Mcleodganj Part 2: The Hike to Triund

Introduction

I’m a once-or-twice-a-year hiker who tries to include at least one trip to the Himalayas every year. Barring 2014, I've managed to achieve this since 2012. My write-up on the trek from Mcleodganj town to the Triund ridge might not appeal to seasoned trekkers. But for folks like me who are beginners, amateur trekkers, or simply contemplating a hike in the Himalayas – like my wife who accompanied me last Wednesday, Dec  21, 2016 – this might serve as a reasonable advisory. For quick facts about Triund, scroll down to the bottom of this post.

The Tibetan Institute for Performing Arts
on the way to Dharamkot

Points to Remember

Intensity and Duration: The Triund trek is categorised as a full-day, easy-to-moderate trek in most guidebooks and on websites. For first-timers, however, it is slightly more arduous. Having said that, if you start early enough, say by 7 am, you can reach the ridge by noon and climb down – which is more daunting than the climb, but definitely faster – and reach Mcleodganj before sunset. Some trekkers like to start late and camp at Triund for the night. Many hike further up to Snowline cafe the next day and onward to Indrahaar pass, which is not for amateurs I've heard. This write-up is only about a day-trek Triund and back. However, I repeat, start early, and don't plan to leave Mcleodganj in the evening after you descend from the ridge.

That trough-like formation right in front of the grey-white peak
is the Triund ridge; as viewed from Mcleodganj.

Food and Availability: There’s a makeshift café called Sunil’s Chai Shop on the ridge that sells basic food, chai, and water, and also provides tents on hire for a reasonable price. (This month, in Dec 2016, a tent for two cost Rs. 700). There are two or three other cafes too; they look like little Mongol tents with mostly blue plastic sheets for a roof. We spotted several blankets laid out within these shops as well. I think you can sleep in them if you don’t feel like braving the cold in a nylon tent.

Sunil's chai shop at Triund

There are several makeshift chai stalls along the way too, including Magic View, which boasts that it has provided refreshments to trekkers since 1984. All the stalls provide water, bottled and canned juices and sodas, and basic food such as Maggi noodles, rice and dal, and bread-egg-butter-jam; even Nutella. Of course they charge a lot more than normal shops do on the plains. A bowl of piping hot Maggi noodles, for instance, could set you back by Rs. 80. However, understand that these stalls have to haul these wares up the trail on the back of pack animals. As far as I know, there’s no rope way or helipad, no secret road or railway to ferry goods up the hill. Hence the premium on foodstuff. If you still think you’re being swindled, feel free to carry enough food and water to last you for a day at least. You could bring packed sandwiches or rolls, steamed momos or goodies from the many fantastic bakeries in Mcleodganj. You could ask the stalls for hot water, which you could pour into your Cup Noodles. Or buy Snickers and Bounty bars from the local stores in Mcleodganj at MRP. 

Another chai shop at Triund

Clothing: CARRY enough warm clothes; don’t WEAR them all. A nice rucksack is a good option, but strap it well to your shoulders and around your waist. Please don’t carry sling and hand bags; they’re a nuisance once the trail begins and when you might require your hands to climb. Only have strolleys? Please buy a nice backpack in Mcleodganj. There are several nice stores in town. And for your own good, don’t wear heels! You’re not going to a discotheque or a pub. (We spotted a girl in pencil heels in Triund!) Wear clothes that you’d be comfortable in. It becomes really sunny and you could get sunburnt, so apply a good sunblock cream, and wear hats and caps and sunglasses as needed.

Preliminaries: Even if you haven't climbed a hill ever, if you've had moderate exercise of some form or indulged in a sport, you'd be in good stead on this trek. Don’t drink alcohol the previous evening. I made this mistake in Nov 2013 and I took six hours to reach the top, severely dehydrated and exhausted. Whereas on this trek in 2016, we hiked up in four hours! Like all other endurance sports, alcohol dehydrates and debilitates you severely. And don’t carry a lot of booze up to Triund, if you plan to camp overnight. It's not as if the world is going to end and you’ll never descend to the plains again. 

Maggi noodles and chai

Stay hydrated, but don’t drink too much water. The same rule as in a marathon applies over here. Too much water will weigh you down and make your kidneys work overtime, which is not a nice thing for you while you’re on the move. Two mouthfuls of water every 30 minutes is good enough. Fruits and nuts are nice when you go trekking, but not watermelon and papaya! Why carry rocks in your bag? And don’t carry plastic bags! Even if you do - oh, you incorrigible, obstinate you! - bring them back with you!

