Aditya ‘Dicky’ Singh

Recently a judge in the Rajasthan High Court passed a ruling that Ranthambhore should be closed for 2 days in a week so that the animals can get “rest” from tourists.

The Park is shut for tourists during the monsoons from July to end September. The people living around the park have a free run during this time. They go in for grazing their cattle, stocking up firewood for the winters, collecting forest produce like antlers etc, poaching etc etc. There is zero patrolling and I really mean zero. We joke that the rarest sight in Indian parks is a “Forest Guard patrolling his beat”. But believe me this is not a joke.

On a conservative estimate the amount of people who go into Ranthambhore on monsoons (when the park is shut for tourists) is ten times more than the amount of tourists who visit the park throughout the year. However, the authority just chooses to ignore people who go to the park in the monsoons and since there is no official record of such offenders, they officially do not exist.

Every year a few tigers disappear in the monsoon months and are never seen again. The official version (when there is one) is that the tigers have migrated. Migrated to where? This story is probably true for all parks in India, with the exception of Kaziranga - where they shoot first and ask later.

When I moved to Ranthambhore, about 10 years ago, there were over 30 tigers. How am I so sure? Well there was a family in the lake area - a tigress with 3 full grown cubs. There were four other families with three to four cubs each in Kachida, Chiroli, Lahpur and Thumka. There were 4 big males and a few sub adult males and at least 5 tigresses without cubs.

Since then I have seen over 60 cubs grow up to maturity and separate from their mother and then disappear to be never seen again. They just disappear , sorry “migrate” and are never seen again. A noted poacher had told me once that sub adult tigers are the best ones to “milk” - they are nearly full grown (perfect skin size) and no one notices their disappearance. Believe me, when I say that professional poachers actually “milk” tigers for their skin and bones. They never wipe out the entire lot. They really messed up in Sariska - where they ate the chicken instead of the eggs every day.

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Planning your trip

1. Identify the subjects that you want to shoot and the best locations and the best times in the different locations to shoot them.

The first thing that you need to ask yourself is what all are you looking to shoot. Once you have figured this out then make an “Ideal Wish List” of all the shots that you want. You may never get most of them but this is a good way to start planning your trip. The next step after you have got your “Wish List” together is to identify the different locations, which would suit your purpose.

Once you have frozen the destinations that you want to visit, the next step is to find out the best seasons in the different locations for shooting your preferred subjects. At the same time you would also need to figure out how many days would you need in each of your preferred destinations to get reasonably good photo opportunities. For instance, if you want to shoot Asiatic Elephants, one week in Corbett National Park in May, will get you a lot of great pictures. However, if you went to the same Park in December, a month would not be good enough.

2. Plan your itinerary well.

A well-planned itinerary will save you a lot of time and money. The two main things that you have to plan for are:

• Travel arrangements – have to be planned so that you spend the least amount of time in transit and the maximum amount of time in the field taking pictures.

• Naturalists, Guides and Drivers – These are the people who can make or break your trip. They are your local contacts who have probably spent years in the field and know the place like the back of their hands. It is very important to have a good local team and to build a good working relationship with them, since they are the ones who arrange the shooting opportunities. Remember to tip them well and to let them know at the onset that you are going to do so. If you pay peanuts you get monkeys and you definitely do not want monkeys to guide you in the shoot.

Planning you itinerary well is easier said than done, especially if you are going to an area where you have not been before. Most of the Tour Operators and Ground-handling agents claim to know a lot about photography but very few of them actually do. One good way to find out how much your tour operator knows is to ask them specific questions and judge from the answers. You could also ask them to give you references of the photographers that they have dealt with and them cross check with the photographers.

Before your Departure, Care and Maintenance

1. Get information about your locations.

You definitely need some up to date information about all the places that you plan to visit, a few weeks before you leave for your trip, so that you come prepared. I have met a lot of people who land up with the wrong films, without beanbags etc - just because they did not have the right information. Some of the most important information that you need is:

• Light conditions - The light conditions in most parts of India are highly variable depending on the seasons. For instance, in a Ranthambhore National Park (a great place to shoot action shots of tigers) the temperatures vary from 4 degrees centigrade (in peak winters) to 45 degrees Centigrade (in peak summers) and so the light goes from really soft in winters to really harsh in summers.

