Aditya ‘Dicky’ Singh

Continuing the posts on our trip to Ranthambhore Fort in the Ranthambhore Tiger Preserve, you can see one of the gates that the Rajputs used to hold fast against armies.

As you get closer to the main structure of the fort, after climbing up numerous stairs through three major gates, you finally begin to see the fortifications. This part of India was the first true barrier against the constantly invading hordes from the North and the East. Everyone from the Turks, the Persians, the Huns, the Mongols, even Timur the Lame and Alexander the Great attempted to knock on India’s doors in this region.

This is considered to be the oldest part of the fort, dating back to the 12th and 13th Centuries, AD. You can see the different methods of constructing the walls, they mark the development of construction over the centuries. Also the size of the stone blocks used increases as tools and development improved the people’s ability to measure and carry.

[View from the top of Ranthambhore Fort overlooking the Tiger Reserve, photo credit: David Tait]

Note the slates that are piled on top of each other to construct this portion of the fort.

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“Machali” in Hindi means fish but for regular visitors to Ranthambhore Machali is the resident tigress of the area around the Ranthambhore fort. This area is one of the most scenic parts of Ranthambhore, where three of the six lakes of Ranthambhore are located. Machali is by far the most famous tigress of Ranthambhore and one of the most photographed tiger in the entire world. She has starred in a number of documentaries – the best known of which is “Danger in tiger’s paradise” by the BBC Wildlife Division. I had the good fortune of being part of the crew that made this documentary.

Machali was actually the name of her mother, who died about four years ago, but in the BBC documentary, she was mistakenly called Machali and the name stuck on. Her mother was known as Machali because she had a mark on her right cheek that looked like the outline of a fish. The most famous mark that our Machali has is a fork like mark on her left cheek.

Machali territory lies at the very heart of Ranthambhore around the Ranthambhore fort. This area has a mix of different kinds of habitats, ranging from wetlands to valleys to plateaus and also has the highest concentration of prey species. Machali’s territory also has some of the highest human pressure, not just of tourists who come to see the wildlife but also of the large number of pilgrims who walk up to the fort to visit the Ganesh temple. Once in a year, for a period of three days over 500,000 people visit this temple. As a result Machali is very tolerant of humans. I have personally seen her sitting on a rock face for over an hour, watching a stream of pilgrims walking past her, barely 50 meters away.

She was born during the monsoon months of 1997 (between July and September) and was the dominant cub in the litter of three females. I had first seen her in February of 1998 and have been keeping a track of her ever since. By the beginning of 1999 she had started hunting on her own, the first sign that she was about to separate from her mother. Around then her mother ceded a par of her territory for Machali and that is where she has stayed since.

Below: Jhumru and Machali.

During the summer month of 2000 (somewhere in April) she mated with a large male tiger called “Bamboo Ram” and three and a half months later she gave birth to her first litter of two male cubs called Broken tail (because his tail was broken) and Slant ear (named so for no apparent reason). By the end of December 2001 both these cubs separated from Machali and we never saw Slant ear again. For about a year and a half Broken tail lived in a small territory at the edge of Ranthambhore national park, not really great neighborhood for tigers. Somewhere in the summers of 2003 Broken tail decided to leave Ranthambhore and in August 2003 a passenger train ran him down, in Darra sanctuary, about a 100 miles away from Ranthambhore.

Above: Broken tail just after he was run down by a train

Soon after Broken tail and Slant ear separated from Machali, she mated again with another male tiger called Nick ear. Bamboo Ram had died of old age when Broken tail and Slant ear were still with Machli and Nick ear had taken over his territory. By April 2002, Machali had given birth to her second litter. When I first saw these cubs, on 30th of June (the day before Ranthambhore closed for the monsoons) in the Nalghati valley, there were three cubs. She was carrying one in her mouth and the other two were following her. However, one of these cubs did not survive and when the Ranthambhore reopened for visitors in October there were only two cubs – a male called Jhumru and a female called Jhumri. By the end of 2004 Machali started mating again, this time with another large male tiger known as X male (so called because we do not know much about him). Around this time Ranthambore was under siege by tiger poachers and Nick ear had disappeared. Soon after her mating with X male she almost threw out Jhumru and Jhumree from her area. Jhumru set up his territory in an area called Lahpur. He could do this because the dominant male tigers of Lahpur (there were two of them) had been killed by poachers and the area was devoid of male tigers. We did not see Jhumree after she separated from Machali and we still do not know of her whereabouts.