Mcleodganj to Gallu Devi Temple

Mcleodganj square: Hotel Asian Plaza in Mcleodganj
at the mouth of Dharamkot road

The “road” to Triund begins at Mcleodganj square. You have to take the Dharamkot road at Pizza Hut and Hotel Asian Plaza, but the real “hill trail” begins only at Gallu Devi temple. Almost the entire stretch, from the mouth of Dharamkot road at Jimmy’s Breakfast Café to the top of the ridge, is an uphill climb; steep at several places with a few flat stretches. Even from Mcleodganj square, the road climbs sharply past the Tibetan performing arts institute, all the way up to Dharamkot. If you don’t want to exhaust yourself by walking all the way from town, you could hire a cab or a rickshaw to Gallu Devi temple, but I’m certain they charge a lot. (Though I don’t know how much; never asked.)

You know when you reach Dharamkot when you spot a water treatment facility with its huge concrete water tanks and a little eatery on the left. The road to Triund is on the right, behind the water tanks. As you go along, you’ll see graffiti on the walls: Way To Triund.

See the trail going right? That's the road to Triund.

At Dharamkot, the “good” road ends. From here, the unpaved and uneven mud-road, full of rocks and stones and mud, winds through the cedar and pine forests up to Gallu Devi temple. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself on the road deep inside a forest. You aren’t lost if you’ve stayed on the road and climbed the uphill bends. You’ll see the occasional pickup truck or SUV or auto rickshaw trundling up and down the mud-road kicking up dust and making you contemplate going back to your hotel room. Take heart and carry on. This is only the beginning.

There’s a little café and, well, a little shrine, at Gallu Devi temple. (I think the café is called Sun and Moon Café.) There’s also a cement cistern, like a miniature swimming pool or bathtub in front of the café. The trail begins here; you’ll see markings on some rocks indicating the direction to Triund. There are fantastic views of the Dhauladhar hills over here. 

Sun and Moon cafe and Gallu Devi temple behind which begins the Triund trail

Nice views behind Gallu Devi temple. My shadow as I click the pic.

A rock with a blue arrow indicating the beginning of the trail

Gallu Devi Temple to Magic View Cafe

From this place, the trail alternates between rocky stairs-like formations to leaf-and-mud mountain trails to no conspicuous path or trail at all, especially where you come across huge boulders that lie in the path of cascades, which certainly have streams running down during monsoon. The landscape changes from forests to rocky lees and cliff sides, but the trail keeps climbing all the time. At several places, you’ll encounter points where the trail narrows to the width of one burly man. It’s a sheer drop or at least a furious plummet at such places, although most of them offer a fantastic vista of the Kangra valley, of Mcleodganj itself, shrunken to the size of Lego blocks in the haze at this distance.  

Most of the trail is rocky and uphill

Mules coming down from Triund

Path to Triund

Along the lower reaches of the trail, they’ve now erected fences to prevent accidents. A marble plaque, dedicated to trekker Prag Bhasker Sahars Budhe, still exists, at the spot where I had photographed a kite soaring at close range in 2013, but it’s now chipping off at the edges.

We stopped at Magic View café where the wife bought a Gatorade and I had tea. The Triund ridge still hovers high above our heads. “Is the trail better now?” wife asked. “Oh yes,” I lied. The trail gets steeper and worse from here.

Plaque dedicated to a trekker who fell from here

Magic view cafe comes up

The view from Magic View cafe

The trail at Magic View cafe

Magic View Cafe to Triund

After a point, technically less than 700 meters from the ridge, the grey-white peaks behind the Triund ridge disappear. At this point, you also lose the will to live. You curse yourself for embarking on such stupid endeavours. You find yourself completely out of breath, but you find enough strength to curse the hills, curse the bludgeoning sun, curse the still air and the deafening silence. 

Can get really quiet and still and unnerving at the top

Can you spot a trail or path?

Okay, here it is!

But there’s no alternative other than climb to the top. (Obviously, you don’t want to climb down from here, after coming so close to the ridge.) Your knees scream, your thighs burn, your back and your backpack-bearing shoulders weep. It is at this point that you have to stop doing what is the most difficult thing to do: stop thinking. Offer yourself a promise, however fantasy-like or fake it might be, and pursue it, and keep going.

Lonely at the top

Some house-like structures just above Magic View Cafe

It’s when you see the grey-white peaks with the previous season’s snow streaks that you realise you’ve finally reached the top. In a far contrast to the surroundings, you also see the head of a bottle green signboard that reads: Appeal, followed by instructions to keep Triund clean. You’ve made it to Triund, probably your first trek in the Himalayas, maybe even the first trek of your life!

Finally!

