Kaziranga One Fine Afternoon

Kaziranga,
March 11th

Big Horn Buffalo with Bar Headed Geese

I am the only person in the Gypsy and the driver stops at Kohora gate to pick up the other three who have booked their safari with him.  They clamber on, a young couple and their friend who takes his seat beside me, camera in one hand, coke in the other.  

Now, I know they say you should not judge people at first glance.  Actually, they say you should not judge people.  And I say they speak rot.  

I promise, it is not the coke (which they finish in turns in about 30 seconds because the bottle has to be discarded outside).  But you learn to identify idiots when you see them, call it perverse experience. 

Mr Couple is full of questions to the driver.  Such as, will we see tigers?   Coke is not satisfied: will we see white tigers?  How many tigers are there?  So many?  Well, then why no white one?  How many rhinos?  So many?  Then, do tigers eat rhinos?  Coke does not ask why white tigers don’t eat rhinos, so I am deeply grateful.

It’s all that sugar in that bloody bathroom-cleaner drink that makes them delirious.

  

All three have their mobiles with which they are 

1. Sending messages

2. Taking photographs

3. Scrolling on Instagram

4. Combing hair (Mrs Couple) and checking if that seven-micron scratch on the nose is now visible.

We haven’t begun the journey yet and there is a rhino in the distance and Mr Couple asks Mrs to take his photo on his mobile with rhino as dot-in-horizon wallpaper. 

Then,

Mr clicks Mrs with rhino-in-horizon

Coke clicks both and shares with larger planet on Insta

Then Mrs clicks Coke and Mr

Then Driver clicks them

Then, our Gypsy is joined by another Gypsy at the hip, which has a large Bengali family of about 63 adults and 22 kids that are doing this team outing to have an incisive debate on why someone’s brother-in-law is not to be trusted with an agreement to sell a flat near Gariahat?  

I understand enough Bengali to not want to buy this flat.

Then, we begin the safari.

Then - immediately - we see a tiger crossing a lake.

Which I somehow feel deep inside is bloody unfair, though it is unfair, I know, to feel unfair.  

I am watching it swim through the binocs (the tiger is swimming in the stream, not through the binocs, hope you got that right), and the three are so excited that they forget that You Live For Reels.  As the tiger walks up the other bank and enters the bushes, about 84 Bongs want to know where the tiger is and are looking, with heightened animation, in the wrong direction, while, from the 85th, I learn that the lift isn't working in the Gariahat flat.  

The bird life is, as always, incredible!

The utterly majestic grey headed fish eagle

European Widgeon, Mr and Mrs.  
My first ever sighting

Bar headed geese are philosophers.  Always searching.

and we see a herd of jumbos by the side and they are chilled out (I wouldn't want them any other way, incidentally).

And one showed us his backside

All this while, the Couple pose, share, repose. Coke is impatient.

One more TIGER, says Coke (he is ok with non-white now).  And the more I hear about the brother-in-law, the more he makes Amrish Puri in Mr India seem like a Buddhist monk. 

I whisper a question to Driver: can we separate at the hip from Gariahat please and he smiles knowingly and slows down.  Sometime later, we are by a stream, I am staring up at the canopy and Mr Couple is standing, mobile video at work.  Something in the water, he says, in our area, we call it Oondh.  

I swivel and see smooth coated otters!  Three of them, swimming steadily in the middle of the stream and up close.  They have seen us too, the one in front popping up, periscope-like, the others right behind.  They are beautiful, graceful, effervescent and as enigmatic as ever  and to see them there on a lazy late afternoon in one of the world’s most beautiful wilderness regions! We watch - in absolute silence - until they are gone.

And all is forgiven.  

Maybe I will consider that flat in Gariahat if these three buy it along with me.

And the Great Hornbill.  What a magnificient species this is.

Home

 Sunday, March 16th

It's a beautiful warm morning and we set out to see the forest from afar.  Today, we will not go in, for an elephant walked our way a few hours ago and is in there somewhere.

Somewhere in those hundred-odd acres that once belonged to a Jagirdar, but is now protected, the result of which is the sort of biodiversity we dream to see.

The flowering of jalaari -Shorea roxburghii - is an annual dream-come-alive, as this little forest responds with a burst of colour, fragrance and, to a fervent imagination, delightful melody, for the bees and the wings sing.  It is short and ineffably sweet, as indeed all good things must be.  

This year, it's done.  Fresh bright green leaves have taken the space left by the spectacular flowers that now cover the ground in a brown crunchy layer.  Perhaps there is philosophy there too - ashes to ashes, dust to dust, as that old one on Lillee and Thommo, those fast bowling relics of the '70s, goes.  

In the distance, we see a tree-in-red: that is the coral tree, Erythrina indica, in full bloom and it is a rich and fiery colour.  The lemon-yellow that is closer?  That is a favourite, the laburnum or konnapoo tree offered to the Gods in about a month from now during the lovely festival of Vishu.  This tree has bloomed well and is getting a rich dressing on its canopy as it awaits the real summer......

And amidst this cornucopia is a tree shorn of flowers and leaves; the fruits dangle with the bareness of deciduous magnificence.  This is Diospyros melanoxylon, thubre mara, and we savour the pulpy, tangy, astringent fruit and chat and laze around and pray that forest fires and human desires keep away.  Close by is a tree with astonishingly similar fruits that can give you a hard time if consumed, maggari mara or Catunaregam spinosa, fruits that in those days gone by were used to work up a solution to wash clothes.

Next week, elephant permitting, we will wander in on a fine morning.

For the forest is home.