Above: Jhumru and loads of tiger watchers

Since Machali’s area included three of the six lakes of Ranthambhore, she had a lot of interactions with crocodiles. Interactions in which crocodiles almost always ended up dead. She passed on this skill to Jhumru and we know of at least one instance when he killed and even ate a crocodile. We have never come across any evidence to suggest that Jhumree also killed crocodiles. However, all these scraps with crocodiles did take their toll on Machali and by the summers of 2005 she had lost two of her canines (the upper and lower canines on the left side).

Above: Bahadur

Around March 2005 Machali gave birth to her third litter of two cubs - a male called Bahadur (which means Brave in Hindi) and a female called Sharmelee (which means Shy in Hindi). These two cubs stayed with her till October 2006. When these cubs were young, all of us were scared that she may not be able to successfully rear them because she had lost two of her four canines. At that time we were pretty sure that this would be Machali’s last litter. She, however, surprised us all by giving birth to a fourth litter during the monsoon months of 2006. Unlike the previous three litters this time she has three cubs. These cubs are barely five months old right now and judging by the way they have been growing, they obviously have a great mother to take care of them. Machali, after all, is no ordinary tiger.

Above and Below: Machalis latest litter. Picture taken on 17th January 2007

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As promised, I’m continuing the story of our visit to Ranthambhore as a guest blogger for Aditya Singh. On our first full day, after a leisurely brunch, we left for Ranthambhore Fort by Jeep accompanied by Bhupinder Singh Chauhan, acting as our guide and the young driver, who was a superb spotter with an eagle’s eyesight. The Killa or Fort lies in the heart of the Tiger Reserve and almost the first thing we saw - which, to be honest, I didn’t expect to see, was that hoary cliche of India. A couple of elephants being ridden as transport animals. Yes, Virginia, you really can see elephants on the roads of India. I can only imagine the traffic jams.

This is the Guptaganga, a perennial source of water that local myth claims has never run dry in historical memory. The actual stream of water has been channelled through a marble bull’s head, possibly Nandi himself, pouring lifegiving water from his mouth. You can see the Shivalinga just above the bull’s head. This site is considered very holy and is the official entrance to the Fort, whose walls can be seen high up above. We have already entered the Tiger Reserve and our spotter pointed out a variety of local fauna. A little further along, we heard a leopard scream and slowed down and stopped along road, waiting with bated breath for close to 20 minutes in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the great cat. But there was nary a sign and we continued on to the foothills of the Fort.

The parking area situated at the entrance steps to the Fort are swarming with gray langurs, whose eerie howls can be heard late at night, rustling their way through the trees of the forest. Closely associated with Hanuman, the monkey god whose army of monkeys helped Rama build a landbridge to Lanka, and helped defeat Ravana who had carried Sita away, these langurs are allowed to roam freely throughout the fort and the numerous temples there. This story is the basis of the epic Ramayana.

The Fort at Ranthambhore has a long and checkered history of war, pillage and fierce Rajput resistance against the invading armies sweeping into Northwest India from Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and the Russian Steppes. One of the most famous associated with the Killa is that of Veer Hammir, or Rana Hamir, a Chauhan king descended from Prithviraj himself who held his homeland against the vast armies of Ala-ud-din Khilji. From Ranthambhore’s history,

The Fort had its golden moments during the reign of Rao Hammir, the last ruler of the Chauhan dynasty (1282 - 1301 AD). During 1300 AD, Ala-ud-din Khilji, the ruler of Delhi sent his army to capture the Fort. After three unsuccessful attempts, his army finally conquered the Fort in 1301 and ended the reign of the Chauhans. In the next three centuries the Fort changed hands a number of times, till Akbar, the great Mughal emperor, finally took over the Fort and dissolved the State of Ranthambore in 1558. The fort stayed in the possession of the Mughal rulers till the mid 18th century.