View of the ridge at the ridge

When you earn your Maggi

Relaxing at Triund

Bidding goodbye to Triund and beginning the descent

Climbing Down

If you plan to return to Mcleodganj the same day, begin climbing down no later than 2 PM. Climbing down is tricky; remember not to run or gambol down the hill. You could inflict serious injury to your knees and end up limping or, worse, not be able to walk at all! There are no helicopter evacuations or rescue teams here, and not many people will have the strength to carry you back to town. At least when you descend the hill, you breathe normally unlike the climb up to the ridge, so pace yourself accordingly.

Look closely at the top of the hill, where there are no trees.
You'll spot a little white structure. That's a temple, and beyond it is Snowline cafe.

At a reasonable and safe cadence, you should be able to make it back to Mcleodganj in under 3 hours, arriving in town for a hot cappuccino or ginger honey lemon tea and lovely views of sunset. Don’t hit the bottle just yet. Take a good warm shower, eat good food, and then relax with a peg or two, just about enough to lull you to sleep. Your aching limbs will do the rest to ensure that you sleep well. 

Quick Facts about Triund

Height: 2842 metres or 9324 feet above sea level

Distance from Mcleodganj: Approximately 7.5 kilometers or 4.66 miles, almost entirely uphill.

Terrain: Rocky and unpaved; continuous climb while going up. 

Trek intensity: Easy to moderate with several steep inclines, especially in the last couple of kilometres.

Best time to go: I trekked both times in November and December at the onset of winter.

Climate: The air is clear at the start of winter. Definitely gets cold at night, and is colder and freezing from Jan to Mar. Summer months, the trek could be really hot. Monsoon might be fun, but you'll have to watch out for landslides.

Food and water: Available on the trek and on the ridge in little cafes. Bottled water, basic food such as packaged noodles, biscuits, canned and bottled sodas and juices, biscuits and chips, rice and dal, bread and jam and eggs, Nutella in some places, milk tea and coffee.

Accommodation: In tents mostly, available on rent at a reasonable price. No restrooms; the grand outdoors under the open sky (and preferably behind designated, isolated boulders and cliff faces). 

Goa Diaries, February 2012, Part 2: Valentine's, Tattoos and Other Tales

Amchem Goa

A boat ride in the Aguada bay

The two of us gifted ourselves our first, and so far the only, tattoos on Valentine's in 2012. Where else could've we got it at other than our family-favourite and oft-frequented destination: Goa. This was also our first stay in Cavala Resort at Baga and also the first time that we drove to Goa in our Ford Figo. Cavala is a charming little hotel about 400 metres from Britto's restaurant in Baga. The room we got was a comfortable, standard AC room at ground level. The resort's swimming pool and poolside bar are located across the road in the other plot that belongs to the resort. Later in October, we went back to Cavala without our daughter. I might write about that trip - which ended in disaster because of things that happened on this trip - in another post.

The inn section of Cavala

Get Over It

Of the 430-odd kilometres from Kothrud, Pune to Baga, the stretch of National Highway till Nipani is a fantastic, and sleep-inducing, national highway. At Nipani, you turn right and climb through hills, forests, and sugarcane fields on the Ajara-Amboli stretch, all the way to Sawantwadi on the Mumbai-Goa highway, about ten kilometres before the Goa state border. Daughter dearest insisted that the CD of her favourite songs should get maximum playtime, which it did. It also gave Wife and me time to talk and mull over things, a lot of them. Besides the three of us, there was, metaphorically speaking, a fourth traveller, and this person increasingly became the reason for the restiveness that occupied our minds and cast a pall of gloom on what would've otherwise been a pleasant and memorable trip. Well, a "memorable" trip this certainly was! 

Just after getting the tattoo

To draw her out of the gloom, I narrated the story of the novel - every painstaking detail about the characters and who from the movie industry I imagined for which character - I intended to write. A year and four months later, I even completed the first draft, then titled 'Feast of the Kings'. 

'So not you,' she said about the story, involving two female protagonists. 'I think you should write fantasy or historical fiction. At least, fiction involving espionage and war. Drama in contemporary settings, I personally think, is not typical of you.' 

The objective, however, to keep our minds off that fourth person we didn't want to think of. For the rest of the drive, the narration and discussion worked. But the distraction was only transient.  

Heartache Tonight

The mobile phone rang several times that evening, eventually leading to an altercation between Wife and me, after we reached Goa. Four calls from Mumbai International Airport the first evening, then a call from Frankfurt Airport the next morning, and once again, from Chicago that evening with a Valentine's greeting in advance.

'And wish her a happy birthday on my behalf,' she said, referring to Wife as "her" as always. It was always "her" or "she", never the name. 'Her birthday is on Valentine's day, isn't it? Wow, nice!'

