Jim Corbett National Park

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It’s 5.30am as we bounce on the back of an open jeep on our way to the Jim Corbett National park. We’re irritable. Not just because we’re up before dawn to see a wild cat who we were sure would not extend the same courtesy to us, but also because at every bump on the road we are forced to hold on to the ice-cold bars of the jeep. I fear that my hands will freeze in place and wonder what will happen to my holiday then.

There is a theory that hospitality, particularly around wilderness, is much warmer to make up for the callousness of nature. At the Mahindra Club property on the fringes of the Jim Corbett National Park, we are cosseted like favoured grandchildren who are on their annual holidays. Outside, India’s first forest reserve does not grant us such considerations. On one side of the Kosi river is a low forest of wild kadipatta, lantana camara bushes, elephant grass, and teak wood, which we explore while sitting atop the 35-year-old Phoolmala—an elephant. It is late afternoon and Phoolmala gently sways through the forest. It’s not the best job for an elephant who would otherwise live in a matriarchal herd. On a regular day, she walks 15 to 18 hours; but it’s as good as it gets for an elephant in captivity. She gets to roam the forest, albeit under supervision. You can see that her favourite part is crossing the river.

In the thick of it

The water is clear enough to see the stripped pebbles on the river bed. Phoolmala and Rani, another elephant, stop to spray water on each other while passing and later make another halt to chomp the red berries in a bush. In the shade of low trees, we spot sambhal deers sitting—trying to escape the heat of the mid-morning sun. Peacocks also strut low, in no mood to show off their plumage to us.

It’s the same thing on the morning safari as jeeps line up to spot a tiger. Nature does not put up a display on call. The animal world does as it pleases—after all, it is we who are here to see and experience it and not the other way around. We chase monkey calls for a good two hours in a rope of open jeeps snaking around the forest. These tree dwellers are the first indicators that the cat is in the area—first a twittering to warn of the predator’s approach and then a deathly silence so it doesn’t know you are here. In the security of the big cat’s absence, herds of spotted deer brunch leisurely. An experienced one, clearly a millennial judging from its comfort level with the camera, turns and holds its good side for us. Termite hills provide landmarks. They are large enough to give credence to myth about rishis who meditate so long and deep that termites and ants build homes around them.

Still waiting

But the tiger remains elusive. There’s still dew on the grass and mist in the air. “He won’t come to the grassland until it is warm,” says our guide Subham Ratnagar. “Tigers don’t like the dampness of the dew.” He should know. His name is up on the board at the camp office to commemorate the latest tiger sighting. He’s from a nearby village Rampur and, like him, nearly everyone else in the surrounding towns make their livelihoods in Corbett. It’s a smart move to curb poaching. Anyone harbouring the intention to hunt big game would need a villager’s assistance.

Ratnakar has taken us around the circuit thrice. It’s about time we get out. The national reserve is open for sighting in two batches—dawn and dusk. There has been no sighting in our batch. The mood is one of disappointment, slowly giving away to a tendency to humour our situation. Jeeps pass each other with a monosyllabic exchange of “Dikha [Spotted]?” One mischievous retiree says enthusiastically, “Hahn! Uss ped ke neeche” [Yes! Under that tree].

Spotted at last

On our insistence, Subham takes us in for another circuit. Disappointment hangs like mist over the bunch in our jeep. No one expects to see a tiger so late in the day and we’re already talking, half-heartedly, about coming for the evening safari. “Tiger!” one of us cries and even as our mind is telling us he’s kidding, we see the tip of a tail swish on the road in front of us as a tigress leaps from the road into a hillock on the side of the road.

Ratnagar quickly takes us to the adjoining plane, and there she descends to walk through the dry grass. Her belly hanging low hinting to suckling cubs. She knows we’re around, but we aren’t interesting. She looks, she sniffs the air and dwindles along lazily, not yet imposed upon our presence. But there is a hint that we better not overstay our welcome; or get too curious. She won’t go near her babies while we are around; she won’t risk leading us too them. We turn around after following her for five minutes when she disappears into a thicket.

Analysed and discussed

I want to say it was majestic, even a life changing experience but it wasn’t. Something is diluted when you are a group catalyst to an experience and not a lone, silent, unspotted observer. There are too many discussions and debates later—everyone relates their version of how they spotted her. The story is broken down to too many details with too much retelling. Everyone practises aloud their version of spotting her. Credit is annexed for the creating the circumstances that led to the spotting—“I was the lucky mascot’; “I had a feeling we should turn around”; “We don’t like disappointing patrons, so when you said we should turn around I agreed even though it was after the prescribed tour.”

The tigress went on with her life, but we figuratively hoisted her like a trophy in our minds. We didn’t observe her quietly or think about what she thought of us. We didn’t wonder where she was going or what her plan for the day would be. Was she in the savannah for a hunt or a snooze? Where would the cubs be? What is her daily radius? A tiger we had come to see and we crossed that off our list.

Life in the hamlets

In between the warm embrace of professional hospitality and the callousness of the forest, lives the real life of the villages of the Pahad. Electricity lines run from Rampur, the nearest town, to the hotels and resorts that line the forest reserve, completely bypassing villages that have been rehabilitated along the stretch from areas prone to natural calamities. Some of these, like the hamlet Ringora, a village of 35 families, has been standing here for 40 years. Unrecognised as an official village by the government, the villages cannot have pukka [permanent] houses, electricity or running water. Corporates help them build schools and run home-businesses such as honey collection and knitting wares. Some of them are developing homestays for sustanence, besides providing tours of their fields and homes to showcase village life. The village is protected by an electrified gate that keeps out predators, an important move because the lantana bushes on the outskirts of the village are great hiding places for big cats. The roots of the bush keep the land dry and big cats don’t like to get their feet wet. Deep Malkani, a resident of the village and a guide, explains all this to us.

