My First Tadoba Visit...

My first visit dates back to the time when I was about 8-9 years old. We were a big group of 20 people and had hired a big shuttle ('Matador') for the trip. My brains shivered with excitement and fear of the unknown - This was the first time I was gonna watch wild animals free in the open jungles. My childhood mind was so colored by the man-eating tiger stories from the movies that me and my little cousins had managed to smuggle a few hand-made toy bows and arrows into the shuttle ..just in case, we had to rescue people from maneaters. ( ha ha..I miss those pristine childhood thought processes..)

We started off from my Grandfather's house at Chandrapur late in the afternoon. The journey through the forest-villages was breathtaking even to a kid....watching mud-houses with grass-like roofs, simple people toiling in the fields and naked kids running around in circles...

The greenery gradually got greener and more dense as we reached the tiger reserve forest in about an hours time. After an official permission was taken from the officials at the gate, we set off on our journey into the forests. My heart now beat a little faster as everyone in the shuttle grew silent , gazing out into the thick green woods with eyes full of anticipation.

The driver slowed down the vehicle and joined us in shooting glances in all directions to look for the slightest movements amongst those thick overgrown grass shafts, the tall trees and the vines. In thick greenery, it's too easy to imagine animals at the slightest shift of a leaf - and that only makes the suspense more fun !

And we saw the first animal - a bison ! Click here to on a picture from Tadoba, taken by my friend Siddhartha, to know what a Bison (Wild Buffalo) looks like..



[More coming up soon...]