And so, forts were built on inaccessible mountain tops with steeply rising slopes, numerous walls, fortifications and gates creating obstacles to invaders. You can see a sentry tower located at the first turn up the steep stairs that rise towards the three main gates of the Fort. Also scattered around the country side were sentry towers such as the one that can be seen below by the edges of the Talao, where signal fires were used to send alerts to the main garrison within minutes according to our guide. He’s the one in the green uniform of The Ranthanbhore Bagh on the left hand side of the photograph above. Carrying precious supplies up the stairs is a local villager.

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Photo credit - Brian McMorrow

Greetings, my name is Niti Bhan and I’ve been invited to write about my recent experience as a guest at The Ranthambhore Bagh, by Aditya Singh, the owner of the lodge just outside the Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve in Sawai Madhopur, Rajasthan, India. I guess this is what they mean by guest blogging!

Dicky, as Aditya is better known to me, hosted us from the 6th to the 8th of December 2006 after I’d arrived in New Delhi from San Francisco to attend the recent CII NID Design with India Summit along with my colleague David Tait, Creative Director of Readymade, a product design and innovation consultancy based in Pretoria, South Africa. Let me attempt to recreate in words - this journey - a world away from the world in which I normally reside; one that took me back in time, forward in space and more profoundly, deeper inside to a very peaceful place.

We took the night train, the Mewar Express from Nizamuddin Station, tickets were arranged for us by Vikram Singh, who runs Wild World India, an ecologically aware wildlife tour company based in New Delhi. I spent much of my time standing at the open doorway outside our first class airconditioned compartment, preferring to smell, see and feel the desert; it was almost the full moon and late at night as the train rushed us through Faridabad, Mathura and Bharatpur getting us into Sawai Madhopur station just five hours later. Other than a blurry drive, the first thing that I recall on my arrival was a warm, already heated and cozy tent with quaint details such as a mosquito net and a luxurious pukka shower and bathroom. I couldn’t believe it was just a tent, from the inside it had all the mod cons and amenities you could wish for, including a long hot shower to get rid of the filth of the train journey.

[Outside view of Ranthambhore Bagh's premium lodging, the tents, photo credit - David Tait]

You can see David’s tent here, mine is the one on the left just hidden by the bushes. They’ve all been laid out to ensure a little bit of privacy for any guest who may choose to sit out on their personal porch and relax with a beer or two. Or three, but we won’t go there , since we were Dicky’s guests and he was the one who’d taught me how to hold my drink back when I was a freshman.

That night we had dinner outside sitting around a portable fire pit that kept us warm enough in the chilly night air of almost winter in North India. Temperatures have been known to go down to 10 celsius or lower. Since it was late, we had missed the daily evening highlight - a Rajasthani family of musicians arrive to entertain Aditya’s guests with haunting local ballads of lost or unrequited love, popular songs from old hindi movies or classical melodies based on stories from India’s mythological epics - The Mahabharata and the Ramayana.

Their young daughter danced most gracefully for us, encouraging the guests to join her when an upbeat tune was played. You get to snack on tidbits, drink the best the bar has to offer, and Dicky’s bar has been and is, legendary. Just sit back - we happened to be there on the night of the full moon - and lose yourself in a state of emotional euphoria bordering on pure lethargy.

After my long flight from California to India, the hectic rush of the conference, this timeless place after 9 months without a break from work, was nothing less than pure bliss. Or as I read recently, heaven on earth, for heaven is the place where you get all your needs fulfilled. Enough, I have to shake my head to return from those moments but that was when I knew I would return, for all the stress, the pressure, the tension, just seemed to melt away and I was left a boneless puddle.