A battery of text messages followed, which bespoke of despair and heartache. Not a single one indicated any joy about being in the USA or with her husband, whom she was meeting after many months. And why was I so affected by her going away? I'd hugged and congratulated her after she had joyously returned from the US Consulate with a confirmed visa in her passport. So what was the aching in the heart, in both our hearts, I wondered.

Daughter at the poolside bar

Daughter's favourite spot in a resort: The pool

'Isn't she going to the US to join her husband?' the wife asked, infuriated, ignoring the birthday wish. 'Shouldn't she be happy to be joining him, that too in the USA for god's sake!'

Yes, she should've been, and that inexplicable despair was my dilemma as well. Wife and I sulked and didn't talk for the most part of the next morning, after which we eventually made peace over cocktails and vodka, and went to Britto's for lunch. There, we found a tattoo studio with photographs of celebrities and sportsmen getting themselves tattooed in the studio. So we got our tattoos done over there: Wife, a vine in an S shape with two colourful butterflies; and I, the mantra "Om Mani Padme Hum" in Tibetan script.

The view of the beach from Britto's

By evening, the melancholy between us dissipated and we decided to focus only on the three of us and the purpose of this trip. As the sun sank into the Arabian see, the lights and reggae music emanated from the beach shacks. The tables and cane chairs were laid out on the beaches with Chinese lanterns hoisted along the makeshift pathway to these open-to-sky-and-sea lounging area. We sat at the table of one of the shacks and ordered our family-favourites: Calamari in butter garlic sauce, french fries, chicken wings, and Budweisers (Mango juice for the princess).

Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone

Another highlight of this trip, and subsequent ones, were the karaoke sessions at St. Anthony's. There were quite a few good singers: a Mangalorean Catholic choir singer with lovely long hair and a mesmerizing voice; a chap called Doug who stressed that he was from Wales, not England, all the while transfixed on Wifey Dearest, who returned his attention. I managed a decent rendition of "Time of your Life" by Greenday and also tried, the Bill Withers classic, Ain't No Sunshine. I screwed up on the "I know, I know..." segment and also earned the wife's scorn - not for screwing up but for singing such a pertinent number.

The beers and cocktails, however, allayed the tension between us. Also, the "dance-breaks" in between the karaoke sessions and the flirtatious glances thrown around helped. Wife found an admirer in Doug, who dedicated a karaoke number to her and one for our daughter even! I think Wife and he also danced. Meanwhile, there was this rather pretty Punjabi woman with her husband, with whom I exchanged furtive glances. Later, Wife said that she clapped the loudest after I sang "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", and she also put up a slow, sinuous, rather seductive hip-sway in front of me when the Indipop number "Amplifier" blared on the music system.

Grilled lobster

Eventually, Valentine's Day - also Wife's birthday - went off well. We celebrated with a seafood platter and a lobster for lunch, and Wife's favourite Blueberry Cheesecake. On Valentine's night, a band performed "live" in Cavala, so there was more dancing and drinking, which further cleared the air between us. I stopped reading messages on the phone and ignored all calls, even a couple from my parents. We drove back to Pune on the 15th in peace, promising ourselves another trip soon.

At the end of the trip before we began the drive back to Pune

Kanha Diaries Part 3.2: Getting There for the First Time

A wise man called Ralph Waldo Emerson said "Life is a journey, not a destination." In the same breath, another wise poet called Javed Akhtar wrote, "Yuhi chala chal rahi, jeevan gaadi hai samay paiyya" :)

Not that I'm looking for justification to describe my journey into unknown lands. Technically, this was my second trip to Madhya Pradesh. Earlier, after our SSC exams, our mother had packed us boys off on vacation to Badnavar, Indore and Ujjain in western MP. I will write a separate post about that trip.

One of the forest tracts in Kanha national park

From Mumbai to Jabalpur by train

The man who gradually slid his scrawny backside into my seat offered me a paper packet of groundnuts boiled in brine. Considering that I’d allowed him to squeeze into my seat, it was a kind token of gratitude, but I was unsure. I’d heard nightmarish stories train travellers being drugged to sleep and the miscreants then making off with their belongings. Hence I politely declined and returned to my novel. He chuckled and popped a few groundnuts into his mouth. He showed me how he chewed and ingested them, then smiled and offered the groundnuts once again, satisfied that he had proved to me that they weren’t laced. His affability made me ease my guard and I took some groundnuts from his packet.

‘We’ve got the whole day to spend, sahib,’ he said, still grinning and masticating at the same time. ‘You will get bored reading that book all day long. Why not eat and drink and chat a little? Good ways to pass time.’

