Forever Tigers at Rencha - Page 2
by Gideon Egger

The Marutis head for the park.
© Gideon Egger 2004. Taken February 2004

First, we drove them up to Bandhavgarh hill, where, part way up the hill there is a statue of a reclining Vishnu. This is one of the only places in the park where you can get out and walk around. One of the naturalists who works at Churhat Kothi, Digpal Karmawas, took a group photo of Dhruv, myself and all the children and their teachers.

Dhruv Singh, left front; Gideon Egger, right front; all the kids in back. 
© Digpal Karmawas. Taken at the Reclining Vishnu February 2004

Then Dhruv marched them up the hill to give them a view of the park and to warm them up a little. Dhruv spoke to them in their local dialect and instructed them to respect their national park and to pick up any garbage that they might find on the path. After this we piled them back into the Marutis and were off to see the animals.

Photo of Bandhavgarh Hill-
 © Gideon Egger 2004. Taken February 2004

Most of the common wildlife of Bandhavgarh, the small birds, deer, peacocks, wild boars etc. that may excite most visitors, were very familiar to these children; they wanted to see the tiger. Luckily, a tigress, known as the Banbai tigress, was spotted by one of the Mahouts from elephant back. We headed our convoy over to where she was located and began to transfer the students, one Maruti load at a time, onto the elephant to see the tigress.

Mahout Ram Charan helping a child onto his elephant Sudarshani
 © Gideon Egger 2004. Taken at Bandhavgarh, February 2004

Some parts of Bandhavgarh are patrolled by as many as three elephant bound mahouts so that when a tiger is spotted several jeep loads of people can be transferred to elephant back simultaneously. Unfortunately, this area of the park had only one elephant, a young female named Sudarshani ridden by a mahout named Ram Charan. Therefore, the children had to wait their turn as Sudarshani could only take about a jeep load of kids at a time and we had eleven jeeps.

The children and their teacher on elephant back
 © Gideon Egger 2004. Taken at Bandhavgarh, February 2004

Additionally, there were a couple of tourists' jeeps that managed to get ahead of some of ours. Luckily for us, the Banbai tigress had just killed and eaten an impressively large wild boar and so was feeling rather satiated and lazy. She was only too happy to enjoy her nap and was not particularly bothered by the elephant's frequent intrusions or the strange protuberances on its back. Actually, this is part of the magic of Bandhavgarh, and one of the factors that contribute to making it the best place in the world to see wild tigers: the tigers here grow up with the Mahout and tourist laden elephants and each generation learns from its parents that these elephants are neither a threat nor a competitor. The tigers of Bandhavgarh are fully wild but remarkably insouciant about elephants, jeeps and even people.

© 2004 Forever Tigers
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