The next day, we set out after a leisurely brunch to see Ranthambhore Fort or Killa as its known in the local language. Built in 944 AD by the descendants of one of India’s best known Rajput kings, Prithviraj Chauhan, whose story is worthy of any swashbuckling romance from the days of yore and chivalry. I’ll continue with a post on the Fort tomorrow with more photos and stories of the legendary bravery of Veer Hammir and the Rajputs of Ranthambhore.

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The rest of the National geographic crew – Sue (the big boss), Becky and Andy (the cameraman) landed in Calcutta by midnight. On the 1st of April we went to get shots of a male tiger in the Calcutta zoo. This tiger had killed a girl in a village that was just on the outskirts of the forest. A few days after killing the girl he again landed in the village. But that time the Forest Department officials were prepared. They had set up a trap in the village and they did manage to trap the tiger. After they trapped the tiger, they realized that a few months ago this same tiger had been trapped, after he had killed a person, in a nearby village. They had at that time released him deep in the heart of Sundarbans. They decided not to do so again and sent him to the zoo, where he was lodged in a cage that was out of bounds for the general public. When we went to film him in the cage, he was extremely agitated and tried to charge at us a number of times. We would have been in serious trouble if there were no bars between us. Andy did get some great shots.

The rest of the day we drove around the streets of Calcutta taking random shots of the city. My old friend Sanjoy Ghosh (or “Chotu Bong” – a slang for Short Bengali) drove us around in his car. He was a big hit wit the entire team. In the evening when we were sitting in the hotel, we realized that there were not enough Bengali speakers in the team – in fact there was just one – and since most people in Sundarbans understand only Bengali language, we would have to take along some more people who cold speak Bengali. As a result, another friend of mine – Joydeep Kundu – got in the boat the next day. We also had a Doctor on board who was carrying every possible kind of anti-venom.

We left for Sundarbans the next morning and had a blast for the next 10 days. We were booked in a lodge in Sajnekhalli, where we would spend the nights. The film was essentially recreations of there different “tiger attacks” – one on a girl in a village, the other on a man who was part of a group of “honey collectors” and the third was a fisherman (the only one to survive the attack). Most of the filming happened very close to where we were staying but for some shots we had to go a fair distance on the boats. We had two boats – a “launch” and a smaller boat that is locally known as a “bhotbhoti” because the engine makes a racket that sounds like bhot ..bhot ..bhot. The bhotbhoti is a smaller boat and it can go in some pretty narrow creeks, where the launch cannot make it.

The weather in Sundarbans is very hot and extremely humid in April and so we used to shoot from just before sunrise to about 8 in the morning and then from about 3 in the afternoon till sunset. Joydeep and I used the time in between to do a lot of birding – a great way to spend time in Sundarbans. We saw very little terrestrial wildlife – some Spotted Deer and a few Wild Boars – but we did see a lot of marine wildlife, including Dolphins, Sharks, Sea Turtles, and a large variety of Crabs. The bird life was really amazing. Wherever we went shooting we had a large group of curious onlookers following us, like these kids on a cycle rickshaw (the dominant mode of transport in Sundarbans).

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Sundarbans – the largest Project Tiger Reserve in India – is a tidal estuary where the only modes of travel are small to medium sized slow boats. It is truly a boat country. On the 25th of March, we went to the office of the Field Director of Sundarbans Tiger Reserve, which is in a small port town called Port Canning; about three hours drive from the outskirts of Calcutta. That was my first interaction ever with any Forest Department Officer of West Bengal cadre.