• Wildlife viewing – The kind and number of wildlife that you see depends a lot on the weather conditions. Generally speaking, you can see more mega-fauna in the summers (when the light is very harsh) than in winters (when the light is fantastic).

What you need is “current information” about the different locations, just before you are leaving for the trip and not general information about the different places.

2. Find out what all equipment you would need.

• Camera bodies – I would recommend at least two camera bodies for each format that you shoot in. I personally use two digital SLR bodies and two film camera bodies) in which I load films of two different speeds – mostly 100 and 400 ISO). This really helps because when action is happening I do not have to change lenses.

• Lenses – This is tricky one but I would recommend carrying one wide angle lens, one normal lens (around 50 mm), one zoom in the range of 70 to 200 and one longer telephoto (300 mm is great for most mega fauna but may not be powerful enough for birds and lesser fauna). At least one of the two longer lenses should be a fast one (f 2.8 or 4.0). I personally prefer to carry a 17-35 mm, one 24 to 80 mm, one 120 to 300 mm Sigma f 2.8 (an amazingly versatile lens) and a 500 mm. I also carry a 100 mm macro (though I do not do too much of macro work) and a 1.4 times converter.

• Digital Cards and Hard drives and/or Laptops – If you are using digital format, you are strongly advised to carry spare memory cards and to carry a portable hard drive and/or a laptop with sufficient memory. In most of the bigger towns you can download the cards on to a CD or DVD (just ensure that the pictures are deleted from the computer that they have been downloaded on as most Indians do not understand the meaning of copyright) but it is still better to carry spare memory.

• Films or Tapes for video – Carry all the films and tapes that you think you will need. In fact it is better to carry excess. It is not advisable to buy films or tapes locally as they are usually not stored properly. In case you have to buy them in India then go to a big store in one of the big cities. Remember to carry the films and tapes in hand baggage, as the powerful X-ray machines in the airports can destroy them.

• Tripod / Monopod / Beanbags - These are probably the most important pieces of equipment that you would need. If you are going to do most of your shooting from jeeps or elephant backs then the tripods are not very useful. Monopods and Beanbags work very well if you are in a jeep. If you are on an elephant back then you have no choice but to hand hold the camera.

• Cleaning equipment – Dust is a big problem in India and you would probably have to clean the equipment every day. It is very important to carry all the cleaning equipment that you think you would need and you would need a lot of it. If you are using digital SLRs, be very careful when you change the lenses or you would end up with a lot of dust on the sensor.

• Bags – I would strongly recommend carrying one bag that fits all your equipment. It helps if you have straps on the back.

• Batteries / Chargers / Adapters – Indian electricity works on 240 volts and 50-60 Hertz and circular plug points. You may need to carry adapters for the chargers accordingly. It is recommended to carry spare batteries.

• Flash – Flash photography is not permitted inside most of the National Parks and Sanctuaries in India and in many ancient monuments. However, I would still recommend that you carry a flash, even though you may not be permitted to use them in many places.

3. Check & Clean your equipment before you leave for the trip.

Insurance for the equipment is advisable though not necessary. In case the insurance is very expensive (and it usually is), you can do without it but just be very careful especially when you are in transit. Make a list of serial numbers of camera bodies and lenses.

4. Test your equipment before you hit the field. Never (and I mean NEVER) go out to the field with untested equipment.

Some tips for nature photography in India

• Vehicles, Drivers and Guides – Most of the wildlife photography in India is done from a small Suzuki jeep (locally known as Gypsys). These are not very comfortable but are very tough and do very well on bad terrain. There is often not enough space in these Gypsys to set up a tripod (unless you remove or fold one of the two rear seats). However, beanbags are very handy if you are in one of these vehicles. Since these vehicles are small, they can at the most take 3 photographers (ideally only 2). It is very important to get a good driver, since he is the one who is going to set the angle for you. It is also very important to brief the driver and the guide (who are compulsory in most wildlife sanctuaries and parks) about the angles etc that you like (and you will have to do this).