I concurred and put my novel into my backpack. Fishing out a packet of Parle G biscuits, I offered him just like he had done his groundnuts. For some reason, he was amused but he took two biscuits. A chai vendor appeared, just in time, and I bought two chais for both of us.

‘Is it true that as the train goes north, people with ordinary, unreserved seat tickets get into these reserved compartments as well?’

The man stopped dipping his biscuit in his tea.

‘Why sahib, are you uncomfortable right now? Should I get up?’ he asked me and looked about. I let out a sheepish chuckle and quickly told him that I didn’t mean to ask him to leave. That was another horror story I’d heard about northbound trains. As the train reached the northern states, which people impolitely labelled "the cowbelt", anybody who fancied a trip on the train got into any compartment regardless of whether they were for travelers who had confirmed, reserved seats. Some of them don’t even buy regular or ordinary tickets! If a passenger protested, the chaps would call his accomplices and they’d not hesitate to rough up the protesting passenger.

‘No no sahib,’ the man shook his head vigorously and said. ‘By the way, how far are you going?’

‘Jabalpur.’

‘Ah, then you have nothing to worry! Jabalpur will come early morning tomorrow. All that madness happens only after the train reaches UP. You relax, sahib. Enjoy the tea!’

He then went on to tell me about how the train schedule and everything else goes haywire once the train reaches Allahabad. After that, nobody knows when it will crawl out and reach Gorakhpur.

‘Are you from Madhya Pradesh (MP)?’ he asked. I told him that I wasn’t and that I was travelling to a national park.

‘Why? Are you a forest officer?’

I’ve often wished that I was one but I told him that I wasn’t.

‘Jabalpur is not your native place?’

I shook my head and the man frowned and shrugged his shoulders, even scratched his head a little. He could not understand why someone would travel to a jungle in Central India all alone when he does not even belong to that part of the country. Perhaps Khajuraho or even the Marble Rocks or Bhedaghat in Jabalpur would have made sense because they are popular tourist destinations.  I asked him where he was going. To his hometown near Azamgarh, he said. It was harvest time. He worked in Mumbai as a security personnel and had taken leave for almost a month to go home.

Sunrise at Kanha national park. Photo courtesy: Ankur Nagar

‘I’m not sure my job will still be there when I return,’ he said and shrugged once again. Another north Indian chap who had got into the train at Kalyan and until then was struggling to put a folded pram somewhere finally found some space under the seat where he could tuck the pram away. He heaved and plopped into his seat. The man sitting next to me patted his shoulders and offered him my biscuits. Two other men sitting across us joined in and soon, they got talking among themselves and I was left alone. I’m sure they had a lot in common to talk about and mull over. I was the alien in that section of the Sleeper Class compartment, the odd city-bred with airs of conceitedness and preconceived notions. Even at the time of boarding the train at Kurla Terminus, I was apprehensive about the trip, about travelling to unfamiliar lands with complete strangers. My worries were exacerbated by the sight of policemen whacking with their cane sticks and herding poor travellers into the General Class bogies. Where was I going, I could not stop wondering. But three hours into the journey, I realised that these were simple folk, friendly and accommodating, quite unlike the prejudiced advisories I got in the city.

Even their conversations were strange. They inquired about the harvest and the last season’s rain, about tractors and tractor rentals, motors and pumps, panchayat matters, dealings with extended family members, and other such bizarre things that we city folk know nothing about. Every now and then, they turned to me and roped me into their conversation. The pram, for instance, was for his newborn, the man with mustard-oil laden, neatly combed hair said. It was a son, his second-born, and he was going to see him for the first time. The man sitting next to me was trying to explain to the rest of his audience why renting a tractor made more sense than owning one. 

‘Am I right or not, sahib?’ he asked me. I returned his smile and shrug.

From Jabalpur to Kanha by bus

The journey was peaceful and promptly at 4 am, the train reached Jabalpur. I knew I had threee hours to kill and so I went into the waiting room, put my rucksack and backpack down, and sat in a vacant chair between two sleeping men, wrapped in blankets. The sun hadn’t risen and it was quite chilly, but in the waiting room, it was relatively warmer. I had a nice jacket, a brown one that my father used for a very long time, and a sweater inside, but I made a mental note to buy myself gloves and a skull cap if possible. 

There were two basic “Indian style” loos and a Western Commode one, and a long kitchen-sink-like wash basin attached to the waiting room. Inside the loo, high up near the ceiling, there was an ancient, iron cistern from which water constantly dripped into a Dalda tin, which also served as a bathroom mug. A piece of advice here for budget travellers, especially women: In most of India, you can forget hygiene. Toilets are filthy and nonexistent in some places. That’s why you won’t find many women backpacking travelers in India, except in places like Goa or Rajasthan. But then again, they aren’t “economy” travellers.

