OUR FIRST EVER VISIT TO KANHA NATIONAL PARK :



















 Shortly after Sherpa (Ritwik Prince Niyogi) finished his ICSE (ClassX) exams we headed for Raipur. Mr Debarchan Mishra, now a Big Daddy with Axis Bank (Regional Retail Head) was then the Branch Head of UTI BANK, Raipur and had made all arrangements for our two-day visit to Kanha National Park. We reached theTuli Resorts at the Kisli Gate in Kanha VERY late in the night only to be up and ready before 5 the next morning for our first excursion into the Park. After spending a greater part of the morning roaming around the Park in a Gypsy we got the news of a "Tiger Show"  - meaning a tiger has been sighted and surrounded on four sides by several elephants so that desiring tourists could climb on to other elephants and have a close look at it. Debarchan acted promptly and booked all four of us on an elephant. Barring faint memories of tigers from very early in my childhood - both live and hunted - while with my uncles in Hazaribag, this was our first live view of a tiger in the wild! Excitement is an inadequate word to describe our feelings. But the Tiger/Tigress was having a mid-morning siesta and just did not bother about us. The Mahout got us really close to it and made some noises, as did we, but the Tiger remained unimpressed and continued to lie on its back  except  for one brief moment when it rolled on its side to give us a front view. I managed  to get some  photos on my 1977 - purchased  Pentax MX  but the prints were lousy with  an excess of  blue-green  tint.

Kanha is wonderfull - particularly the Kanha Meadow is exceptionally beautiful and we got to see beautiful Chitals, Sambars and Peacocks in full feathers. There were lots of eagles and other birds around but trying a photo with a limited tele-lens proved futile. Also this was the first time we saw hulky Indian Bisons (Gauds) in the wild. And the Langurs were aplenty  doing what they do best - monkeying around, often climbing on empty jeeps and raiding any food lying around unguarded!

The next morning too we got to another Tiger Show Elephant Ride! This time it was a tigress hidden behind trees and bushes. We could see only glimpses of its body and occasionally its face. Thanks to an analogue camera I managed to get a few photos with the tigress barely visible  but it  was still a matter of immense pleasure for me. 

With a lazy tiger lying on its back and a tigress mostly hidden, the trip to Kanha in 2003 only whetted our appetite for more .... perhaps this trip acted as the catalyst for me to begin my journey into several more wildlife parks / sanctuaries in the years to follow. The trip and tiger sightings were indeed exciting but the real thrill of seeing the magnificent Big Cat from really close quarters came 4 years later. But that's another story for some other time.......

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