Vision of Life; by Sanjay: Tadoba @ 45 Degrees!

“The Wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have yet learned to ask.” … Nancy Newhall.

Nancy Wynne Newhall was an American photography critic. She is best known for writing the text to accompany photographs by famous photographers like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, but was also a widely published writer on photography, conservation, and American culture. Well this summer & I mean real summer at tadoba moharli gate on a noon ride I was observing faces (of those who has dared to keep them open & not covered with scarf’s & what not) waiting for gates to open & wondering what it makes all these people from all around the world not just country to come here & take a ride on such scorching hot noon on bumpy & dusty roads! Well Nancy’s quote I find the answer of my question i.e. it’s the wilderness they gets answers to many unasked question. Indeed most of those faces are here to see the Tiger but when your destination is nature then you find many wonders on the journey, that’s the perk of being in nature & what’s more better form of nature than forest! Those who has been to tadoba & admired its beauty (read tiger sighting) even they also starts hating tadoba & I mean it. If you don’t believe me then do visit tadoba any time between 3^rd week of May to 1^st week of June of the year & then do share your views to me about your experience! Frankly I am comfortable as I have been grown up in this part of country, so 45 degrees is not new to me yet years of comforts in city like Pune does makes you succumb to coziness of life & I am no exception to this rule! The first thing when you come out of your room ( AC off-course) may it be in morning 5 am to catch the safari or at night post dinner, is the hot blast of air hitting your all senses! And then before you have sat in the gypsy at morning ride you are already sweating & feeling uneasiness to breathe! In noon safari which starts at 3pm its worst as you don’t even sweat as the sweat directly gets evaporated from skin & suddenly you start feeling dizzy with dehydration! Well, I am not scaring you just sharing facts about summer of tadoba & yet in this summer where you start hating the heat & everything around & asking yourself why you have come to this place, the gates of park opens & your gypsy enters in wilderness & you soon forget the hating the heat & tadoba as the question paper of life unfolds in the form of answer paper in-front of you in thousands of forms!

Here in tadoba life does get bit disturbed by the heat but it’s part of nature & life cycle in forest seldom stops for anything, heat or cold! This you start realizing as the mercury rise & dust around become part of your ride & when you look around, well in forest you just don’t look around & see but you listen, you smell & in totality you start understanding that you have to feel the forest to read this answer paper! And trust me sooner or later everyone who come here & surrenders to nature (that later part is very important) he or she realizes forest is lot more than sighting some tiger or a leopard or sloth bear! There is fun in everything even in the driest of the season like this summer, we have so much to see & learn & I think this is why most people comes again & again to the forests despite of the tough weather! Had it been not so, then why many celebrities right from Brian Lara to Tendulakar to film stars to business barons like Mukesh Amabani, kept on visiting forests leaving back luxury of their life! I think at one stage of life we all realize that whatever we build or create which we call success is so below par in front of the nature & what better self realization there can be than realizing how poor you are actually in front of the nature & unless you come here, you won’t ever know what is real wealth of life, that’s why places like tadoba are so important to conserve!

Standing under the mid noon sun at tadoba gate all these thoughts came to my mind & as the gate opened I too got lost in the dead forest around. I am deliberately using dead forest as at first when you visit tadoba in this kind of summer, everything around seems to be at stand still & reason is the heat! Leave apart birds even the mammals also standing or sitting silently under the shade of trees or walking around in search of the water! And at such times tigers are best found at some water hole because even the herbivores animals like Deer & Indian gaur can be very thirsty so an animal which eats raw meat, imagine the kind of heat gets generated in its body for which water is the only solace! Needless to say the summer season makes tadoba a sure tiger sighting destination & all safaris are full. But one thing at this time the action is seldom there as mostly the tigers as well animals you get to see are lazying in water though this may create some interesting scenes as when tiger is in water body then most animals prefer to keep away from water for obvious reason but then thirst overcomes fear of life & slowly they enter the water but keeping the tiger in eye sight as well from maximum distance away from the tiger in water. And this is very funny (though not for the animals) to observe. I wonder whether the forest dept should make parallel water holes so as when tiger is occupying one water hole other animals can use the adjoining water body. On this many will say its nature & we shouldn’t intervene but then this logic is applicable when humans haven’t encroached forests & natural resources the way we are doing right now! Right now whatever animal kingdom has been left to survive, the first target must be to make them survive & then the intervention part can be debated! Also one more thing is the way natural water bodies needs to be conserved as well the man made water-bodies to be build! Most of the time by digging soft soil cover such water bodies are made but the debris is laying around as well the slopes are very steep making the animals uncomfortable to use the water bodies. I think there has to be some standardization for all such works in forests which is missing at present. Also important is try to make these water bodies near some shade as when its sun up in sky & if there is no enough shade then even sitting in such water also is difficult, such is tadoba summer!

