Chandan Mitra recounts the therapeutic experience of three days spent in the pristine jungles of the Kalagarh Tiger Reserve in a lesser-known part of the Corbett National Park. Photos by Shobori Ganguli

The wilderness: It still exists; and it’s just seven hours from the bustling megapolis of Delhi. There are dense forests in other parts of India too, some teeming with wildlife. But mostly, they are difficult to access; moreover, staying inside jungles is virtually taboo nowadays and for good reason. The place we visited during the 2007-08 New Year break is not a tourist destination although, technically, it is open to all. But it’s remote and so little known except to the cognoscenti that few casual visitors ever go there. Fortunately, the planned absence of creature comforts at the Forest Rest House ensures that only determined nature lovers are likely to make the effort anyway. But those who do are usually smitten by its pristine natural beauty, resplendent wildlife and the sheer quality of the all-pervasive silence broken occasionally by the chatter of birds, shrill conversation between deer herds, trumpeting of elephants and the majestic roar of tigers. First time visitors often end up as regulars. I am sure I will join their ranks,

Haldu Paraw is only 260 km from Delhi and 53 km from the railhead town of Kotdwara in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand. This quaintly named spot has no civilisation except for a small community of 12 government functionaries living around a Forest Rest House built in 1898 by intrepid British foresters. It’s incredible how adventurous, how unbelievably inquisitive the British were and how determined to build infrastructure for future generations. When I visited another little known Reserve Forest at Katarnia Ghat in UP’s Bahraich district in 2000, I had similarly stayed at a double-storeyed forest bungalow at a place called Nishan Garha, built in 1888! That stone structure is in a sad state of disrepair and we had to literally dust away cobwebs to make our bedroom habitable. But there it stands, cocking a snook at the passage of time, departure of Empire, construction of motorable roads through what was once an impenetrable jungle, a tribute to the indomitable spirit of the inquiry of man.

For all their faults, the British were magnificent explorers who discovered India more thoroughly than we had ever done ourselves. I marvelled at them during my sojourn, wondering what made people from a faraway land delve so deep into godforsaken depths of India, braving conditions so dramatically different from their homeland. Since the bungalow at Haldu Paraw was completed in 1898, they

must have surveyed the place extensively even earlier, selected the most appropriate location and carted construction material through dense forests and untamed rivers to a promontory overhanging a perennial river. At the risk of being politically incorrect, I was moved to defer to our erstwhile colonisers’ spirit of adventure.

It also gladdened my heart to find that a new crop of forest officers in Uttarakhand has recognised the importance of this legacy and they are working hard to restore, renovate and expand such rest houses. While the original bungalow has been patched up and awaits a thorough renovation planned for later this year, the outhouse was refashioned into a comfortable annexe during 2005-06 at the initiative of an officer based in Ramnagar, headquarters of the Corbett Park establishment. The once-dilapidated outhouse now has two spacious rooms with attached bath and changing rooms on the first floor and a wide balcony in front. On the ground floor, there is an eight-bed dormitory, built primarily for botany/zoology student groups who come here quite frequently. A big dining room and a well-equipped kitchen placed next to it makes the structure self-sufficient. At some distance are the living quarters of forest department functionaries.

Most of the 12 staffers lead rather dreary lives for this is a hardship posting. It is not a place to get the family over. Being within the core area of the Kalagarh Tiger Reserve (a part of Corbett National Park) there are no villages and hence no schools, health centres or even milk suppliers. We are okay with black tea or coffee but those unused to that ought to carry tetra-packed or powdered milk if they go there. Incidentally, Forest Rest Houses aren’t hotels. Visitors are required to carry with them all food items, including cooking oil, masala, vegetables and so on, besides atta, rice, bread, eggs etc. Meat is prohibited inside the core area, so don’t hope you can feast on jungle fowl or wild boar (which, by the way, are plentiful). As I find a meal incomplete without a non-vegetarian component, we thoughtfully carried some packets of ITC Foods’ Kitchens of India preparations, which need just heating up to make a delectable entrés. And visitors must remember to cart back all non-biodegradable litter; no plastics are to be left behind in the forest. So ensure you have a big shopping bag or carton in which you carry all environmentally harmful packaging material back to the city.

