one from tadoba & one from UKWS (this you can google), about which I
will share later & just like the Marvel movies, more than the first, the later
part of trip was so exciting that I started this sharing first which actually
was my last stop! The occasion was wildlife week (which our State celebrates in
the first week of October) and on the way back to Nagpur I was supposed to
visit this place which is hardly 50 km away from the Tiger capitol.
Interestingly this is the nearest sanctuary gate from Nagpur & I had been
here some 15 years back. This trip, my purpose was to meet young RFOs’ Ms
Archana & Mr Nitin Borkar (And I met Mr Deshmukh IFS, ACF also) for
discussing skill development of local youngsters via Credai tie up (plz google)
as well donation drive or say Sharing Drive (this sound more respectable
from the purview of the receivers) & handing over of recycled good clothes
from city people of Pune (courtesy Jungle Belles) to these two RFOs’ which
later they will be distributing among local needy people. Such small
acts help forest dept to maintain good bonds with the locals which comes handy
when something unpleasant happens such as death of cattle or human life because
of some wild animal etc! And as I was here, I thought of taking one safari just
to explore the place or habitat & so I entered in the noon safari, very
tired as travelling three places in four days & waking up every day at 4.30
am, is not something I can do now easily, when I am other side of 55, but I
thought to complete the ritual! What happened in the next four hours can be
compared with something in a cricket match when the last pair of batsmen (who
are usually bowlers) comes to crease & when everybody is expecting the
innings to be wrapped in next few minutes, they start hitting fours &
sixes, something similar happened!
Won’t stretch your curiosity more, I am referring
to Bor wildlife sanctuary & if I was aww-stucked with its landscape,
biodiversity then icing on the cake was sightings of tiger, leopard & sloth
bear in one go! Agreed in any forest to sight these animals needs lots of luck
too but it’s the ease or say comfort of those animals with which they wander in
their habitat tell you the richness of biodiversity of the place, which only
can be felt & not told, which I experienced in the very first safari at
Bor, which is the reason of my sharing! Though it’s a small forest with just
two gates & buffers, it's
the strategic location makes Bor a very unique & important patch of forest.
It’s on North East direction of Tadoba & UKWS, making it a perfect corridor
as well stop over place for migrating tigers from above two forests towards
Central Indian landscape i.e. Melghat & Satpura! Its spread
around Bor dam’s backwater which ensures availability of water throughout the
year, which is one of the biggest boons for the forest. The safari track moves
mostly around one side of the lake yet there is a lot of wildlife to explore on
the hills which surround the entire backwater. One wonderful thing is it has a
prominent plantation of teak wood yet the forest is rich with many species of
plants, trees, & wild flowers. This year the rain gods are angry with our
region yet whatever little rain was there, the forest was blooming with wildflowers
& butterflies dancing over them! And the prey base is also very good with
many spotted deer & sambhar we can see around, looking curiously at us.
As I mentioned I had been here nearly 15 years back
when there was not at all any basic infrastructure (today also, the place is
cut off from our so-called development) but thankfully the rawness of the
nature is still intact somehow & thanks to forest dept’s some senior
officers such as Mr.Sreeniwasa Reddy & others, today Bor WLS has started
its journey on wildlife tourism track. I was assisted by a young local boy
named Shubham & our driver was Sarang, both were super excited to show us
around & they were happy as well thrilled when they knew I had been here
when they must be in their junior school! The interesting part was because the
forest is pretty dense here, you can’t always rely on deer or sambhar call for
sighting but jungle fowl & peacock calls also help a lot, something the
bigger forests guides are not used to track. Here we were waiting at a smabhar
call on a hilltop, but were unable to see what made the sambhar give an alarm
call & decided to leave the spot after waiting & circling the place for
a number of times. Yet there were calls of peacock & they were continuous
on. There was one more gypsy with us & we decided to scan the place more
thoroughly together, with eight pairs of eyes scanning the place keenly. And
suddenly there was whistling from the other gypsy they were pointing towards a
neem tree which stood alone in a thick grass patch & there was a handsome
male leopard sitting quietly on the first V of the branches of the neem tree
& scanning us with green eyes! This is why the peacock was giving alarm
calls while the sambhar had stopped as the peacock could see it from another
tree & we were looking at the ground for the object! It's because only the
leopard wagged his tail, which the sharp eyes of other gypsy’s guide saw &
called us, this is Bor!