One more thing is condition of the roads; agreed it’s a forest & we can’t expect concrete or tar roads but at-least some comfort level has to be there for the daily commuters. I meant if not for the tourists which are here for maximum three or four days, think about the guards, guides as well gypsy drivers who has to ride on these roads for almost every day. I am very sure the career as guide or gypsy driver won’t be continued post age of thirty five or more without having joints or back problem to every one of them with such roads to ride on every day! The minimum expectation of these people who are very much part of forest is if they are expected to make tourists understand as well like the forests then their well being also should be taken care just the way we take care of wild animals! And again this doesn’t needs any special policy or approvals; all what is necessary is some communication as well open approach by the seniors. What I have observed with the so called system named govt, the departments which have got uniform and the hierarchy among the ranks is a boon sometimes but curse most of the times. As there is big gap between senior officers & actual field staff & both have their own views about each other’s which mostly are negative, needless to say! This affects in two ways, first is lower staff seldom put forward their needs from the work situation in-front of the senior staff & the frustration gets out on surrounding people which is tourists, guides as well gypsy drivers (and maybe even locals). Many my officer friends may not like my such observation but this is fact as in forests & tadoba is just symbolic example, the ground staff which is guards are very rude in behavior & careless about the tourists! For e.g. improvising about the entry system, in May heat the gypsy’s are waiting at gate for more than thirty minutes just as there is less staff to check ID proofs & they start doing it by 3 pm i.e. when the gates opens. Why can’t the ID proof checking type things done in advance so tourists need not have to wait in heat in open as well gets that much more time in forest? But time & again the ground staff seems to be very much reluctant on improvising such basic things & then just have one look at the booking window, its mess, is the only thing I can say! At morning hours the window is so jam packed & just one staffer at gate & when most booking is online yet how come so much time is required for every vehicle is what I wonder. I am not complaining & doubting sincerity of the forest staff as despite all these issues tadoba’s popularity keeps increasing & so are the tiger numbers! Yet just few corrections in system & implementation can take this place to top tourist destinations in the world not just country. As few things are being discussed for quite a period now but not getting implemented is the issue I want to put forward. There has to be a regular dialogue between all the stake holders & the action plan or say outcome needs to be monitored from the top forest staffers. Things such as opening new routes in the park & let the tourists explore more of the tadoba, is one of the demand pending long. Indeed present Hon Supreme Courts norms or say intervention has made things a bit difficult rather tricky for the authorities but then there is a way out always & shuffling the routes is one such.

Now nearly eight to ten gates have been opened for exploring tadoba yet not all gates have good stay facility, something has to be worked on this front so as to reduce load on moharli gate. One more aspect which is pending is using local surrounding of the forest for tourism as a lot is there to offer around tadoba apart from wild life along. Indeed the people like new FD Mr. Pravin, Guruprasad & Anirudh Chaoji are taking efforts on this front. In buffer area of tadoba there are nearly ninety plus villages with population of ninety thousand plus. It’s these thousands of people who are actually protector or destroyer of the forests depends on how we handle or say utilize them. In one such round of a village I visited on suggestion of Anirudh has wonderful old well (kua) adjoin to hanuman temple & I was surprised to see the construction as it’s not something I knew being build in this region of country. It has two level entries right up to bottom via series of step. The well has been dried up now & being used as dumping waste at present. Anirudh asked, can I have a look to revive it & just when I thought of getting down in well to have a close look my instincts told me to look what’s at bottom of the well first from ground level & needless to say there were three snakes I could count in the well. As what better place than a deep cool well bottom to relax in summers for snakes could be! I clicked the snaps of the well in & around from top, to work on the revival of the well as its nearly some hundred odd years old well & seems the natural water inflow ways have been blocked. Some more tips about the well which I will be sharing with authorities, issue is making these places known to the tourists & let them understand that tadoba is not just about tigers but a lot more!

Recently while coming back to Pune from Aurangabad, in Ahemad Nagar city I saw a wall painted with words “Wall of Humanity” on it. Here under this wall any citizen can put whatever things he wants to donate to the society & the needy ones can take it from here! It’s an initiative by Superintendent of Police there; what a wonderful thing to do! We can think of one such wall at Tadoba entry gate & let the tourists give away whatever they feel for the locals as well for the forest at large. As forest has given us so much joy & much more & in lieu we all owe something back to the forests as well to the people who keeps those forests safe for us! On that summer noon at moharli gate I realized it’s not the tiger or wild animals which I have come to see in this extreme weather leaving back comforts of the city life but it’s to find my own-self, is the real answer for my reason to visit places like tadoba! I think this realization is the best thing I carried back from my trip to tadoba with a promise that I will come back again with a better vision about the life!

Sanjay Deshpande

Sanjeevani Dev.

Please view my sharing about real estate in Pune at U-Tube link below..

https://youtu.be/g3lx1Nq7pBs

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http://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2018/08/pune-city-no-1.html