Why am I detailing the living conditions instead of talking about the forest? Primarily because spending a few days at Haldu Paraw is an experience in itself. One can visit other National Parks, or even in Corbett go to the hugely popular Dhikala, stay at well-appointed four-star resorts just outside the Park’s periphery, journey into the forest on elephant back and sight wildlife aplenty including tigers. We have visited Kanha, for instance, stayed at the Royal Tiger Resort replete with creature comforts and seen six tigers in four days. In Haldu Paraw, on the other hand, we saw none although we heard many. But just getting there and living in quasi-primitive conditions was an altogether out-of- the-world experience, worth it for its own sake; sighting of animals is an add-on.

It was the sheer apprehension of the unexpected that made this sojourn so meaningful. The fact that the Rest House had electrified fencing and at 6 pm every evening the staff connected wires across the entrance to the compound to make it animal proof, made the atmosphere bristle with trepidation. Let not electrified fencing suggest round-the-clock electricity; there is none at Haldu Paraw. But they do have solar panels and rooms are lit up for four hours (6 to 10 pm) everyday. Conserved solar energy trapped in batteries electrifies the fence by way of protection against mischievous elephant herds. The current running through the fence wires is just enough to deter adventurous pachyderms without hurting them significantly.

On the onward journey, we stopped at Kotdwara for the night as we could not make it to the Reserve’s gate by 5:30 pm, which is when it shuts so that vehicles blaring headlights do not alarm animals, especially elephant herds that roam the forest at night. We were particularly lucky to obtain the assistance of BBS Rawat, father of a colleague, a venerated forest officer who retired recently and settled in the foothills town. Rawat has phenomenal knowledge of the forest’s flora; senior Uttarakhand Forest Service officers had already told me they regard him as a “guru”, and almost everybody we met during our stay at Corbett seemed to share the same regard. He had thoughtfully arranged for all supplies to be dispatched to Haldu Paraw well in advance of our arrival and even organised our night halt at Kotdwara at the newly built Kingfisher Hotel run by his tourism entrepreneur friend

Anil Negi. Reaching Haldu Paraw around mid-day the day after, we decided to relax and savour the sounds of silence, soak in the unpolluted air and liquid sunlight.

Up early (by our city standards) we braved the intense morning chill and ground frost to scour the forest. One needs an SUV to travel to Haldu Paraw because the jungle road is just about jeepable, unsuited for fancy sedans especially because getting there entails fording two rivers apart from negotiating sudden, steep climbs. Moreover, without a four-wheel drive vehicle, it could be risky to travel on the 14-km jungle trail that takes visitors to the highest point of the hilly terrain where the probability of sighting wildlife is better in winter. It’s tough driving on the narrow dirt track, negotiating sharp bends, uneven surfaces, slush and bumpy, dry riverbeds. My Terracan, powered by a 3.6 litre diesel engine, did not need recourse to the four-wheel mode, but there are at least two slushy points on the trail where one feels secure merely in the knowledge that greater thrust can be given, if needed, to steer the vehicle through the bog. At any rate, it is advisable to keep the vehicle running on the first gear, both for giving it power to negotiate climbs and control the speed at the same time.

We were a bit unlucky at not being able to spot big animals, barring a solitary tusker. As we neared, the shy young male got worried by the sound of the engine and rushed down a steep elephant track at incredible speed, presumably to join the rest of the herd hidden in the dense foliage a few hundred feet below the road. We too were a bit anxious not knowing if other members of his fraternity were around near the spot we saw him. In case they got alarmed, they could have rushed towards our vehicle, for elephants in fright look neither left nor right and surge ahead with all their impressive bulk, dislodging everything in sight. Of course, we were accompanied by a forest guard tranquilizer-gun in hand. Visitors are not allowed to venture into the jungle unaccompanied. But it would have been unfortunate if the instrument needed to be used. Ultimately, though, we felt disappointed not seeing more of them.

Over the next few days, we repeatedly came across their massive footprints on the sandy banks of jungle streams while fresh excreta lined the road at regular intervals. It seems elephants get the urge to relieve themselves straight after drinking water, which probably explains why their excreta is so often found near water sources.

On the second night, I woke up with a start upon hearing a chorus of shrill cries. Very soon, the jungle near our Rest House reverberated with the cacophony of trumpeting elephants, probably exchanging information with one another. In the pitch dark, bitterly cold night, this seemed almost eerie. They screamed for a good 15 minutes before retreating from the vicinity. We heard them trumpeting almost every night we were there, but somehow they eluded us in the daylight. We learnt that in the dry summer months elephant sightings were commonplace since herds routinely congregate along the river to quench their thirst because water holes up in the hills dry up by March. They scurry back to the upper reaches with the onset of the monsoon especially because a particularly vicious type of mosquito breeds near rivers in the rainy season and its bites can cause serious ailments to the pachyderms.

