When Raman waved us to sit on a fallen log the morning mist was just evaporating on the sal trees. What our tribal guide had seen, the others had not seen at all--a sign in the wet ground, in the shape of pugmarks, to which he alone possessed the key.
Tiger had been through here two hours agone, he said, and was making tea in a small kettle over a smokeless fire. "Female, hunting. In the evening she will be back."
This wasn't your typical wildlife tours India experience. There are no fancy safari cars and selected paths. Some just aged wisdom of generations oral and transmitted over barrels of steaming adrak chai in the depth of forests of Madhya Pradesh.
More than the Safari Vehicle
Most wildlife tours India focus on the big sightings—tigers, leopards, elephants. Spending time with the Gond and Baiga tribal people however presents another aspect of the forest eco-system. These local guides do not only see animals, but they read the forest as an open book.
One of the trees exposed a scratch mark which Raman indicated. Yesterday morning sloth bear sharpened claws. Here the new wood shavings?" His rough hands followed the designs in the bark. Later he will cut the tree on the other side of the stream in two days. Bears do have their territories as human beings have their homes."
Tea grew cold and he showed how to recognise more than twenty bird calls that were like messengers bearing news of the mood in the woods. A certaintaill langur alarms signified the movement of a leopard. It was a sign that there were elephants close when there were no cicada sounds.
Lessons Money Can’t Buy
As opposed to standard wildlife tour India packages, one gains important pieces of knowledge under the instruction of tribal guides, which is never perfectly regulated in the naturalist books. The two groups have lived in harmony with the wildlife over the centuries and as a result, have gained an instinctive sense of forest rhythms.
City people hunt animals," Kamla, a Baiga woman who had joined in our tea party, told me. They are listened to by forest people. And all the hints come to us through the sound, through the smell, through the broken branch."
She explained to us the plants tigers know by instinct to seek out when they are sick, the way to tell by the behaviour of the insects when the monsoons will come, and why some trees blossom when particular animals are in rut. The wisdom taken thousands of years to cultivate turns a mere trillion in the forest into an ecological networking master class.
The Cultural Contact
These encounters are unique, not because of the level of expertise in wildlife alone, but because of the social bridge which is formed. Drinking tea with tribal guides will give insights into ways of doing more sustainable things that contemporary conservation work is gradually re-learning.
At the second cup, the nephew of Raman presented us native hunting weapons used today exclusively as defense ones. He went on explaining, that they take only what forest offers freely. Not so much as we need.
This doctrine is carried out to their rule of thumb. The tribal guides will differ since all businesses such as commercial wildlife tours India operations will revolve around guaranteed sightings and tribal guides are very patient and respectful. The best thing, sometimes, is not to see a tiger--it is to know why the forest that day did not wish to reveal its secrets.
Visiting Tips
A number of eco-tourism programs have been established in Madhya Pradesh that now give the visitor a chance to have genuine encounters with the tribal communities. Kanha, Pench, and Satpura areas have a community based program where tourists can enquire of tribal guide experience as well as traditional safaris.
The trick here is to get operators that will respect the tribal knowledge on an even footing, and also respect the cultural lines. Guides are best when they volunteer their stories, that is, they provide it but do not enact it.
We concluded our tea-table in the morning; and Raman putting his evening prophecy in effect. It was precisely there, where primordial wisdom said there was the tigress. However, by this point, we had comprehended something more important than a good photograph, we had witnessed the inseparable bond between human culture and wild nature that makes the forests of India so magical.