Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Quiet Please

08-June-2015, Dammannakatte, Nagarhole National Park

The first evening safari had begun auspiciously enough.

The narcissist

A purple rumped sunbird had decided to check out its rival hiding inside the rear-view mirror of our safari canter and we were all enthralled. The green head, yellow body and purple rump of this outrageously coloured bird & its antics brought a smile to everyone's faces and a hope of even better things to come. The canter hadn't even started its engine yet.

In a few minutes, it did and just as it was about to roll out of the booking office area, three gentlemen, one of them with a professional TV camera came running up to the bus. The guide opened the bus door to let them in and they occupied the front most seats which were kept empty so far.

As soon as we started towards the Park entrance, the guide turned around to say that maintaining silence helped in better spotting of the animals and in keeping them undisturbed. One of the 3 gentlemen who had boarded last, turned around and repeated to everyone "Quiet please!"

As the gate lifted to let the vehicle in, this aforementioned gentleman Mr. Quiet-Please immediately set about ignoring his own instructions. With a vengeance. As it happened to be, Mr. Quiet-Please was the producer of a Malayali TV news show and was committed to shooting video of their trip into the National Park… with a running commentary!

Could tolerate Mr. Quiet-Please only briefly

The guide tried, I tried, a visibly irritated co-passenger tried but none of us could do anything to make this 'dedicated' team trying to get their ‘takes' to keep the peace. The forest, freshly revived from the first rains, was green and beautiful, but was particularly grumpy about revealing itself. Aside from a fleeing Malabar giant squirrel and really distant (luckily for the animals) elephants bathing in the Kabini river, we spotted absolutely nothing in the entire safari.

Mr. Quiet-Please was now, after all being central to all the problems, making protesting noises about how he felt cheated out of the money that he had paid for the safari.

“There is nothing in this forest!”, he said, as he and his team disembarked at the booking office.

The follow-up safari, the second of the evening had some seats empty so I had already booked myself into the next. The same drill again as the guide told all passengers to maintain silence.

The big difference on this trip? The passengers actually obeyed.

And what a difference it made! Even entering the forest was an adventure when human voices were silenced. The buzz of the insects, the calls of the birds, the drip drop of raindrops – all audio enhancements which we had missed on the preceding safari. The jungle felt so much more mysterious, almost holy, and the atmosphere thick with anticipation.

There it was! The reason I had wanted to come to the banks of the Kabini in the first place. In full view of our safari canter, the master of the night… a massive male leopard. He stalked by in front of the vehicle.

Rewards Program

Apart from an initial involuntary squeal of surprise from the back of the canter, our entire crew of watchers remained particularly silent. As a reward, the leopard decided to give us even more of a memorable experience. He circled our canter thrice within 20 feet or so and then clambered up & down neighbouring trees making the leopard’s typical sawing call.

We humans held our silence, only the sound of our thrilled breathing was to be heard. It got to the point that we had to let the leopard be and move on. For him, we didn’t seem to exist and we wanted to keep it that way.

The silent attitude was to pay further dividends. Further ahead, we arrived within seconds of a pack of dhole having hunted a chital down and were privy to a hurried feeding by them. One by one, each of the senior dogs took turns to keep an out for other predators in the area while the others fed. With a group of like-minded and rule abiding people, the jungle was indeed a gracious host.

Fresh action for the noiseless

It’s sad when due to the behaviour of a handful of boorish people, a wilderness as splendid as Nagarhole gets a thumbs down from Mr. I-visited-a-jungle-one-time-and-I-was-bored. Sure, not every safari is guaranteed spectacular animal sightings but that’s the way of the jungle and the charm of the jungle.

But from my back to back safari experiences of the same place, I can surely vouch for the value of silence. There is everything in this forest but for that you really need to be quiet please.

Good things come to those who wait...

... in relative silence

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