A shallow creek, barely 20 feet wide, separates us from the salt lick. The rhino licks lustily at the salt mound, oblivious of the powerful searchlight in its eyes. Unlike me, it is quite undistracted by the man back at the bungalow who is hollering into his cellphone.
At such close range, the rhino reveals its full prehistoric splendour: the prehensile lip, the arc of the horn, the gnarly armour plates and the improbably thick folds of skin. Ears twitching, it briefly lifts its head, then letting out a loud squeal bolts into the night at a speed entirely disproportionate to its ponderous frame. The cause for such precipitous action is visible shortly. A giant bull elephant, a tusk-less ‘makhna’ nearly 10 feet tall, ambles in and takes over the lick. Licking salt is a distinctly awkward activity for an elephant: he grabs a bit of salt with his trunk, rigidly extends the muscular stem letting the limp end dangle, and then gives it a hefty swing so that the tip gets maximum contact with his tongue. Having licked his fill, he smears salt all over his frontal upper body. Then, turning and facing us, he briefly rests a front foot on top of the salt mound. Having thus made an impression befitting his stature, he turns around and walks away.
We are at the Hollong forest bungalow within the Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary, on a three-day visit in search of the Asian one-horned rhino. The sanctuary is located in the eastern Himalayan foothills of West Bengal, close to the border with Bhutan. The sanctuary is watered by the rain-fed Torsa and its numerous tributaries. The Hollong bungalow is the only place to spend the night within the sanctuary. The late night wildlife vignette at the bungalow’s salt lick has whetted my appetite. The staff tells me this rhino is not from these parts, which may suggest that a new group has moved in. This bodes well for our elephant ride in the morning.
The following day dawns foggy. At 6am the visibility is barely 50 feet. While waiting for the safari elephants to show up I sit down at the salt lick. The reward is immediate. An adult male sambar deer is drinking at the creek, a wispy bank of fog setting off the delicate filigree of its antlers. He looks up, turns his head and makes eye contact; my personal forest spirit in a Mononoke tableau.
During the two-hour elephant ride we see no animals, rhino or otherwise. I have a lunch appointment with the Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) in charge of Jaldapara. My plan is to plead strenuously with him to let me into the ‘core area’ of the sanctuary, entirely out of bounds for visitors. En route to visiting the DFO we pause near the Torsa to listen to the forest. It is an airy and light morning, the fog having lifted entirely. All around us are giant shimul trees, with impressive buttress roots. The lush green undergrowth is splashed in places with scarlet shimul blossoms. The Torsa bed is nearly 3km wide. This torrential monsoon monster is mostly dry now in January, with a few trickles here and there. A dozen black ibis rummage near the water; a couple of brahminy ducks sun themselves. Close inspection of the cool, dry river sand on shore yields unexpected treasures: two cascaded pugmarks, as if the animal’s hind paw hit the ground very close to where the front paw had been. The pugmarks are about four inches across, a bit wider than long. By their size this is almost surely a tiger, likely a male due to the form. Tiger pugmarks are seen in Jaldapara, but rarely. So this is exciting indeed. No one has seen a tiger here in years. Leopards are more common and the river sand records that well.
With the DFO’s blessing I take another elephant ride in the afternoon. Unlike the ride in the morning this one is deep within the core area of the sanctuary; there are no roads and no tourists. And no effete howdahs either. This time I am riding a patrol elephant practically bareback. Robi Biswas Sharma, the mahout, was born in Hollong and has lived in the sanctuary all his life. His elephant, Champakali, is the ultimate ATV. She effortlessly negotiates rivers, taking on four-foot drops along muddy banks and climbing back up. On occasion we saunter on dry riverbeds; sometimes the terrain is dense jungle with thick vines hanging down to a verdant undergrowth of ferns. But mostly, we float through acres of elephant grass. As far as the eye can see is a vast pristine savannah with scattered trees, extending to a forest-line at the horizon. Here, finally, is rhino country. Robi points out giant piles of rhino dung, some nearly three feet high (how did the last individual scale this pile without flattening it?). In this neighbourhood, a neat array of egrets floating above the vegetation is a dead giveaway. The birds ride on the rhino’s back keeping the rhino skin bug-free and their own bellies full. As we approach, the animal pauses grazing, lifts its head and cocks its ears. It does not really see much due to poor vision, and often goes right back to grazing. A grazing rhino cuts an idyllic, nearly bovine figure. But it is really a two-tonne steel-plated tank that can do zero to 45 in a minute. I see this first-hand when we spot two rhinos getting into a conflict. In the five minutes it takes Champakali to get closer, the silent prairie echoes with squeals and grunts as one chases the other clear to the horizon.
During the hour-and-a-half ride, Robi shows me 15 rhinos, many of them up close. This is more than 10 per cent of the entire population in the sanctuary! At one point there are five rhinos within a 50-foot radius of us: a mother with two cubs, and two juvenile males. As we approach a magnificent adult male with a spectacular horn, Robi briefs me on its personality. “If he doesn’t charge as soon as he sees me approach he is having a friendly day, which means I can get close.” I feel a pang of envy at Robi’s intimate knowledge of each rhino on his beat, which surely affords us more protection than the only alternative he is carrying: a small bag of pebbles and a slingshot!