As dawn broke forth, I had chai at the railway stall and stepped out of the Jabalpur station into the frigid outdoors. The jacket and sweater were adequate but my hands and earlobes froze, and my nose was runny. For a man who was born and raised by the coast who had not seen anything less than 13 degrees C in his life, this cold was intimidating. I dreaded to think what the nights were like in these parts, that too inside the jungle!

A cycle-rickshaw man asked for Rs. 40 to ferry me to the bus station. Just when I was about to refuse the offer – he was a wiry old man; the thought of him having to lug me in his rickshaw made me take pity on him – he brought the price down to Rs. 25. He said that the bus stop was a good two-kilometre walk, not a good prospect for someone like me who was unused to the cold. I got in and in ten minutes he ferried me to the bus stop.

I got a window seat for Rs. 85 in a tin-pot of a government-run bus to Kanha.  The bus left promptly at 7 am as the orange glow of the rising sun got stronger. Jabalpur is a pretty, quaint little cantonment town with Raj-era buildings, schools and colleges, garrison buildings, and military establishments. It is rumoured that Jabalpur sits on top of a vast, underground ammunition warehouse, but it might just be folklore. What is true, however, is that Jabalpur is home to the Shaktiman Truck Factory, which supplies trucks and other vehicles to the Indian Army.  Even before it exited the town, our bus was packed with a diverse mix of passengers. At various points on the 165-kms journey to Kanha, I had different varieties of people sitting next to me: a woman with a basket full of chickens, a hermit with matt-locked hair and a long beard and moustache, and finally a thin road-works contractor from Narsingpur, he said. He had to travel to someplace called Nainpur and had earlier planned to take the 5 AM narrow gauge train from Jabalpur, but had missed his train.

After Barela and Dhanwahi, the bus stopped for a tea and pee break at a village called Narayangaon or Narayanpur (I can’t remember now). There, I learned another thing about Madhya Pradesh: The people here loved fried foods. They began their day with an assortment of fries – samosa, bhajjiya, farsan – but I settled for a traditional MP jalebi-poha, and I didn’t regret the choice! For only Rs. 10, I got a plate full of delicious yellow jalebis with tiny strands of sugarcane still embedded in them. Those were the juiciest jalebis I’ve ever had with poha. After the stop, the bus hurtled through pristine forested hills to Mandla and halted over there for about half an hour.

Most of the passengers got off here, leaving only the contractor and a few others behind. The conductor told me that I could go eat something if I wanted, because the bus would halt here for a while. So I got off and stretched my limbs, and then telephoned home to tell my parents that I was doing all right. A man got into the bus and asked me whether I had found accommodation already in Kanha National Park. I told him that I’d booked a bed for myself in the state-run MP Tourism dormitory for Rs. 350, which included vegetarian meals.

‘But sahib, that’s inside the jungle!’ he said, looking worried.

That was the point, I told him.

‘But you don’t get anything inside the jungle, sahib. You’ll get bored!’ He gave me a visiting card which read “Motel Chandan-Khatia Gate.”

‘This is budget hotel sahib. Very nice, very clean, top-class room. Also, you’ll find lots of eateries around the motel because it is just outside Khatia gate. That’s the first entrance to the national park.’

I assured him that I’ll keep Motel Chandan in mind for my next trip and even tell my friends about it. Eventually, the driver and conductor returned and we drove off from Mandla. 

The contractor sat next to me now, and with folded hands, offered prayers as we crossed a river, I think a tributary of the Narmada.

‘That is Mandla fort, sir,’ he said, pointing to a black-rock structure atop a hillock. ‘It was a fort of the Gonds.’

From Mandla, most of the landscape was flat and full of farmlands, dotted with haystacks. There were no woods for as far as my eyes could see. After a village called Bamhani, a fork appeared in the road. The left one went to Kanha National Park, indicated by large signboards all over, and the right one went to someplace called Chiraidongri. The bus took the right fork.

I panicked and sprang out of my seat when the conductor turned around and chuckled.

‘Relax,’ he said. ‘This bus will go to Chiraidongri and then turn towards Kanha.’

‘Remember I told you I missed my train?’ the contractor said. ‘Well, I’ll get off at Chiraidongri railway station and find another bus from there to Nainpur. My train must’ve gone already.’

The tiny Chiraidongri railway station appeared out of nowhere. The contractor bid goodbye and got off, and the bus turned left towards Kanha. There was still no sight of forests and I began to worry. Vast farmlands and tribal hamlets with their colourful mud huts kept coming, but no jungle in sight. Finally, the bus rattled across the Baihar river, no wider than a jungle stream, and the first grove of sal trees appeared on the other bank. The bus passed through another village called Mocha, which I’d seen in a map in Moulton and Hulsey’s book on Kanha. I also saw the signboards pointing to Kipling Camp and Tuli resorts. Finally, as the excitement built up, Khatia Gate appeared in front of the bus.

