Kipling’s Jungle Law was clear: you may kill for yourself or your mate and cubs but “kill not for pleasure of killing, and seven times never kill man”. The Law, of course, has never applied to man. I am in Kanha, in the heart of Kipling country, in the forests where he set the Jungle Book. Above the fireplace in the library is a huge black and white photograph. In the foreground stand two Englishmen in khaki shorts and sola topis; in the background are two rows of clotheslines on which are pegged dozens and dozens of tiger skins, while more lie strewn at their feet. In that one picture, possibly an entire generation of tigers lies dead. And there were hundreds of these hunters. It surprises me that there are any tigers left at all.
Like many conservationists, the owners of the Singinawa Jungle Lodge come from rich hunting families. Many pictures in the lodge show hunting scenes at which their ancestors preside. Nanda Rana, crack shot, got his first chance to shoot a tiger, spotlighted by a moonbeam, when he was 20. He could not kill it. “It was beautiful,” he says, “and my fascination with the tiger began that day.” The fascination took him to Bandhavgarh as a wildlife camp manager for a decade, made him tiger consultant for National Geographic, tiger film maker for Discovery and BBC, and now to his own jungle lodge.
Sanjoy and I first glimpse it at the end of a long and tiring drive from Raipur. The car has turned off the road into jungle and then, fairytale fashion, lights gleam in the darkness and at the end of a path, suddenly, appears what looks quite like a castle in the gloom. Daylight will show me I’m not far wrong — the lodge with its towering atrium that houses a skeletal tree, its black branches straight out of a Japanese painting, its majestic flights of stairs, its vast rooms and verandas — does have something regal about it. Maybe it’s Rana’s Nepali nobleman roots. His hospitality is equally stately. At his stentorian summons, various henchmen scuttle out and do their best to make us comfortable, starting from removing errant frogs from our rooms to sourcing jackets and shawls.
Rana is more host than hotelier, a personal touch that I find delightful. He loves nothing better than to sit over a drink with you at a bonfire as he unleashes an endless stream of jungle stories. The exacting business of linen and décor he leaves to wife Latika, also a wildlife expert, with a doctorate in tiger conservation and management. Sharing the newly opened lodge with us is a charming British NRI family, and what with toasting Father on his birthday, dressing for dinner, and fussing with our tea at 4pm, we could well have been a party of weekend guests at some 19th-century English country house. Except, of course, the two boys, Zuber and Zorawar, play with Gameboys, and at the crack of dawn next morning we head out for Kanha National Park not on horses but two Maruti Gypsies.
The forest rises slowly out of the mist, like a fuzzy dream taking shape. Outlines of lake and tree and shrub merge and mesh in the palest pastel hues as if someone had run a wet brush over a watercolour. The sun is still formless, only a brightening of light behind the trees. The cold of middle October is already a sharp thing, reaching out its icy, smoky tentacles from the meadows on either side and clutching us as we drive past. Then, the antlered heads and shoulders of three barasingha rise from the smoky marshes, etched black on the dawn, their gravely worried looks fixed on us. The rescue from near extinction of this rare species of hardground swamp deer is one of Kanha’s biggest successes. As the red disc slowly rises, the forest shapes solidify, get real, and now the birds can be heard and seen.
We all love the jungle for itself, but we know we’re waiting for just one thing — the tiger. The birds are lovely, the giant spiders fascinating, the monitor lizards repellent, the deer all lightness and elegance, but there’s no tiger to be seen that first day. We pretend we don’t really mind but secretly we all do because that’s really the only reason we are here. The park has just one route open because of post-monsoon repairs and it’s unreasonable to expect to see the tiger.
But next morning everything changes. Just as we prepare to give up, out of the sal trees he emerges. Majestic, disdainful, gorgeous. He lopes across the long grass, sinews rippling, not bothered in the least by his gawking audience. Before I can breathe again, a second tiger joins him. They playfully jostle each other before disappearing into the brush. We mount the park elephants for a closer look and it’s obvious they are now irked by the attention. They stroll away, and we follow. In the distance a herd of cheetal suddenly realises just what’s headed their way. Panic calls, a sudden stampede of hooves, and the herd has taken off. The tigers haven’t even looked in the direction of the deer. Instead, they pick up speed suddenly and disappear into the jungle. It’s been a rare sighting, so close they could have reached us in one fluid leap. But the delight at seeing their fearful symmetry this intimately is mixed with the ambivalence of knowing we’re once more chasing them, invading their territory.
