Vikram Nanjappa
Manas. I am not sure when that name embedded itself into my mind, but I do know that I have carried it around for many decades. At first, I barely realised that it was there. Like a mild infection, it would manifest itself every once in a while before subsiding and retreating into some distant recess of my brain.
My interest in wildlife was sparked during my school days mainly through the writings of various authors and, if memory serves me right, it was probably amongst the writings of E.P. Gee that I first encountered the name. E.P. Gee was a tea planter from Assam with a keen interest in wildlife and had written a book titled ‘Wild Life of India’ in which he describes his ‘discovery’ of a new species of langur — the ‘Golden Langur’ in the forests of Assam — the forest in question being Manas. I remember looking at a photograph of the Golden Langur (one of the few colour photographs in the book) and wondering if I would ever be lucky enough to see one.
As the years went by, Manas would occasionally pop up in various books and articles that I would read. I am not sure where I learned about its legendary warden, protector and savior, Sanjoy Deb Roy, who brought it back from the brink when it was declared a protected area, but he soon became one of my wildlife heroes. I was particularly struck by a well known story about him. One night while sitting beside a campfire on the banks of the Manas river, he fell asleep only to wake up a few hours later to find a tiger, also asleep enjoying the warmth of the fire, less than five meters away.
I did not know then but by the time I ended my career as a professional naturalist, the ability to peacefully share space with a wild animal, with each comfortable in the other’s presence, would become one of my benchmarks to assess a person’s understanding of animal behaviour.
In due course of time as I progressed through life, from school to college and onwards to my working life, Manas faded into the background making fleeting appearances every once in a while. The years rolled by till one fine day I found myself working as a tea planter in the Dooars of North Bengal in the very same company that E.P. Gee had served. Manas lay a few miles eastwards of where I was posted and I am not sure what to make of this coincidence but it was during my stint in the Dooars that Manas started taking a firmer hold on my mind.
The context and news however was not good, the Boro agitation had taken root in Assam and the Forest Department had lost control of Manas. The Boro insurgents had full control of the park and were reportedly plundering it. Many people, including me, feared that it would be the end of Manas. While I was physically the closest I have ever been to the park I could have been on another planet for all practical purposes — the situation was so dire. However, Manas was a trans-boundary park — a part of it fell under Bhutan where it was called Royal Manas and I consoled myself that I could at least visit the Bhutan side one day. As chance was to have it, I also ended up working on the Bhutan border for a while but was never able to make it.
Time passed by and I was happy indulging in my twin loves of wildlife and photography when an unseen set of circumstances found me moving south to Kabini (located in the state of Karnataka) to start an exciting new chapter in life. I was managing a newly opened wildlife resort and also doubling up as a naturalist. This gave me access to wildlife like never before and honing and acquiring new skills became the order of the day. I was so absorbed in my new role that Manas became a distant, albeit fond, memory.
As the years progressed more positive news began to filter in, a peace accord had been signed and the Bodoland Territorial Region was established bringing the insurgency to an end. The Bodoland Territorial Council, an elected body, was set up soon after and the administration of the park fell under it. I heard that the revival of Manas was high on their list and they were keen to encourage tourism as a means of employment and revenue generation. All this was positive but I was too far away and fully engaged in Kabini to take advantage of the situation. Manas would have to wait.
My next brush with Manas came at the 2nd International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations which took place in Kochi, Kerala in March 2008 and which I happened to attend. At the conference a representative of the Bodoland Territorial Council gave a presentation on Manas and the measures taken by the Council to revive it along with their plans for encouraging wildlife tourism in the area. This was music to my ears and I spent some time chatting with him and explaining my connection with Manas. He was genuinely happy to meet someone with more than a passing interest in Manas and assured me that Manas was ready to welcome visitors.
In almost all cases things are not quite what they seem and I knew that in spite of the rosy picture being painted there was still a lot of tension on the ground with rival Boro factions still in conflict with the government. It would take much more time before Manas could hope to attract tourists on any significant scale. In the meantime researchers began studies in the park and non-government conservation organisations stepped in to help revive the park, their most notable intervention being the reintroduction of rhinos into Manas. An Elephant Reintegration Project was also launched. Manas had started on the long road to recovery.