In Kisli, the road leading from the dormitory or Tourist Hostel (see signboard)
to Khatia Gate, 3.5 kilometres outside the core forest.

‘You have a confirmed booking inside, don’t you?’ the conductor asked. I showed him the confirmation slip.

‘Okay. Sir, this is buffer zone of Kanha national park. The dormitory and Baghira log huts, both run by government, is 3.5 kilometres inside the core zone of the park. Be careful sir, especially at night. Don’t loiter about in the forest.’

I smiled and glanced out the window at the forest of sal trees. A herd of chital or spotted deer was foraging nearby. Langurs or monkeys scampered about. What the well-meaning conductor didn't know was that I, or the Mowgli inside me, was, for the first time in his life, coming home.

See Previous Post: Part 3.1 Introduction to Kanha

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Kanha Diaries Part 3.1: My Introduction to Kanha

A solo trip to nowhere

Mother dearest loves melodrama. In my growing years, she and I often found ourselves, willingly or otherwise, embroiled in verbal sparring sessions. There was never a dearth of reasons for the fusillades we hurled at each other, but this much was certain: there was never a dull moment or the slightest doubt as to who won the battle. 

On the eve of my first, solo jaunt into the wild, as I packed my rucksack in dancing candlelight, (Power cuts were common in that corner of the world that we lived in) my mother hovered about in my room, pacing about with her hands on her hips or clutching her head or swatting mosquitoes.

'But where the hell are you going, men?' she asked. 'Madhya Pradesh? Kanha National Park? Arre, but what kind of a place is this? A jungle, full of tigers? Where there is no phone, no way to communicate? (I got my first mobile phone only in 2002.) Where you've never gone before? A dormitory bed in the middle of the jungle? Why do you always do such things, men? Always give me some tension or the other?'

For the next ten minutes, her rant was about how the world was a crazy place already, alluding to the WTC attacks more than a month ago. What that had to do with my travelling solo, that too to a jungle, I don't know. 

'Exactly Ma, the world is a crazy place already!' I said as I stuffed Father's brown jacket into the rucksack. A friend who hailed from Chhindwara in MP told me that it could get really cold in the plains of MP in November. One needed at least two layers of clothes and adequate protection for the ears and the hands. 

'Considering where I work right now, and the fact that we live in Mumbai, don't you think a forest will be much safer? Besides, you know I don't drink, don't smoke, don't do drugs. So why worry?'

Honestly, at that moment even I had that sliver of apprehension wagging like a little tail at the back of my mind. For the first time ever, I was embarking on a trip to a place not many in our known circles, in fact almost nobody, had ventured to. Mother even blamed Father for introducing me to such weird interests as wildlife and jungles and things. But mothers, as you already know, will always be mothers. And mothers of boys in general, and the Indian, over-possessive, dramatic variety in particular, are incorrigible to say the least. 

Eventually, all it took was a broad smile of assurance and a pat on the cheek to allay some of her fretfulness. The next morning, I left for Kurla Terminus to board the Godan Express to Jabalpur. 

A feral child in Urbania   

My first conscious acquaintance with Kanha National Park happened in, probably, 1998, in the unlikeliest of places. Not sure exactly when, but it was an afternoon when the harsh sunlight tamed by the fluttering, dusty curtains, scattered dancing shapes on the mosaic floor of my then-girlfriend's bedroom. A majestic dominant male tiger scowled at me from a poster, which had appeared on her bedroom wall. In a corner of the poster was the logo of Kanha National Park. Turned out that her friend and neighbour, a grad student of Zoology or Biology I think, had just returned from a class excursion to the wildlife sanctuary and had brought her the poster from there. 

My photograph of a tiger spotted in Bandhavgarh National Park in March 2008

'Do you like wildlife?' I asked her all of a sudden. Then, she was still a rather docile, mild-mannered girl, nothing like the ranting, wild, rampaging woman she metamorphosized into, post marriage. She shrugged. She wouldn't venture out into the wild looking for any, but had no problem watching an episode or two on wildlife on Discovery or National Geographic. On the contrary, for me, that poster brought back a passion for wildlife that I had locked away in some dank, unattended vault of my mind. As a kid, I nursed a strong passion for wildlife, often fancying myself a Tarzan or a Mowgli incarnate. I dangled on my father's arm all the way to Eros or Ambar-Oscar theatre to watch "Beautiful People" and "Tarzan", aware of my mother's absence on these jaunts. On our summer-holiday trips to the ancestral home in Kerala, well before the advent of satellite television, one of my favourite games was to imagine that the woods surrounding my father's ancestral home was actually Kipling's jungle teeming with wildlife. I was either Tarzan or Mowgli (in any case, the hot and humid weather ensured that I wore only a pair of shorts), and the mongrel served as Bagheera (if it was a black dog) or a lion (if it was a brown one).