The land behind the village slopes up into a cliff that overlooks the Kosi river. A [reportedly] 315-year-old temple sits nestled in a 300-year-old banyan tree here. Youth such as Malkani conduct low-intensity zip-lining between the trees behind his village. There’s more such low-impact adventure if you go looking for it at the Jhula bridge over the Kosi river. You can rappel or slither down it to the clear water below.

None of us had the inclination to try any of these because we visited in November. Not for us the cold embrace of a freezing river or the bruises of a rappel line when we could be in our warm beds, practising retelling our story of how we saw a tigress.

This was first published in the June 2015 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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Milford in New Zealand

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Queenstown in New Zealand is a much stomped playground and from there you can travel deeper inwards and immerse yourself in the unique geographical beauty of New Zealand’s Fiordland. The national park covers 1.2 million hectares of virgin rainforest, with 14 fjords or the ‘Sounds’ carving into over 200 km of the coastline. Glaciers leaving for the Tasman Sea are carved out of granite mountains and the area has some of the best walking trails in the world.

If an adrenalin-driven sport is a challenge to nature, a gentle walk embraces nature. To stretch this weak metaphor further, an engagement with the Sounds in New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park is a long and loving one.

The Milford Trail is the oldest and, at 53 km, takes four days to cover. But don’t let that deter you—the sample walk is 11 km long and can be done in four to five hours. There are no inclines on the gentle walk to the Giant Gate falls, and you’ll still have time for a cruise up and down the Doubtful Sounds to look for seal pups.

Launch off

I start off at Queenstown, by getting on the 100-year-old steamboat TSS Earnslaw on Lake Wakatipu. My eventual destination is the lakeside town of Te Anau from where you can drive to Milford Sound, but we’re taking the long, scenic way there. The Earnslaw gives you a smooth, thoughtful look at the surrounding Remarkables mountain range on its one-and-a-half hour trip.

Instead of taking the tour, I get off at the Walter Peak High Country Farm. If you’re interested in animal farms, the tour here introduces you to the merino sheep, stags raised for their venison, the alpaca and the hefty variety of cattle. After meeting the friendly animals you can head to the homestead for scones and tea. Of all the animals in the farm, the most interesting are the hard-working sheepdogs. The others have gone ‘Pavlov’—they don’t bother to say hello, unless you are part of a large mob and have tasty nibbles for them. The sheepdogs take their job very seriously—they stare down the sheep that hide behind the alpaca as well as those who are a little slow on the uptake. No dry nibbles for these dogs. Instead, they follow you to the homestead in the hope of getting scones.

Steve Norris is my guide in this high country as we make our way to Te Anau.

The drive to Te Anau passes through acres of farmland with deer, sheep, cows—all being raised and living a near-natural life before meeting an untimely end on a thoughtfully-garnished plate. While dairy is not a big industry in this region owing to lack of the right grazing grounds, Steve tells me there have been experiments with milking deer and turning it into cheese.

We are travelling into Hobbit country and as we head deeper into Fiordland, the pine forests turn to beech. Te Anau town gets its name from the lake it’s settled around. It’s a resort town with plenty of bed and breakfasts, cafes, motels and hotels for those making their way to Milford and Doubtful Sounds. In summer, the sun stays up till 9.30 pm, so there’s enough time for a walk around the lake or a trip to the caves with their glow worm grottos.

Milford bound

Milford itself is 120 km from Te Anau, so Steve picks me up bright and early at 6.30 am. The stunning landscape more than makes up for the early wake-up call. Much of the drive is through a corridor of trees lined by Mirror Lake, whose surface the morning mist apprehensively touches. It’s three degrees Celsius outside. New Zealand and I have agreed to disagree about our definition of summer.

Just like that, the scenery changes to meadows, snow-capped peaks appear in the distance and there is a glimpse of Mt Tutoko, the highest peak in the region, still wearing its crown of snow.

Scientifically, the Sounds were carved by glaciers gliding into the Tasman sea; mythologically, they were carved by a Maori demigod who looked back and saw how wonderful his work was. Then, to ensure that people didn’t loiter here, he created the annoying sand-flies to keep them moving.

If you want to stay closer to the destination, Milford Sound Lodge is the last accommodation in the national reserve. It has camping grounds, dorm rooms, trailer parking and independent bungalows. They also have an opening for three volunteers each season who can earn their lodging and boarding by working there four hours a day.

The Sounds

In the pioneer times of the 1890s, the Sounds served as a prison. Cordoned off by the sea and rivers, inmates served their time by levelling off the tracks. Anna is our guide for the day—an unassuming young girl given to verbalising internal monologues. In a way, she’s the prototype of young kiwis. A quick seven-minute boat ride from the mainland drops us off into the Sound; us being three couples of varying ages and nationalities, a Brazilian whose enthusiasm powers us forward and myself.

Anna introduces us to the varieties of fern—the coral-like umbrella moss, the dog-tongue fern that proliferates by dividing its leaf; the chicken and hen fern whose saplings manifest with roots on the leaf and then drop off into a welcoming soil; the old man’s beard that purifies and cools an already robustly oxygenated air; the antiseptic ferns used in World War II as bandages. There’s also a steady sampling of berries, spicy leaves and an identification of leaves that can be a laxative. She’s quick to recognise the tomtit, takahe or tui.

When we come to the clear stream that runs under Giant Gate, sadness strums my heart. The stream floor is visible from the bridge—the water is as clear as an infant’s conscience, but chilling as a voice in a dark room. I want to plunge in, however there is no way to enjoy it but from the shore. As I watch the gurgling stream with a warm cup of coffee in my hand, I realise that this magnificent view will have to do.

This was first published in the June 2014 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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