Got up from bed in a cranky mood, one fine June morning. With a power cut since last evening, we spent a sleepless and restless night. Around 5am I finally gave up making futile efforts to sleep, as anyway, we got to leave for field in an hour. With a cup of chai in hand, I came to sit in the courtyard of our basecamp, mentally preparing myself for a long hectic field day. I miss having my black tea made of roasted Darjeeling tea leaves. But living outside home or infact West Bengal for almost 5 years now, have started growing used to this gingered milk tea - "adhrak wala kadak chai" as people call it here. The dawn has started breaking, birds have started chirping and much to my relief, the weather was fine with a light breeze flowing and I got bogged watching the squirrels squeaking & running to and fro, quarrelling among themselves, along the neem tree that stood in middle of the courtyard. Suddenly the shrill call of a peafowl broke my tranquil and I saw it pacing down the wall and shouting at the top of its voice completely unnecessarily, disturbing the otherwise calm dawn. How can someone look so deadly gorgeous and yet be so annoying!
Anyway, it was almost 6 AM, we climbed onto our Gypsy and started our journey for the day!
Kumbhalgarh Wildlife Sanctuary being a part of the Aravalli Mountain Range have a picturesque undulating forested landscape dissected by hills and valleys. Our gypsy started running through the spiral roads around the hilly terrain of the Aravallis.
As soon as we entered through the sanctuary gates, we started with our new guessing game of plant IDs, the skill which me and my teammates clearly lacked, a reality that has hit us while sampling for habitat plots. We started with our usual discussions or sometimes arguments on "That's Anogeissus latifolia or Anogeissus pendula?", "That's Acacia catechu or Acacia leucophloea?”, “That’s Boswellia serrata and there’s Lannea coromandelica” and our faces brightened up as we passed by the easily identifiable "Ghost tree" (Sterculia urens). Our driver, Jeetu Bhaiya, who usually used to be a silent observer of this plant naming game, but never missed a chance to giggle whenever we ID a plant wrong. He wondered why we had to confuse him with such complicated Latin words when he had known all of them by such easy names since childhood.
A call of an Indian Pitta, distracted us from this gameplay and my field partner turned hyper enthusiastic and started jumping around on the already bouncing Gypsy seat trying to find the bird. Much to our delight, the magnificently coloured bird came to our sight fluttering through the branches of the thick shrubbery. I looked over at my field mate whose eyes and face was lit up with a broad grin, which am sure no tiger/leopard sighting can bring. Since Indian Pittas have become very common at this time of the year now, this entire ritual of my "pitta-philic" friend keeps on happening the exact same way, multiple times, everyday.
Much to the contrary, I observed the frustrated, sullen faces of the tourists on safari who came with the hope of sighting a leopard or a sloth bear and were disappointed with their choice of not opting to go for a safari in Ranthambore instead. Just a bumpy rocky ride through a forest where they can see absolutely nothing. Given the kind of terrain, one can call themself lucky to even spot a Sambar!
But well, this "nothing" feels so subjective. When I look over at my companion who was by that time busy smiling with awe at the rufous morphed Indian Paradise Flycatcher flying across flaunting it's long tail. Grey Jungle Fowls and Red Spur Fowls scattering to and fro across the forest litter, cute little Tickell's Blue Flycatchers singing from one leaf to the next, crested serpent eagles perching on fallen branches here and there, the brain fever calls of common hawk cuckoos echoing through the forest. Just the daily commoners which anyone can see and yet not see!
It was around 7:30 am when we reached our destination, from where our hike started for the day. Our job was to monitor two pairs of trail cameras, which we have deployed earlier, on an animal trail running through a valley. The valley lied completely hidden and secluded from anthropogenic disturbances. It was a very steep climb of around a km until we reached a hill top from where the trail goes downwards into the valley. The sun was up and the heat was rising. It was not even 8 but we could feel the loo blowing on our bandana covered faces. We stopped at the hilltop for a while to rehydrate ourselves and ofcourse, catch our breaths after the steep climb. By that time, we have stopped appreciating nature and just wanted to finish the work quick and return to a cooler shelter for the day. We resumed our journey and was walking down the narrow valley track. We were feasting on our usual snack of sweet Tendu fruits, the seeds of which one can find on every sloth bear scat we encountered on the way. With our conceived concept of development and civilisation, humans have become pretty dissociated and different from the wilderness, but given a thought are we alien to nature?
Suddenly the forest dept official, who came along with us, gestured us to be silent and crouched down on the ground. We hid behind the tall grasses, and that's when I realized, there were 5 individuals of Four Horned Antelopes or Chowsingha grazing leisurely around 200m ahead of us and luckily they haven't noticed us yet! Last time we visited this track, I did find pellets of Chowsingha. But getting to see these very shy individuals live is one rarity! After few minutes of silently observing the individuals who were completely oblivious of our presence, we sadly had to disturb them, to continue on our journey for our cameras, eagerly hoping now to find some good captures of this species. Just can't complain anymore about the day or weather or work, we were energised again like ever. Nature can give you wings, if not red bull!
The trail gets narrower as we passed from the first set of cameras and headed onto the second one. We noticed Hyena scat and some scattered bones along the way. In my past experience, scat and carcass trails like this have led us to discovering the dens of this cryptic species. I wondered if we can again happen to find a well hidden Hyena den nearby beneath the rocks.
As soon as we reached the second pair of cameras, my colleague got busy changing the batteries and I was briefly scanning through the pictures to check the alignment and other settings. A sloth bear mother and cub have walked through the cameras at 9:30 am every morning, so punctual! I looked at my watch and it was exactly 9:30 am! A chill ran through my spine immediately and I started scanning around us for any movement or black blob of a shape. The bears might have noticed us by then and might have changed their track for the day or hiding somewhere. But we shouldn't take any more risks on pissing the bears more, who may look like cute cuddly toys, but are extremely aggressive! So, we hurriedly set up the cameras again and left as soon as we can.
Well, the rest of the day's work went pretty smoothly and again a fun journey back with my pitta-philic friend whose day was made with the burst of the turquoise colour through the greenery. At the end of the day, we dragged our exhausted selves into our basecamp, only to find the electricity back and we just happily dropped down on our beds.
Before falling dead asleep, my mind went back to how I started that morning questioning myself, what's the worth of living a life with such bare minimum luxuries, miles away from my family and friends, is it worth it? Should I rethink my career choice?
At the end of the day, I think even my readers here can answer that for me…
Very impressive and interesting blog...a perfect career plan that can give you the pleasure of earning. Carry on with your adventurous writings full of mysteries of the wilderness. Great