Some of my favourite movies to this day include The Jungle Book and The Lion King (Used to constantly explain to an ex-girlfriend why The Lion King was the best movie there ever was, but those conversations were not the reason for her becoming an "ex"!). Father had once gifted me a video cassette of 'Tiger, Tiger' a documentary on Billy Arjan Singh, the legendary conservationist who successfully reintroduced the tigress, Tara, and leopards, Harriet and Juliette, from captivity into the wild. I'm sure I've watched the documentary more than a hundred times, till the videocassette reel got eaten by cockroaches and the cassette player died. I thought in passing then, that afternoon at my girlfriend's place, that I should make a trip to a jungle sometime. And left it at that.

Call of the wild

The years rolled on by. Y2K came with a lot of brouhaha and changed to 2001 without as much as a whimper, but a whole lot of things had changed in my life. In 2001, while working at the Times of India, I had enrolled myself into a Journalism course at XIC, Mumbai. We often had visiting faculty including the likes of Jerry Pinto, Pinky Virani, and Sucheta Dalal. Two such guest lecturers included authors Carroll Moulton and Ernie Hulsey who conducted a session on wildlife documentation and also promoted their book, Kanha Tiger Reserve: Portrait of an Indian National Park.

Cover of Carroll's and Ernie's book

I promptly bought the book and studiously read it for the next few months. By then, the course was over and I had begun working at the Consulate of Israel in Mumbai. Vacation time was coming up in November and I had finished reading the novels I had bought from the street vendors in Churchgate. One afternoon, while rummaging through my bookshelf, the Kanha book popped out. I flicked the pages and paused to trawl through the hand-drawn map of the national park. I also took a look at the black-and-white photographs of the authors themselves, of the wildlife they'd seen numerous times in the park, the famous mahouts and forest guides of Kanha (Ashok Jharia was one of them), and also Jane Swamy, our esteemed professor in XIC, who had accompanied the authors on more than one trip to Kanha. 

Now my initial vacation plan was to board an overnight Paulo bus to Goa and stay at my father's place (Then, he was living and working in Goa). By day, I planned to hop from one local bus to the other and bum about on the many beaches over there. But Goa I'd visited at least a dozen times already, and to go alone once again was not an exciting prospect. Besides, many life-altering changes were on the anvil, so I had to make the most of this vacation. That was when the Kanha book fell almost literally into my lap. 

The next task was to find company willing enough to travel to a wildlife sanctuary. My brother-in-law was still young, in high school, and wasn't my 'bro-in-law' yet. I asked college friends but they were busy and not interested in travelling to a jungle. 
Then I asked 'local-train' friends (Like a true Mumbaikar, I had friends on the local train with whom I commuted every day), but there weren't any takers, literally, in that compartment either. I asked friends in the neighbourhood, asked cousins, current and former colleagues, my girlfriend (who thought the very notion of travelling with me out of the city was sacrilegious!), former girlfriends who were still in touch, even mere acquaintances and, on one instance, a complete stranger! But nobody seemed to want to go to a wildlife sanctuary (or accompany me at least). 

A pretty colleague at the consulate agreed, but other staff dissuaded her from travelling into a remote place without security personnel. Although I was excited initially at the prospect of travelling with a 'foreigner female', later on, even I was apprehensive, because this was going to be my first trip to the North, and I'd only heard scary tales about North India. Yes, technically, Madhya Pradesh isn't "the North". But for us coastal folk in West India, anything north of Surat on the Western Railway line and north of Nashik on the Central line, is "The North". Later, I met a few friends and colleagues in Chennai and Bangalore who called Mumbai "Naarth India"! 

Hallowed dormitory in Kisli, managed by MP Tourism

By October 2001, I decided not to wait for anybody. If a solo trip is what this had to be, so be it. I first checked whether train tickets to and from Jabalpur were available, and then went to the MP Tourism office in Cuffe Parade to book a dorm bed for myself for four nights in Kanha National Park. Little did I know then that the dormitory in Kisli village, 3.5 kilometres within the core forest area of Kanha, was going to be my annual "Pilgrimage" destination for the next six years! 

In the next part of this post, I will write about the adventures of my first trip to Kanha. Watch this space.

See next: Part 3.2