Romancing Corbett

It was a crisp morning when I found a tent midst the jungle in Corbett. Mr. B & I were determined that we did a wildlife adventure weekend. However we were also sure not to venture into the park area and disturb the wildlife. Imagine 164 tigers left in the Corbett National Park and I am sure some 20,000 people visited them the Easter weekend. We started driving towards Corbett Thursday night, since we wanted to beat the weekend traffic. And boy what a traffic it was.

Our adventure with wildlife started the minute we entered our camp. It was a one kilmetre walk up hill, or a 4WD could take one up to Camp. We were greeted by a lovely couple who are wildlife enthusiasts themselves and run this camp. People who visit this camp are either nature lovers or wildlife documentary filmmakers. We were an exception. Bharath's passion for wildlife was absolutely nothing when compared to the other campers. We dumped our knapsacks in our little canvas tents and went straight for the jungle walk. It was awesome, we found fresh pug marks, we found elephants destructing trees, we found martins running away from us. We felt powerful and at the same time weren't sure how to predict animals.

Day 1 ended with a campfire under a nippy night sky. Booze and conversations flowed with ease and people surrounded the campfire watching the mesmerising fire, sharing and reminiscing their stories at various such sojourns. We retired at around 11pm, post a simple yet sumptuous 'pahaadi' dinner of dals, rice, rotis, and vegs. The only source of light in this whole camp were lanterns and if one got lucky, a candle would be made available in the room. We had to carry one of these lanterns from the dining area to our tent, going though thick bushes.

Check out the way the sign to the tents are written. Ours was Martin.

We didn't get enought sleep through the night. There was an eerie silence surrounding us and we were sort of trying to figure out what each sound was and trying to record and document as much as possible. Mr. B had a recorder bought due his interests in wildlife and a T200 nikon which captured every picture flawlessly. Through the night we were awake with our cameras on. At around 5 am we finally heard a roar. Without making any noise and with the slightest of whispers, Mr. B told me that there was a panther right outside our tent some 20 metres away. The Panther was supposed to be chasing a civet. We could not record it at all, because the click of the camera would have upset the panther and no way we were in the frame of mind to accomplish something of that sort. Mr. B took out his voice recorder and tried to record what we heard. At around 6pm, when the chase was over, we, along with a few other campers went through the panther trail. Amazing shots of fresh paw marks we could see. And we said...YES! WE FOUND IT!!!

Day 2 was fun. We did not do the regular safari or angling bit. We instead, went for a 11km long trek from Pathodia till Bhaktakot. We had a packed lunch, so we spent a quiet afternoon in the dense Uttarakhand mountains, eating and absorbing the silence. After a point I realised that the silence was killing me. I needed some sort of noise. And every sound, be it the rattling of the dried leaves or dogs barking, felt as though it was a tiger approaching us. We were trekking for over 9 hours now and my legs had given way. We reached the camp at 5.30pm. Mr. B and I wanted to spend an evening together by the machan sipping beer and smoking a few cigs. And thats what we did. We took out a few beers from the bucket and spent a quiet evening. No talk this time, we were silent and yet loved each other's company. Guess it was an amazing feeling to soak in.

We chanced upon a bunch of guys who were part of TOFT: Travel Operaters for tigers. We were discussing with them our experiences at Ranthambore, Rajaji and Periyar. Interesting bits of information we shared. Our next wildlife adventure is to either kanha or Kaziranga. We are already looking forward to it. I hope it is atleast half as fun and exciting as this one...I would term the adventure a success.

Now we are back to the urban jungle. And getting back to dealing with ways to tackle the animals around us. May be where we belong is now identified easily. But we sure know where we want to belong.