We met quiet a few forest officers who were in charge of Sundarbans and the feeling I got was that most of them were clueless and were living in a make believe world. For instance, one very senior officer gave us a long lecture on the “fact” that writers and filmmakers were defaming the tigers of Sundarbans by spreading “rumors” that a lot of them were potential man-eaters. When I asked him if this was not true then why do forest guards take such elaborate protection measures whenever they have to get off their boats to go to the shores, inside the park? When ever the guards have to do that they load their guns (with the safety catches off), wear “tiger proof” armored jackets and helmets, put a tall nylon safety net around the entire area that they have to work in etc etc. This officer informed us that these were “routine” safety measures that are adopted in every tiger reserve in India. That was not true. In all the tiger reserves in India, the forest guards almost never carry guns; forget the rest of the paraphernalia. He later showed us a lot of statistics to “prove” that very few people had been attacked by tiger in Sundarbans during the last 10 years. Apparently the forest department had stopped recording tiger attacks on humans for the last 10 years and so “there were hardly any attacks on humans,” officially for the last 10 years. With such officers around, the future of Sundarbans did not appear to be very bright.

On 26th March, we left for a familiarization trip into Sundarbans and during the next three days we met a number of people whose friends or family members had been mauled or killed by tigers. There are a number of villages in the periphery of Sundarbans that are called “Tiger Widow” villages, where tigers had killed a large proportion of the adult male population. Most of them were killed when they had illegally gone into the reserve area, for cutting wood or collecting other minor forest produce. Since what they were doing was illegal, their cronies never filed a complaint and so their deaths went unrecorded. By the time we got back from the trip, on the morning of 31st March, we had learnt a few things about Sundarbans:
1. There is no way that Sundarbans Tiger Reserve could boast a population of nearly 400 tigers (that they officially do). The figure should be closer to 125 or so. This is true for almost all the Tiger Reserves in India – where officially there are two and half times more tigers than the real number. Forest Officers love to exaggerate the numbers for a variety of reasons.
2. Sundarbans has loads of problems (again lie most other tiger reserves in India), that include wood cutting, population pressure, over fishing, “economic development” etc. The reserve is totally porous and it is almost impossible to patrol its periphery.
3. Tigers will survive in Sundarbans for a long time, just because a large part of it is extremely inhospitable to man.

We got back to our Hotel (Sonar Bangla – a fine place) on 31st and the air conditioning was a welcome relief after the hot and humid weather of Sundarbans.

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When I was in Bharatpur, I got a call from a guy from Bangalore called Lesley, who wanted to know if I would be interested in working on a two week project on Tigers of Sundarbans, , with the National geographic Film and Television department. He was the India co-coordinator for this project and told me that if I was interested he would put me on the Producer in Washington. If I was interested??? This guy must have been crazy – Of course I was interested. It is not everyday that national geographic takes us out on an all expense paid trip to an exotic tiger habitat and pays us at the end of the day for our time (which most people like us have in plenty). So I told the guy that I “maybe interested.”

When I got back from Bharatpur I got a call from James Byrne from National Geographic, Washington. We discussed a lot of general things and he told me that the shoot starts from the 1st of March and would be over in two weeks. He also told me that he would be in Calcutta (the closest airport from Sundarbans on the 25th of March) and would then head to Sundarbans for a familiarization trip and would be glad if I could join him for the same. I reached Calcutta on the 24th night (a day before James was to reach) and met up with Lesley.

Over dinner, Lesley explained to me what the film was going to be all about. I knew a bit about it but not enough. The film was about man eating tigers of Sundarbans and was to cover three different stories – one about an attack on a girl child inside a village, another about an attack on a fisherman who was on his boat and the third about an attack inside the forest on a man who was part of a group of honey collectors. In all the three cases the tiger (different ones in each cases) had killed the people they had attacked but could not eat them, mainly because the other people around had managed to scare the tiger away.