But, as the Ranas point out, tourism is now possibly the only way the tiger can survive. Despite a reputation as India’s best-managed park and despite having possibly the largest number of tigers, there are question marks about Kanha’s tigers. Numbers vary from park officials to guides to tiger experts. There is no latest census data. Official claims put the population at 131, but Rana and others aver it could be closer to 80 or 90. And the buffer zone, where tourists are not allowed, is the area where nobody knows how many tigers survive.
Meanwhile, tour operator-conservationists like the Ranas show there are ways and ways, if you are serious about wildlife. Singinawa Lodge is a member of Toft (Travel Operators for Tigers), an international campaign to promote responsible wilderness tourism, with guidelines for hoteliers and tourists. Toft raises money, in partnership with UK’s Global Tiger Patrol, for research and anti-poaching equipment. Then, there’s the Singinawa Foundation that works with villagers in the areas of education, health, watershed management, and alternate livelihood. Tourism, as Latika points out, is the only way to give locals a reason to conserve. And protected forests must become self-sustaining pockets in order to survive.
Earlier this year, Rana also initiated the Kanha National Park Association of Hotels, whose guiding principle is this: the National Park must come first. Hoteliers are being made aware that if the Park and the tigers die, there won’t be any reason for hotels. Tour operators learn and in turn teach tourists about water conservation, garbage management, and responsible forest behaviour.
In 2005, when the Ranas bought this land, it was 58 acres of degraded forest covered with lantana and weeds and the trees chopped down waist-high. The weeds were removed, and an artificial lake and monsoon dam created. Soon, the grass and the trees grew back, and the animals returned. And this year, the tiger came to Singinawa. In the next phase, Singinawa will also have wetlands for the birds. A biosphere recreated from the waste.
We walk through the newborn meadows down to the river at the edge of the property, and find cormorants and treepies, shrikes and orioles. We turn around and there at the end of the path is a herd of grazing cheetal. A fat little pup on the property has adopted Zuber and Zorawar, who have lost their hearts to it. We head back to the lodge, pup firmly in our midst, and scrounge for bread to feed this little domesticated animal that has learnt so well to adapt to man’s natural ruthlessness.
At the barbecue that night, we’re still talking about the 1,000-odd square kilometres that’s the Kanha reserve. And I suddenly visualise how even a few hundred years ago this entire belt, from Maharashtra to Orissa, was once forest, the Central Highlands, home to a myriad animals and tribes, systematically reduced to these few pathetic pockets. And that’s why the single most significant thing the Ranas have done is their decision to develop only five acres of their land into resort, and let the remaining 53 acres be reclaimed by forest. This is tourism at its sensitive best, and evidently the future of conservation.
The information
Getting there by rail
The closest station is GondiaJunction (110km). The Gondwana Express (Rs 1,061 on 3A; leaves 3.25pm, arrives 11.20am) plies four times a week between New Delhi and Gondia. From Mumbai, there’s the daily Vidarbha Express (Rs 943 on 3A; leaves 7.10pm, arrives 11.10am). Jabalpur (203 km), Nagpur (290 km), Raipur (213 km) and Bilaspur (182 km) are the other major railheads close to Kanha. BY AIR You can fly down to Jabalpur, Raipur, or Nagpur. Or you could consider taking a private or chartered flight to the tiny airstrip in Baihar, 5km from Singinawa.
BY ROAD The roads are in far better condition than you dare to expect, except for 5-10km stretches in between, but post-monsoon repairs are on and the road journey should get quite comfortable.
The lodge
The Singinawa Jungle Lodge has only 12 cottages — airy and large, with verandas where you can laze under a sun umbrella. They are all air-conditioned with two queen-size beds each, so that a family of four can be accommodated quite comfortably. There’s plenty of room for an extra bed, and each cottage has two washbasins to manage the morning safari rush. JUNGLE PLAN Rs 7,500 per head per night (twin sharing). Includes all meals, two safaris, park fees and bird walks. AMERICAN PLAN Rs 5,600 per person per night (twin sharing). Only room and meals. SAFARI Rs 2,000 per person per drive, inclusive of park fees. CONTACT 07636-200031, www.singinawa.in. Book in advance as the Lodge does not take walk-in arrivals.
Best time to visit
November to mid-May is the best time to visit Kanha. While November to February is excellent for birds and big game, summer is best for bears and bison. The park is closed July to mid-October for the monsoon.
Tips
Carry warm clothes, except in peak summer. Carry medicines and emergency supplies because the nearest town is pretty far. Don’t miss the interesting museum at Kanha Gate.