Solo tripping Madhya Pradesh

As a child, growing up with my grandfather, I had always been close to nature and the fascination only grew with time. But I had no knowledge as to how to actually work for the preservation of our most precious resource, Nature. However, my life took a turn when I landed this JRF post in NCBS under Dr. Uma Ramakrishnan’s Lab, Bengaluru.

It was a fresh learning opportunity for me. I spent a few months in the lab, familiarising myself with the protocols and such. But fieldwork is what really proved to be a life-changing experience so far. I had visited Rajasthan along with the project head Dr. Mousumi but real adventure awaited when I was told to go solo to Madhya Pradesh for sampling.

I left for Nagpur on 24th February. I took a detour because I was getting picked from there by my colleagues traveling from Satpura to Kanha Tiger Reserve. Hence, journey began to Kanha Tiger Reserve, a 6-hour road trip from the Nagpur railway station. First place I remember visiting in the reserve was Saunf Maidan, an expanse flocked with herds of Spotted deer and Swamp deer grazing carefree, this area where common folks lived but was depopulated when the place was declared a tiger reserve, a space of mixed feelings.

Then we moved on to Bhapsabehra beat where all the white-rumped vulture nests were recorded, here with the help of the beat guard we sampled an area of about 11km radius, tired and hungry we returned to the chowki where we were greeted by the aroma of local rice, dal and chutney; we had a heavenly meal and decided to return to our base camp. Only when I thought the day wouldn’t have gotten any better, we were blessed by a majestic tigress at dusk, believe me I hadn’t slept so well in a long time.

Next on my itinerary was Satpura Tiger Reserve, travelling from Kanha to Satpura, the 7 hours of perilous back wrecking journey concluded well with the warm welcoming bed of Satpura TIFR basecamp. The following morning I left early with the local field assistant Nandu ji to sample on the Brindavan hill located near the market.

It was a challenging trek as it involved a climb up through the densely vegetated slope, not only had I forgotten my water bottle but also my packed lunch for the trek, an amateur mistake but nonetheless veteran Nandu ji was no stranger to the likes of a first timer. Long story short nearly burst my lungs climbing the never ending hill, got fried sampling under the scorching sun, finally relished the last hours sitting down with Nandu ji enjoying cool stream water and rotis with “sev” curry that he had brought along.

After my work in Satpura was finished, I moved on to Pench Tiger Reserve.

“Welcome to Mowgli land” read the sign, visiting the jungle where your favourite childhood story was based on was well “Freaking epic!” and who doesn’t love Jungle book? Here we sampled around the perimeter of Alikatta beat, we crossed the Pench River at its shallowest point as we delved deeper into the forest into Chindwara district scouring the trees and the skies for vultures, the count looked trivial even after such a long trek. Our luck changed on the third day when we encountered a huge committee of vultures flocked together near Jamunala beat, 1 tree 11 vultures plus 1 Cinereous vulture too, making our three days of hard trek worthwhile. On this last day our lunch was prepared in Alikatta chowki by the forest guards and never had I tasted eggplant, potatoes, fried chilli and rice so delicious.

We moved on from Pench to Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve where I got stationed for 13 days in the Forest training hostel near Tala gate with no local permit because of some issues at the forest office, and by some issues I mean Holi, govt. employees love holidays. After a long desperate wait, all came to a fitting end when I stood on top of a fire watch tower overlooking the myriad of flora and fauna all around me overseeing whole Bandhavgarh forest, it’s still the most breath-taking sight I've ever laid eyes upon. We went to Bandhani beat to sample, here I did some bird watching and also came across a 16 year old tigress held in captivity, unable to hunt she fed on forest department provided poultry chicken “yuck!”.

Next stop Panna Tiger Reserve, the forest was so dry an ember would be enough to start a fire that would engulf the whole forest in flames. Dhundwa Seha was the first site we went, here we encountered more than 100 Indian vultures roosting together, sampling here was easy as all the vulture droppings was easily accessible from top. The village near the reserve had a huge reservoir, the elephants bathed here while we washed our gypsy; I ended the day with a swim in the cool water during the dusk. Of course the Panna discussion can’t be concluded without mentioning the magnificent Ken River that cuts through the reserve, we got to witness a an amazing sight of tigress and her cub near the bank of this river.

The whole trip took me month and half to complete, so many hours on the road on a gypsy might sound hectic at first but believe me it is way worse than it sounds, the serene view of the forest and its inhabitants was what kept me going. All the experiences I had, so many birds I saw, all the mammals I came across during this travel cannot be written in few paragraphs, but I’ve tried my best to lay this in front of you. The people I met, the animals I encountered, the breath-taking views; all these experiences are forever etched in my mind. It was only when I boarded the train from Jhansi railway station to get back to Bengaluru that I realized that I would immensely miss the place I was leaving behind, all the while hoping for another such opportunity in the future. I’ve never been so content with my work my whole life.