Sundarbans – the world’s largest estuarine mangrove forest - is the largest habitat of Bengal tigers in the entire world. It gets its name from the “Sundari” mangrove tree, which is now a rarity in most parts of Sundarbans. It is situated in the southern tip of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal. Sundarbans is the delta of two of India’s mightiest rivers – the Ganges and the Brahmaputra. The entire place consists of a number of tiny islands and is cris-crossed by tributaries, distributaries, creeks and backwaters. The face of Sundarbans changes dramatically with the diurnal tides. Durinf the high tide about half the land is submerged and one can see floating forests” all around. While at low tide, large expanses of mud are visible all over. Sundarbans is home to large number of aquatic and terrestrial animals. As one goes closer to the sea, the salinity of the water increases and this has an important role to ply in the mix of the aquatic animals and plants that are to be seen.

The Indian part of the Sundarbans has been declared as National Park and is a Project Tiger Reserve. UNESCO has also declared the region as a “Biosphere Reserve.” The region is home to some of the poorest people in the world, who make their living out of farming, fishing, aquaculture and through the collection of minor forest produce (such as honey). It is one of the few regions in the world where there are no social tensions between the mix of Hindu and Muslim population that inhabit the area. In fact the muslim and hindu population share a large number of social, cultural and even religious traditions.

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Bharatpur is small town (by Indian standards – which means a population of about 200,000 people) that is half way on the train route from Ranthambhore to Delhi. Bharatpur is home to one of the best bird sanctuaries in India – namely the Keola Deo Ghana National Park. I left for Bharatpur for a week in the first week of February.

Bharatpur has a number of small and big lodges but the only one that I stay in is The Birder’s Inn. The owner of The Birder’s Inn – Teerath Singh is a great friend of mine. Besides owning and running this lodge he also leads wildlife tours on a freelance basis. My guides (or Gurus – to be more precise) in Bharatpur are Laxmi Mudgal (who is by far the best birder in Bharatpur) and Rajeev (who owns and runs a drug store – that is when he not busy taking pictures in the bird sanctuary). If I go to Bharatpur and do not stay with Teerath, he would probably kill me. Birder’s Inn is a small 12-room lodge but a great place – good food, clean room and great company – and they sure know how to get you drunk on dark rum.

Situated at the confluence of the Gambhir and Banganga rivers in the Bharatpur district of Rajasthan, the sanctuary was originally a natural depression prone to seasonal flooding. Over a period of time it developed into a lush, thriving system of freshwater marshes that attracted a large and diverse population of migratory birds. The Maharajas of Bharatpur added some bunds (dykes) and developed it as a duck shooting reserve. You can see the list of their exploits inside the park. Later, when hunting was stopped, it was deemed a Bird Sanctuary and later a National Park.

The park is generically called Bharatpur, after the town but its official name is Keoladeo Ghana. “Ghana” means dense while Keoladeo is derived from the Shiva temple situated at the heart of the park. Shiva, in his form of Pashupati or Lord of the Animals is the protector of the park’s various species. The fascinating mix of wetlands, woodlands, woodland swamps and dry grasslands has blessed the park with a rich biologically diverse birdlife. Keoladeo and its surrounding area host over 400 bird species and a single day trip may yield 140 species.

Bharatpur is paradise for outdoor photographers, particularly when there is no water shortage in the Park. Most of the water for the Park in Bharatpur comes from the Pachana dam on the non-perennial river Gambhir. However, for the last few years some local politicians have been ensuring that this water is diverted for a small group of rich farmers, who grow mustard in their field around the dam. Diverting this water makes a small group of rich farmers (who are politically very vocal) richer. However, there are many small and marginal farmers (who are not so politically influential) who make a living growing vegetables on the river bed of Gambhir, whose economy take a big hit when the water from Pachana dam is not released for Bharatpur. The once thriving tourism industry of Bharatpur (that employs over 20,000 people – directly and indirectly) also takes a huge hit, whenever the water from Pachana dam is not released for Bharatpur.

