My journey to the jungle started in my early childhood with a story of ‘The Lion and the Mouse’. The visual image of the jungle was growing as I was growing. It really matched to the first jungle I had visited which is known for the Asiatic lions found only in India. It is known as Sasan Gir. Over there, I had spotted a few wild animals like deer, fox, hyena, and nilgai. Luck didn’t work to spot lions. The trip had ended with the crazy joke that the lions had gone to their uncle’s house, ha..ha..ha..’ However, I won’t say that the trip was futile as my love for jungle and desire to see more and more animals in their habitat got a kick.
To accomplish my wish, the family decided to visit Tadoba- Andaheri National Park also known as The Tadoba Andahari Tiger Reserve (TATR). It is located in Chandrapur district in Maharashtra near Nagpur. The Reserve is the largest national park in Maharashtra. The total area of the reserve is 626 square kilometres.
Tadoba is tropical dry deciduous forest and is divided into three separate but interconnected forest ranges i.e. Tadoba north range, Kolsa South range and Mohurli range, which is sandwiched in between the first two. The core zone and buffer zone of the reserve has beautiful wild life species of approximately 115 tigers, 151 leopards, 62 mammals, 34 reptile species, 291 birds and 174 species of butterflies. The core has 6 gates and buffer zone has 12 gates and they are kilometres apart. Only 20% of the jungle is open for the tourists. Mohurli zone is known for the best tiger spotting and offers good accommodation facilities for the tourists.
My family was hopeful to fulfil my wish this Diwali not by chance but by plan. My father approached Mr. Deep Katikar who is in our relation and runs “Wild Angle Safari” tour. He has vast experience and knowledge about wild animals and birds too. We booked three safaris in Tadoba Andaheri National Park. He made good arrangements for our stay, food and travel. Our homestay was in Mohurli village and Deep bhaiya accompanied us in our adventure. I was super excited to spot the tigers. Our first safari was at 2 p.m. from one of the six gate in the core area. The open gypsy came to pick us from our home stay and we reached at Mohurli gate. Tickets and ID verification was done by the forest officials. They allowed a camera inside but not a phone. I was all set with my binocular and Deep bhaiya with his professional camera.
The gypsies entered the gate and then went on separate inner paths of the reserve. We entered “The real land of tigers”. My eyes were wide open like an owl. The guide welcomed us and showed us an ancient long rock pillars along the sides of the path. He said it was put by King Ballarshah for direction in the forest. They also named some trees in the forest like Bamboo, Teak, Crocodile bark tree and some more. They said life of the bamboo tree is 40 years. After that they get flowers and then they dry. We saw the dried once too. Deep bhaiya was showing us birds like swift, heron, yellow footed green pigeon, parakeet and wild hen. The jungle was dense and beautiful. We could hear chirping of birds when the gypsy stopped for sighting a herd of deer grazing in the thick bushes and peacocks moving. We were introduced to barking deer, spotted dear and sambar deer.
The time was passing but not a tiger. I knew that the tigers live in their territory. Deep bhaiya shared that in the territory of one male tiger there could be three tigress with their cubs. They too have their own territory. In this core area we had probability of seeing a tiger called Matkasur and Bajrang. I wonder how they track tigers in such a dense jungle.
Well, they said the tiger is tracked with the help of information they receive from their network, when and where the movement of the tiger was last seen, smell of territory marking, footprint and poop or urine helps to spot. Wow! What knowledge I gained. All of a sudden the gypsy ran fast as they got a message that a cub of tigress chhoti Tara is spotted in Jamni meadows.
We reached there but the cub had just entered the elephant size grassland. Oh! We missed it. It went quite far and we could barely see the top portion of its head. The little head movement too stopped in a while. I was feeling disappointed but in hope we waited for a long munching on some chips. It decided to sleep there and so we decided to move on. The driver said it’s too late to reach Tadoba lake and we had to skip it. On our way back we did saw Irai dam and a huge animal like bison called Indian gaur on the side of the gypsy path. The guide said they weigh around 1000-1500 kilograms. We took exit around 6:00 p.m. It had become pitch dark. While family was having a cup of refreshing tea, we girls went to the nearby souvenir shop.My cousins and I purchased a tiger magnets and two cute caps with tiger footprints.