Haldu Paraw also plays host to a few tame elephants, used to take visitors for jungle rides. But this being peak season, they were made to undertake the 33-km trek to Dhikala as an additional contingent to cater to tourist demands. I, however, find it cruel to get these magnificent beasts to work for human entertainment; they sounded so marvellously happy and carefree trumpeting through the night. We should just let them be.

The jungles of Kalagarh are replete with deer species, suggesting the existence of a massive prey base to sustain a healthy tiger population. Forest officials claimed there were at least 40, and I saw no reason to disbelieve that. On our return journey, we gave a lift to a wizened old relative of a forest official. He usually treks to the Reserve’s entrance at Vatanvasa, some 9 km from Haldu Paraw and takes a bus to Dogadda, the nearest town, to fetch supplies. He said tigers were not easy to spot here because of the terrain and dense foliage, but their abundance was evident from their regular roars at night. We could aver to that as each of the three nights we spent was punctuated by the resounding roar of the King of the Jungle, probably seeking out mates. The sounds were chilling because of their obvious proximity to the Rest House, eerie because they shredded the stillness of pitch-black nights.

The elder narrated a recent encounter with a tigress and her two cubs that blocked the jungle track to Vatanvasa while he was trudging along, just a lathi in hand. “'What did you do when you found them squatting on the road?” I inquired. He said one had to be infinitely patient in such situations: “I too sat down at a safe distance, lit a bidi and waited for them to move. They sat around for more than an hour before suddenly deciding to walk down the slope and I resumed my trek,” he recalled, matter of fact. Forest residents, I have always found, are natural conservationists and wildlife lovers. Despite the occasional conflict between man and animal, they never proactively or deliberately assault animals.

I found the spirit of co-existence pervading the Haldu Paraw community too. The staff had painstakingly prepared beds to grow vegetables on the backyard and the first shoots had begun to appear. One afternoon, basking in the sun and sipping beer on the Rest House balcony, we spotted a baby barking deer gingerly step across the wire fence, furtively glance around and commence chewing the sprouts. Our first instinct was to inform the staff but we refrained as the baby deer looked adoringly cute. It spent about 10 minutes inside the compound before dashing back to join the family that must have been grazing close by. Later, when we narrated this to the staff, they said they saw it too but since it was a regular visitor and a baby at that, they never prevented it from foraging. “The vegetables will grow back for how much can a baby deer eat,” was their caring response.

Three days spent in splendid isolation at Haldu Paraw were infinitely therapeutic. Apart from the 9 o’clock news on All India Radio, we had no contact with the outside world. Admittedly, it was a bit uncomfortable tackling the cold at night in the absence of any form of heating. We had to skip the usual December 31st bonfire because lighting a fire in the open is not permitted inside the core areas of reserved forests. But these were minor departures from the set routine. The sheer beauty of a pristine jungle, the experience of living virtually in the wild, listening to elephants trumpeting and tigers roaring in the forest at night, the incredible array of myriad stars studding a cloudless, pollution-free sky, all these combined to make those three days unforgettable. May Haldu Paraw always stay the same way as British explorers found it well over a century ago. If I ever write my version of the Jungle Book, I know where I will begin.

NEED TO KNOW

• Getting there Haldu Paraw is only 260 km from Delhi, and 53 km from the railhead town of Kotdwara in the Garhwal region of Uttarakhand. An SUV ride is a must because the jungle road is just about jeepable, Contact Corbett National Park office at Ramnasar, Uttarakhand.
• Pack it in Forest Rest Houses aren't hotels. Visitors are required to carry with them all food items, including cooking oil, masala, vegetables and so on, besides atta, rice, bread, eggs etc. Meat is prohibited inside the core area, so don't hope you can feast on jungle fowl or wild boar. Carry tetra-packed or powdered milk. You cannot light a bonfire.
• Be responsible Must remember to cart back all non-biodegradable litter; no plastics are to be left behind in the forest.
•  Why go offbeat? To experience the forest for its own sake; animal sighting is for once not the focus, just an add-on.