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After the Operation Co-operation came to a premature end, all of us got pretty frustrated. I got back to my work, which is running a safari lodge an since February is a very busy month; I did not have time for any further activism. Dharmendra and Vakil (the Tiger watch team) took to some serious activism. They started getting in touch with the local and national media and started highlighting the plight of Ranthambhore in the media. The disappearance of tigers from Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan was still fresh news and the media really took the Rajasthan Forest department apart. I had no role to play in all of this, though many people in the Rajasthan Forest Department still believe that I was instrumental in spreading “ false stories” about Ranthambhore in the media. Some of them along with the local police and administration were gunning for us but they did not get their chance till almost a year later.

The media lapped up all the news about Ranthambhore and published them after “spicing” them up a bit. The Rajasthan Forest Department had to bear the brunt of the media onslaught. The international media picked some of this news up and that added to the fire.

Tiger Watch put together a small project for gathering information on poaching around Ranthambhore and started looking for funding for the project. About a month later they got the funds though Fateh Singh’s son’s Non Governmental Agency and they started collecting information from around Ranthambhore.

In the first week of February I left for Bharatpur (Keola Deo Ghana Bird Sanctuary) for a week. By that time I was getting pretty fed up with all the politics that went with tiger conservation.

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After our successful raid of 29th January 2005, where we busted Rajmal Mogiya (who much later on admitted to his involvement in the killing of 5 tigers), we were on top of the world. The paper work after the raid took all night to complete and we went to sleep around 10:00 AM the next morning. On the 30th of January all of us slept and later in the night we celebrated. As a result, there were no raids on the 30th.

On the 31st January, the Deputy Field Director (Mr. G.S. Bhardwaj) decided to accompany us on a raid in the Khandar fort area that lies in the North-east end of the Ranthambore National Park. We left around 10:00 in the morning – not the best time to go for a raid – in a convoy of two Forest Department jeeps and one truck. There were about 40 people. We first went to small village about 10 kilometers short of Khandar – where a few families of “Bagariya” tribals live. The Bagariyas, like the Mogiyas, are a former hunter-gatherer tribe, who now kill animals mainly for bush meat. They are not as lethal as the Mogiyas but are no friends of wild animals. We searched about 10 odd huts that were there in the settlement but did not find anything substantial. We did find a small cooking pot with some wild boar meat but since we could not ascertain, who the pot belonged to, we could not take any action. A large crowd had gathered around and the word had spread that the Forest department officials were on the prowl looking for poachers.

Around noon we went to a small village called Bhaopura on the banks of river Banas towards the North of the Ranthambhore National Park. On the outskirts of the village, on top of a small hillock was a small hut that we were told belonged to a Mogiya. There was no way a jeep could have reached even close to the hut, so we had to walk the last half kilometers or so. By the time we reached the hut, all the men had disappeared and there were only two small kids and one old woman. We asked the women if she had heard of any hunting in the area and she swore that they were law abiding citizens and that there was no hunting at all in the area. We still searched the area around the hut and after about 15 minutes found a small plastic bag that contained two nails of Sloth Bear and some black coloured hair that we believed came off a bear (see pictures below). The woman was arrested and taken to the Forest Office in Khandar. By that time it was getting close to sunset and we headed back.

The next day we went to the Deputy Field Director’s office and he informed us that the Operation Co-operation was off because the officials of the “Flying Squad” (which is in-charge of all anti-poaching operations) were getting “demoralized.” That was the end of it – at least for us. For the next two weeks or so the Forest Department did carry out a series of raids, which did not result in any arrests. Mainly because the word was out that a lot of raids would happen in the next few days and most of the poachers had just disappeared.

Did the Operation-cooperation achieve anything worthwhile? It did though indirectly. The Operation did not arrest many people but it did scare the poachers who had no choice but to disappear. Many months later, we asked a poacher (Devi Singh – who was one of the king pins) when poaching actually stopped. He told us that most of the poachers left the area around Ranthambore after the “series of raids that were conducted in the end of January.” In that sense the Operation Co-oeration and the series of raids that followed were the main reason for the end of large scale poaching around Ranthambhore that started in the beginning of 2003.

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