At night after simple but delicious dinner uncle Sanjay came to meet us who is the best guide and good friend of Deep bhaiya. He confidently told us that tomorrow morning defiantly we will spot a tiger. If not he will give us a free safari. Next day, our two gypsy for 11 of us entered the Junona buffer zone. The beauty of the jungle was enchanting. We were told to take deep breaths for soaking fresh oxygen. This time Deep bhaiya and the best driver Akshay bhaiya sat in my other family gypsy. We were on different paths. It helps to call each other when the tiger is spotted. We were moving on the small paths of the forest anticipating to spot tiger any time. The over concentration, sweet smell of flora and fauna and zephyr made me and my cousin sister Aarna fall asleep.
All of a sudden, I felt I have entered 3D Jurassic Park. Our gypsy was moving too fast zap…zap ..zap… Aha! What a thrilling ride it was. We came close to my other family gypsy and they all were looking so electrified. They had spotted a tigress called “Chhoti Madhu” with a kill done in front of their eyes. She walked with that fawn in her mouth for good 20 minutes in front of them. She was tracked by her fresh poop by the two smart fellows who had switched in the other gypsy. The picture and video taken shocked us. We were regretting to miss that moment. We were late as we could not receive the message on time due to network coverage. My mother was sadder than me as we both kids missed it again.
Hope keeps you going and we waited for her to come out as we saw fresh footprints of her cubs around but she didn’t and we left from there. Our luck worked. In no time, we spot a tiger named Paras. Oh! What an unbelievable site of that majestic animal. We were all speechless to see him crossing our path.
In a minute he went inside the thick bushes. The guide said he is from a core zone. Our eyes were still hungry to see him once more. The driver followed him going the other way and we saw him climbing the hill from far. We took a route to see him again closely on the path his movement was expected. Our patience ended as the other gypsy said he is inside and hasn’t come out from anywhere on that path. We went ahead to spot the tigress of that zone named W female, Collarwali and Madhuri. Sad! They must have seen us passing but we couldn’t see them.
After lunch at 2 p.m. we started for our last safari from Agarzari zone. On our search mission we saw rabble of butterflies, troop of langoors and a sloth bear on the side of the path. Our gypsy stopped to see his movements. He was eating termites sniffing the ground and walked across in the bushes keeping his head touching the ground. The bear was not as cute as I had imagined seeing them in cartoons. Ahead we saw a heard of deer grazing and an Indian gaur. From the calling of deer the guide came to know the movement of tiger is near Navargaon lake. We reached and before us on the opposite side there were two more gypsies. The tiger was moving towards our gypsy inside the bushes and he came quite close in the distance of 2 meters reach from us on the same height. Our driver immediately moved our gypsy little behind and he roared a bit. We were frozen seeing him so close with big eyes and open mouth. Oh my goodness! He jumped and crossed the path and went inside the thick bushes. Our guide wanted to track him to show us though we had less time. We followed him from different pathways for 45 minutes. The wish to see tigers was fulfilled for the third time. Amazing to know he too was a grown tiger cub of tigress Sharmili in that area.
There was some magnetic attraction we all felt to see more and more tigers. We wanted to go for night safari but had no booking. However, the eerie experience was felt as we were coming out of the jungle where visibility was less as it was quite dark by 6 p.m. No words to describe what I felt to tell my family members when they asked me how I felt seeing the tiger so close. I think I got numb. We all thanked Deep bhaiya for a memorable life long experience. We all felt the guides and drivers were so kind and working from their heart. We thanked them from bottom of our hearts.
Next day early morning, we went for bird watching near rice paddy in the Mohurli village. Wow! Deep bhaiya showed us many colourful birds like common mayna, bramny mayna, pied mayna, drongo, sunbird, kingfisher, stork and some more. Deep bhaiya found a feather of an owl with the shades of brown and he gave it to me. Aunt Nimisha who loves reading books suggested a book by a well-known author Salim Ali to know more about Indian birds.
I loved my fantastic trip to Tadoba Jungle. The adventure to spot tigers in their territory was out of my imagination.The entire gang of 11 of us want to visit here soon to explore Tadoba and want to see unseen of Tadoba that is, wild dogs, antelopes, crocodile, porcupines, flying Squirrels, blue bull and Black Panther. We have plans to even explore the other tiger reserves like Pech, Kanaha and Ranthambore.
Kartik Chitnis Tourist, Nagpur
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