Cut to a few years down the line and having recently shifted base to Bangalore when one fine day I receive a flyer advertising a one day workshop on wildlife cinematography by a well known Indian filmmaker. And the carrot being dangled to sign up? From among the attendees, two would be chosen to work on a project in Manas. I signed up. I failed to mention before but during my time in Kabini I had spent over three years shooting only video and had managed to acquire a good amount of wildlife footage. I felt confident that I would be able to make the cut due to my filming and naturalist experience in Kabini. Manas, finally, seemed within reach.
I walked into the classroom brimming with confidence and surveyed my competition. They were only about six of us and my confidence increased, I was sure that I would be among the chosen and even started having visions of walking through the tall grass of Manas. The filmmaker started off with the usual introductions and then slowly dropped the proverbial bomb. A couple of researchers had been kidnapped by a rival Boro faction and the park was closed to visitors. The filming permit had been revoked and the carrot, the opportunity to work in Manas, was off the table. I have a very vague memory of what transpired during the rest of the workshop.
Life carried on and I ended up joining the team of one of the best known experts on Asian elephants. It was during this stint that I worked very closely with a person who I consider my elephant guru. It was a period of great learning and I look back very fondly on this period of my wildlife journey. Little did I know that happenings in Manas, or rather Bodoland, was about to have large scale repercussions in Bangalore. Most people in Bangalore had never heard of Bodoland and no one was going to forget that name in a hurry.
After a few quiet years the Manas bug bit again. I found to my delight that a few people were conducting guided tours to Manas and I felt that this was probably as good a time as any to make another attempt to get to Manas. I duly signed up for the tour and paid the token advance as required. While things looked positive, I kept my fingers crossed as I did not trust my luck and the tour was still a few months away. And as it turned out, I was not disappointed. About a fortnight before the tour was due to begin I received a message from the organiser stating that he was being forced to cancel the trip due to a lack of participants. He offered me a place on an earlier tour that was looking positive but as the dates were not suitable to me I had to decline. It felt as if Manas was toying with me, deliberately testing both my patience and resolve. I was determined not to give in.
The COVID epidemic came as a welcome excuse to put Manas on the back burner and I was left attending to more mundane matters such as surviving the pandemic while people were dying like flies all over the world. It was during this time that I went back to analogue photography and started to develop an interest in collecting vintage cameras. One fine morning, after the pandemic had subsided, I received a call from one of my friends who happened to be a veteran wildlife photographer from the film days. He had heard of my interest in vintage cameras and wanted to gift me his old cameras, one of which happened to be a Nikon F2. Ashish Chandola was the only person I knew personally who had worked in Manas before the insurgency and who also knew Deb Roy well. That Nikon F2 had been to Manas and I took this as a sign that it wished to return and that I was the ‘chosen one’ entrusted with the divine task, god’s work, Missio Dei, of taking it back to Manas. The quest had begun anew and this time I could not afford to fail.
Having been entrusted with the F2 called for a change in attitude and a new hero to emulate and who better than Indiana Jones to return a lost relic to its place of origin? A new method of preparation was the need of the hour and I spent the next few months watching every Indiana Jones movie and hunting for a leather jacket and whip. It was only due to the timely intervention of my daughter that I did not commission the local cobbler to make me a whip. After a while sanity returned and I had what I can only describe as a eureka moment. Why not approach Soumyajit with whom I had travelled to the Sundarbans? I had met him in Kaziranga a year or so ago and I felt that he would be the best bet.
As luck would have it Manas was on his bucket list too and after a little persuasion and encouragement from me (at least I would like to think so though he might disagree) a tour was organised. Tickets were booked and the clock began to tick once again. Would there be another slip between the cup and the lip? With my luck one could never be sure. However it seemed that the tide had turned and after a few uneventful but tense months I boarded the flight to Guwahati en route to Manas. As the plane took off I heaved a sigh of relief, I was finally on my way.
After meeting up with my fellow travelers, we headed west towards Manas on a highway that once used to be my lifeline — NH 27. But this time instead of heading east, which would have been the case if I were still in the Dooars, we were heading west to Manas. I had practically circumnavigated India in the opposite direction to get to Manas. A journey of a few hundred kilometers had become a journey of a few thousand.
Manas did not disappoint. It was everything that I hoped for and true to our special relationship; it still had a couple of surprises left to spring on me. As we entered the park I noticed a small well maintained glass-fronted structure with a boat inside. Intrigued, I approached the structure and was delighted to find that the boat was one of the Hamilton Jet Boats used in Edmund Hillary’s Ocean to Sky expedition. Hillary had in 1977 attempted to follow the Ganges from Ganga Sagar, where the river meets the sea, to the summit of one of the Himalayan peaks at its source.
