Kanha

Some trips are memorable, nearly 10 months down the year with this one, yet feel very refreshing writing on it.

It was Daisy’s marriage sometime late January this year at Gondia (on MP & Maharashtra border), and likeways me, Chai and Tom were planning to attend. Offlate most of my trips with friends have been attending some other friends marriage. Although we are not much of help at the marriage but then we are those silent spectators for the ‘one more down’ phenomenon. Tom, being recently married dodged us; a usual thing for the married, it was the two of us who decided to go ahead. Along with attending the marriage, we planned to visit Kanha- the tiger reserve in MP and it turned out to be a cherishing journey in the wild.

We took the Nagpur Duronto, boarding at CST and reached at about 7 am. We were planning to go to Gondia and then to Kanha (Gondia is enroute Kanha, and would suggest people who may want to visit Kanha to directly reach Gondia via train rather than hopping from Nagpur). Confused for our next move, Chai got a call from some Anuj- colleague of Daisy. Just perfect for us, four colleagues of Daisy-Anuj, Mustan, Nupur & Nidhi were also on the same train to attend the wedding and who had also planned a visit to the tiger reserve. Infact, I was a bit surprised to see these guys come. Somehow haven’t found people from my workplace so enthusiastic to visit a far place wedding. But there were they, my first impression of Anuj was that he seemed senior, helped by his blackberry often checking emails. Mustan, the defying bombaitte, seemed quiet initially. The two girls, Nupur- the ‘thirkee’ and Nidhi- the simplistic, just kept quiet (for those moments only!!). Plus side, these four had some research done on Kanha, proper printouts in place-right from info on Kanha to the cab drivers numbers in Nagpur. I was quiet impressed, atleast better than my yielding to Chai’s last moment plans (I say so, but I prefer plans

of Chai to visit any place, bloody reads a lot of stuff and more or less has some idea of the geography of the place). As I found out later, all of them were new joinees at the workplace which made me remember my first job and the friends I made there. Throughout the trip they had the same topics to discuss about the workplace- bosses, salary and the linkups.

We hired a sumo from Nagpur and decided to go to Kanha directly. Amazing!! my first reaction on the place. Believe me, being from Mumbai and crowded out for space, Kanha was a perfect place to be. Visit any tiger reserve, particularly if you intend to get away from the populous city.

We reached at about 5.30-6.0 in the evening, and though late we decided to get on to the evening batch of the tiger safari (two batches of about 3 hours are organized by the forest department - one in the morning and then in the evening, morning batch starts at about 6 am and the evening at 4 pm). Although we could not see the endangered species that evening, the tour egged us to get up early for the morning safari.

Kanha has two gates to begin the safari from- Mukki and Kanha. Since we took the safari from Mukki gate, we decided to take the morning safari from Kanha gate. The only thought I had at that time was to take good rest during the night but all these thoughts were soon zonked out, by the so called the liquor connoisseurs (just categorizing beer/ wine/ tequila and whatever to simply liquor). I don’t know of how these connoisseurs find out the drinking trait of each other and then how they manage to find a place to get the required stuff, but they do. After again some couple of hours of travel in the darkness, we reached the other side round to Kanha gate, some time about 9.0-9.30 pm. Amazingly, that sleepy place could organize food even at that time –both veg and non veg!!

The connoisseurs had the drinking session on- Chai, Mustan and in a limited way Anuj and the thirkee, before dinner was served. For the love of the drinks (and zero wastage policy) Chai exceeded his drink quota and seemed to be out of his senses for a while. For the first time I saw him sway around a bit. We had the dinner and moved on to our rooms for the much needed sleep. In between though Nidhi had freaked out on some a guy who helped around in the hotel, and must say she had really lost her nerve on that guy for his over helpness to her. The resort room was quiet large and four of us easily accommodated, the two girls slept in the other room. Both these rooms had some distance in between. I doubt the resort had any more occupants, it wasn’t that a perfect season time yet. So six of us, in a small village resort, with one girl freaked out of some haunting image.

I went to bed quickly after the dinner but for the fridge noise, frosting- defrosting. As, I went to deep sleep I felt some one knocking the door. Somehow I got up (had to, as I came to know next morning, none of the connoisseurs even had slight idea that someone knocked their door) to open the door to see both the girls. Now, at about 2 am in the morning both really seemed freaked out, Nidhi more so as she claimed that the hotel help was calling their room number and disturbing them. Half awake then, I just down played the incident and tried providing some confidence. Nupur had a request then- sleep in our room!! Must say, I came to all my senses then. Somehow at times I think girls are at an advantage, they can simply ask any unusual favour from a guy which may not be as simple as it looks. I wouldn’t have minded if I had known these girls for sometime but ours was a day’s introduction and more than that I firmly believed there was no one calling that room but for some wild imaginations. If there had some liquor left, I would have made Nidhi consume it and have made her go to bed as all others were. But,

I had no options but to carry my bed in dark to the other room.

I switched on the light in the bathroom. Their fridge was noisier than the one in the other room. Both girls slept and amidst all the noise of the fridge, I was trying to gather on some lost sleep. The fridge though was really disturbing and I kept on a while thinking of switching it off. But then, I was frightened to get up for Nidhi’s sake. Somehow I felt she might be in half sleep and just might again freak out shouting seeing a guy in her room. But then my sleep got better of my notion and I just got up to switch off the fridge. Thankfully, could sleep for some time then.

As expected, no one in the other room had an idea of all the events during the night, and people say drinking is a bad habit!!

We quickly got ready for the morning safari. We had the guide and the jeep in place and were raring to go to catch the glimpse of the tiger. Amidst all of these, I had plenty of water in the morning and just could not locate any loo at the gate. Awwh, that hurt. No one is allowed to get off the jeep in the jungle at any cost. You can’t attend the natural call even when you are so close to the nature!! We almost spent two hours in the jungle without the sight of the tiger, and I was just looking forward to reach the base camp from where we had to register for the elephant safari. Those two hours, I just felt a tank was about to burst anytime. The guide was at his peak abilities to showcase each bit of the jungle. Finally, when we got to the camping area in midst of the jungle, I headed the toilet. I peed for quiet sometime, much longer that I noticed a few who came later than me to complete the job and go, but I was still standing there, emptying my abdomen.

Finally, we had the sight of a tigress, atop an elephant. The tigress and the large cubs just had a kill for breakfast and with their stomach full they seemed in pleasant mood posing for all the people clicking pics. Such a fantastic sight it was to see the tiger from such a close range in wild.

We came back to Gondia that day evening to attend Daisy’s marriage. Had never seen a barat with people carrying the lamps (could imagine the ‘cholro mint’ ad showing a barat). Overall it turned out to be a fantastic trip; new people, new experiences and then the tiger in wild. Blissful moments.