And then happened sighting of a young male tiger
Om, which walked in front of us like a true king in making for nearly a
kilometres’ distance. Here also, he was lazing in grass & stood up &
started swimming in the water adjoining, I immodestly asked my driver to reverse
the vehicle & take us up ahead on the road in the direction where the tiger
had started swimming, leaving other vehicles clicking photos of the tiger in
water. And to my happiness (I patted my own back) the tiger emerged right
before our gypsy from the grass along the road which made us reverse for nearly
a kilometer, happily! There are very few sights which can beat a young male tiger walking in
his own mood towards you, occasionally locking his orange eyes with yours &
you can feel the hair on your neck standing under the stare, through the camera
lens!
He was barely two years plus & if he has such confidence to walk careless
among few gypsys’ around, what more wildlife tourism needs to flourish,
right?
Outcome was, keeping away my all tiredness &
fatigue, I decided to do morning safari again, just to explore Bor forest in
depth. And do mind there is not a decent stay place at Bor (Sorry, there is
a MTDC resort here at fantastic location but poorly maintained) so we were
staying in Vardha which is nearly 40 minutes’ drive & when we reached hotel
by 8 pm past, the manager gave us suspicious look as our clothes & baggage
was covered in red clay dust & he asked whether we met any accident or
what! Joke was, he didn't have any clue about Bor or such wildlife place
exists so near to Vardha & thought we were from some other planet when I
told him from where we have come! This is something Bor must work on i.e.
making the place known to the outer world, though there are insta pages &
things yet a bit more aggressive as environmentalists may think that the
tourists are nuisance (sometimes) but they are needed to make the place
sustainable & for that we need to have good (read as right) stay places at
Bor also! Next day morning we left for the gate at 4 am, again the hotel
staff thought we were really crazy (which we are) & once inside the gate it
was a different world. Morning breeze, fragrance of wild flowers, mist floating
over the water body of Bor dam & an Osprey sitting on a dried branch of the
tree in the water with prized kill of a fish in its claws, again a sight which
I will cherish for long! As the drive continued, we came across one gypsy who
told us a leopard had just crossed the road & went upstream of a water way
& we thought of checking the spot as leopards are tricky characters &
follow no fixed route. We went ahead & waited at the stream for the
leopard's whereabouts & alarm calls of a peacock rang upstream & as the
calls were moving up, we guessed the leopard must be walking up stream only. We
turned back & went on the hill from where the stream originated &
whoallaa (expression of amazement, lol), there was the ghost sitting right on
the road & looking at us. I asked driver to stop right where we are &
clicked few shots, for ten long minutes the leopard kept looking at us &
when he realized we are not advancing nor are we a threat, he got up &
started walking away from us on road & the moment we started the gypsy to
follow him, he looked back & vanished in to the thickset of the forest! The
driver has learned the lesson, which he will use in future of such sighting as
leopards & sloth bears are very cautious animals & whenever you spot
any of them best way is shut the engine off & stop & give them their
time to be comfortable with your presence as then you can watch them at your
leisure, that too is a chance!
With all such learnings & experiences, I headed
out of the forest & met Ms.Archana, who is RFO at Bor & working for
upbringings of local youngsters also. She later shared the clothes handing over
pics to the locals & those happy faces brightened the darkness around, for
sure! Guys, what makes some forest great or special is not sighting of tigers
or a leopards, as you can get them in any forest; it’s the canvas of the
landscape, habitat & stories unfolding on that canvas, is what makes a
forest great & sure what I experienced in just two safaris at Bor, it is on
way to become great, & with a promise to come back soon, I said adios to
Bor WLS...!
-
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
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links below to read about real estate & home buying!
https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2025/12/pune-real-estate-in-2026.html
https://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2024/12/2025.html
https://jeevnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2026/08/
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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