The Great Downpour

Chapter VI

Chapter VI

Pre-monsoon showers in the Pench area fell between the 10th and 15th of June and converted a large part of the National park into a lush green carpet. Wandering tourists were caught unawares by the lashing rain, but were happy nonetheless, as the brief but powerful burst of rain immediately cooled the ground and the air around them.

One of these tourists, a botanist from Netherlands was on an “India Discovery tour”. He was on the trail of a rare variety of bamboo that grew only in the dry, deciduous tract of West-Central India. He was a part of a Guide tour arranged by the Chief Forest Conservative Officer, and among a group of nearly twenty tourists, including some children. As the guide kept showing only fauna, the tourist broke away from them and began to pursue a path that led into a dense thicket on the far side of the slope of this hill.

A pair of yellow eyes gleamed through the darkness of the tall grass as the tourist came nearer and nearer. The tiger whom the forest officers had christened “Blunt-tail” watched the six-foot tall human approaching his territory and gave off a warning growl to discourage him. It appeared that the tourist either did not hear him or chose to ignore the sound, for he continued to advance towards the thicket, a bag slinging from his shoulder and a torch and a notebook in his other hand. Blunt-tail realized that the man was not going to stop only when he had come within ten feet of him. He let off yet another growl, and this time, there was no way for the tourist to miss the warning sound. He stepped back in alarm and immediately saw, to his horror, a large female tiger standing but ten paces away. The tiger’s eyes burned right into his soul, or so he told the TV news reporters who interviewed him the same evening.

He had heard about the man-eater tiger that prowled around in Pench. So far, it had successfully evaded arrest. The tourist had read about this and was also forewarned and strictly instructed by the guide not to venture out alone into the forest.

There are many dangerous wild animals in Pench, such as wild boar, leopards and tigers. I must request you all to stay as close to me as possible while we are on this trail on foot, or else I will not be responsible. The tourist remembered those words clearly when he stopped before the tiger. He just stood there, transfixed by the beauty and the magnificence of the animal. Good-bye world. The thought rose unbidden in his mind. It would have been futile to even attempt to run.

He closed his eyes and prepared to meet his Maker. The tiger growled once more. All other sounds ceased and a deathly silence fell in the forest around the tourist. Let me have a swift, painless death, O God. A few seconds passed, then a minute and then two. There was no sound of rustling grass, no smell of blood and no animal breathing sound. The tourist first opened one eye, just a slit. He could see no one in front of him. Carefully, he opened the eye in full, and then his other eye. He thought he sensed some movement in the grass to his left, but when he turned his head in that direction, he could see nothing. The tiger had simply walked away. The tourist could not believe his luck! Wait till I tell my family back home about this!

Over the next four or five days, showers came and went. The land cooled, and small leaflets of grass began to poke their way through the dry sand. Insect activity began to increase, and a tropical hum of flies, bugs and bees began to fill the air. Jungle flowers began to bloom all over the scrubland. With the rise in insect activity came the insectivorous species of birds – the white-naped woodpecker, the oriole, the sun-bird, the barbets, the bee-eater and the magnificent hoopoe. But by far the most colourful bird of all was the Malabar pied hornbill. This large bird made an awful noise which consisted of repetitive ka-ka-ka-ka interspersed with loud, high-pitched cackling sounds.

Over the land moved the various animals that made up the diversity of the dry deciduous forest that Pench is. The average tourist could hope to see wild boar, Sambar, porcupines, an occasional fox or a jackal and elephants too. If one was lucky, one could see more than these animals, and be able to recount tales of seeing leopards and tigers as well. But if one came in too close to “Rising Water”, the man-eating tiger of Pench whose given name was on account of the peculiar pattern of stripes on his forehead, one would probably not live to tell the story to anyone this side of one’s life.

Just around the 15th of June, the pre-monsoon showers stopped and the undulating, low hills of Pench National Park began to heat up once again. Humidity went up, but so did the number of tourists, who knew that these were the last few weeks that the Park would stay open for them, and that one would have to otherwise wait till December before coming again. In these last few weeks, the tourists obeyed the guides strictly; as a result, there were no untoward events. The man-eater had recently fallen down the edge of a ravine and tripped down some 50 feet and had hurt himself. He was unable to hunt as well as before, and his meals were now confined to small, insignificant prey. He was, therefore, hungry and tired. I must get substantial food in the next few days.

The Pench River, after which the Park had been named, flowed roughly in a North-South direction through the Park. Fresh-water crocodiles, ranging in length from just three feet to over seven feet, swam its length and width day and night, looking for easy prey. When smaller animals like deer or calves of cows came to drink water at the river, the crocs lay in wait for them. They attacked carefully and calculatingly, almost never missing their target, since they could hide well amidst the reeds that grew on both sides near the banks of the river.

Amidst the dead leaves and fallen twigs all over the Park there roamed deadly snakes that included the Saw-scaled viper, the Cobra and the Common banded krait. Also populating the water holes and other water collections in the park were pond herons, storks, cranes, at least seven or eight varieties of frogs and toads and hundreds of water insects.

All hell was about to break loose in this sylvan jungle in the next week.

**********