One chilly evening I sit by a campfire outside the home of Raghu Rai, head mahout at Hollong. Raghu has been at Jaldapara for nearly 35 years. He learnt his mahout ropes under Lalji Barua, king of Gauripur in Assam and legendary elephant tamer. Barua’s famed stables once held 99 elephants, before Mrs Gandhi stripped him of his privy purse. Over tea, Raghu summarises the arc of Jaldapara during his time: more rhinos now than ever, significantly less forest cover and grassland than before. I get the same sense when talking to the DFO. Yes, the rhinos are back from the brink — up from 14 in 1984 to 122 now, and growing at a steady clip — but the question of their habitat is far from closed.
Jaldapara, shaped roughly like a pair of trousers with skinny legs, faces tremendous pressure from human habitation on all sides. The focus of the rhino programme so far at Jaldapara has been that of survival. But no one yet knows the carrying capacity of this sanctuary. The male rhinos often clash, as is their wont in the wild, but there are very few clash-related deaths in Jaldapara. The injured rhinos here get prompt medical care, which is perhaps why their sex ratio has skewed away from an ideal of two or three females for each male, to about even. Of the 18 rhinos I see during my visit, about half have injury marks: males due to fights and females due to the extra mating load. Perhaps it would be better to let nature take its course? This is a tricky issue, and during my conversation with forest officials it is plain that the ideal extent of intervention is far from clear.
How did this tremendous population growth come about? The answer seems to be an array of serious anti-poaching initiatives. They range from recruiting villagers into the cause though developmental aid to supporting clandestine networks of informants who identify villagers or forest guards plotting a poach. There is practically no poaching in Jaldapara. But spy networks always come with collateral damage; Raghu bears testimony to this. He was accused of hoarding rhino horns and ivory, and his home searched as his family watched. “Me,” he says, the hurt palpable in the flickering firelight, “who has spent more time with elephants than humans in my life. I was accused of hoarding ivory.”
On the final afternoon I take a float down the river Bania in a rickety country boat. Bania flows through the Chilapata forest, adjacent to Jaldapara. Like most rivers here, Bania is rain-fed. Its waters are crystal clear but there isn’t much of it. Our boat constantly gets grounded in the pebbly bottom and has to be pushed free. Dense old-growth forest looms above both shores. Towering trees lean over the river putting much of it permanently in the shade. Elaborate root systems snake down the muddy bank; secondary roots descend straight into the riverbed from 50 feet above. This is prime elephant country. At one point, while grounded and struggling to break free we hear rustling on the near shore. An elephant, not 10 feet away, has been watching us for a while. It melts into the thicket when the forest guard accompanying us raises his shotgun.
At the edge of Chilapata forest, villagers scratch out a living. During the November harvest, I am told, the rice paddies are overrun with elephants. Ganesh Shah, a local entrepreneur, is trying to attract wildlife tourists to witness this front line. His resort, surrounded by rice paddies, is less than half a kilometre from the forest’s edge. In the dim glow of a single solar-powered CFL, as six nubile Rabha maidens dance to plaintive songs, the thin night air is rent with hooting and hollering. An elephant has crossed over from the forest onto the shorn paddy field next to the resort. My hosts are clearly torn: should they shoo the animal away like they usually do, or should they let it come a bit closer so I can get a better look? The jungle admits no half-measures; the animal is chased away.
Chilapata is home to the ruins of an ancient fort from the Gupta era that the forest has reclaimed. All that remains is a handful of stone blocks with distinctive carvings. These lay strewn about in a dark glade deep within the old-growth forest. Following the stones I come to a gully for monsoon runoff. The moist earth at the bottom of the hollow bears accurate record of who has been here recently. The elephant prints are most prominent, large disks half full of water. Off to one side, framed by the ochre of fallen leaves, is a fresh leopard pugmark on a faded print of a male shoe, size 10. A cheer wells up from my brain stem. The jungle is alive and has pulled rank.
The information
Getting there: The entrance to the Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary is at Madarihat, 140km from Bagdogra airport. The nearest major railhead is at New Jalpaiguri.
Where to stay: The Hollong Forest Bungalow, inside the sanctuary, has 7 rooms (Rs 1,000; 0353-2511979, 2511974). TheJaldapara Tourist Lodge at Madarihat has dorms as well (Rs 1,000 doubles/Rs 650 tourist huts/Rs 300 dorm; 03563-262230, 262606). At Chilapata, Shivji Green India Tourist Cottages has cottages on stilts (Rs 14,000 for 2N/3D on Jungle Plan; 03561-286203, 9474382442). Also check www.jaldapara.com for information on lodging options.
What to see and do
– Early morning elephant safaris (5-8am) leave from the Hollong forest bungalow. Tariff: Rs 120 per head. To book call the Hollong bungalow numbers.
– Totopara, a village of Totos — one of the last indigenous tribes of North Bengal — is 22km north of the sanctuary.
– Chilapata is adjacent to Jaldapara across from the Torsa. There is significant old-growth forest cover here, home to the ruins of an ancient fort (Nal Raja’s Garh) and plenty of wildlife.
When to go: The sanctuary is open from October through May. The best months for rhino watching are March and April when the new grass comes up.
Contact: Help Tourism, an organisation that’s trying to create sustainable livelihoods through tourism all across the Northeast, can facilitate a trip. Contact them for itineraries, accommodation and safari bookings, excellent local guides and other assistance (see www.helptourism.com for contacts in several cities).