• Best time in the day for shooting – The best light conditions are found in the early mornings and the late hours of the evenings. This is also the time when wildlife is most active. This is particularly true for summers, when the light is good only for about an hour or two in the mornings and evenings.

• Best time in the year for shooting – Generally speaking, in most parts of India, winters is a much better time to shoot than summers. In winters the light is softer, the wildlife more active and the backgrounds more colorful. However, this is a broad generalization. In summers, it is generally easier to find wildlife (this is most apt for mega-fauna like tigers, elephants, deer etc) because they tend to congregate around the few water holes that still have water.

• Dust – In most of India (especially in the wildlife areas) dust is ever present (and in large quantities). This can be tough for the equipment and it is advisable to be prepared for it. However, dust can also make for great backgrounds, particularly at dawn and dusk.

• Patience – You most probably already know about the amount of patience required in nature photography. However, I would like to add that in India you need much more of this quality than you would in other countries.

• Shooting from Elephant back – Elephant back safaris are very popular in many wildlife reserves in India (except in Western part of India). Elephants are the most marvelous off road “vehicles” and can reach almost everywhere. However, they are not very comfortable and on elephant back you have no choice but to hand hold the camera. If you are planning to do a lot of shooting from elephant back, then it is advisable to use high-speed films and lenses. Image Stabilizing (IS) or Vibration Reduction (VR) technology is very handy when you are on elephant back. Wild animals show a lot of tolerance towards elephants and elephants can get very close to wild animals, so you do not need a very large telephoto when on an elephant back. I personally think that a 70 – 200 mm f 2.8 zoom (with IS or VR) with a 400 ISO film or sensor setting is ideal for shooting from elephant backs.

• Safety of your equipment – In most of the wildlife parks and sanctuaries, your equipment is generally safe. However, I would advise you to be very careful when traveling in trains and when you are in urban areas. In such areas, stick to your equipment.

Look out for bonuses

India, with its vibrant colors, diverse culture and teeming population is paradise for photographers. A friend of mine once remarked that if you blindfold yourself, take a camera and walk down a market, taking random pictures, you can end up with a few great shots – that is you do not get run down. India offers a lot of great photo opportunities in every day life. Take advantage of this and look out for bonuses. Even if you are going to a Nature reserve for photography do not miss the brilliant opportunities that you will get in railway stations, roads, markets etc. I would recommend that you keep a camera handy all the time.

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The Fort is a national historic monument but much more understanding of the importance of conserving our heritage as much as our environment needs to be communicated. While there are numerous different pressures on the park, awareness is important of the need for preserving the past for future generations.

One can almost hear the ghungroos of the dancers on their way to entertain the royal guests and courtiers in the many pillared palace of entertainments. Dusk would have fallen and the lamps lit, myriads of them, placed in their hundreds of niches in the walls surrounding the stage, shimmering and wavering to provide brilliance for the performers to shine.

There are many holy places inside this fort and villagers from the surrounding regions make pilgrimages from miles away to make obeisance at their favourite saint or chosen god’s temple.

This is the palace of Veer Hammir - the most famous of the local Rajput kings, and on the left it extends into the now derelict Queen’s palace. In front of this is the garden with royal blue peacocks making it their home.

This was where the kings of old would have their sacrifices [yagna] before beginning any martial activity such as war or invasion or defence.

The Ganesh temple inside the Ranthambhore Fort is one of the most famous in the region with pilgrims coming around for miles during the annual Mela. The grounds are full of the local “tame” langurs, considered holy and part of the temple thus not to be harmed. They are spoilt by tourists and visitors and can get quite aggressive about snatching flowers and snacks right out of your hands.

An old myth on the way to the temple has it that if you wish to build a house, you must build one here on the side of the path with the flat stones that are lying around. A number of such cairnlike houses line both sides of the pathway inside the Fort’s grounds.

On the way back to Ranthambhore Bagh - the setting desert sun hangs over the western sky as we return to the 21st century again.

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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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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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