After the expedition, these jet boats were donated for wildlife conservation, with Manas receiving one, probably in the early 1980’s. As a child I had poured over the book on the expedition written by Edmund Hillary. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would ever run into one of the boats in Manas of all places. For obvious reasons Manas never featured in the book but another forest did — the Sundarbans and I remember that a few of the expedition members had got a glimpse of a swamp tiger while passing through the famed mangroves.
As a part of our plan we had decided to visit the Bhutan side of Manas. Indian nationals were allowed to cross over into the Bhutan side if they had valid documents to prove their Indian citizenship and we had come prepared with our Adhaar Cards. Unfortunately the rules had changed; Adhaar Cards were no longer valid as the Govt. of India had recently declared that they were not proof of citizenship. Manas had struck again and successfully foiled my plans once more. Royal Manas would have to wait.
Nevertheless we drove up to the border gate just for a lark and after placing one foot in Bhutan returned to the Indian side. I quickly got over my disappointment; I was finally in Manas after all those failed attempts and I was not going to let anything upset me.
It was winter and bitterly cold more so since I had not experienced a North Bengal winter for a long time. In fact everything about Manas reminded me of the North Bengal Dooars, the stone beds of the rivers and rain fed streams, the Bhutan hills on the horizon and the small villages outside the park. This was not surprising as Dooars or Duars means ‘doors’ in the local languages and this region is considered the gateway between Bhutan and India. There are eighteen such gateways, passages or passes between the hills of Bhutan and the plains of India. Manas is located in one such passage.
One evening after returning from the safari I found myself sitting alone at the campfire that used to be lit every evening at the lodge. My travel companions were resting in their rooms after a hard day’s safari but as I prefer the warmth of a fire over the warmth of a room I had ventured out. It was extremely peaceful and I sat in silence staring into the flickering flames and sipping on a cold beer. During that period I was susceptible to urine infections and by trial and error I had discovered that a bottle of beer drunk in the evening acted as an extremely efficient prophylactic.
As I sat enjoying my beer and the warmth of the fire, I noticed a rather scruffy looking dog approach and proceed to make itself comfortable near the fire. After a while he fell asleep and I could hear its gentle breathing and the occasional snore. It was the perfect end to an extraordinary day, sharing a fire with a strange dog. After a while it woke up and came and settled down between my feet. We had not shared a single word or gesture, or exchanged any looks or glances; we trusted each by instinct, each comfortable in the other’s company. These are the moments I live for and this was by far my most enduring memory of Manas.
The Bhuyanpara range is by far my favourtie spot in Manas as it has vast grasslands that stretch all the way to the Bhutan border. As I climbed one of the tall watchtowers in the range to get a panoramic view, I was greeted with a breathtaking sight with the early morning winter sun casting a soft golden glow on the scene — grasslands stretching out in all directions with the Bhutan hills providing the perfect backdrop. I felt as if I was in the seventh heaven as I stood atop the watchtower, soaking up the winter sun while scanning the landscape below.
We drove around the grassland looking for the Black breasted parrotbill which we were lucky to find before proceeding to Doimari where we planned to stop for breakfast. At Doimari, I ventured forth to the bed of the Doimari River to stretch my legs and was immediately transported back to my Dooars days where during winters we would picnic on the banks of very similar streams and rivers.
Manas was akin to a pilgrimage in many ways, a pilgrimage implies that the journey is as important as the destination if not a integral part and parcel of the rite, and that the manner in which one traveled is part of the transformative process that the pilgrim is striving for. While my journey to Manas was long and winding with many setbacks, it was not physically challenging as pilgrimages are suppose to be nevertheless it was as fulfilling as any. Upon arriving at Manas and experiencing it, I felt that I had also journeyed within myself and in the process established a deeper more mystical connection with the wild.
My Manas journey continues, it is a journey without a destination, for I realized during that first visit that it is the allure of the wilderness that draws me and not the destination per se. And so my journey continues, taking me to many wild places scattered across the country in search of a deeper connection with the wild. I have since returned to Manas and will return again, hopefully repeatedly. The Nikon F2 had returned but the quest continues. I doubt it will ever cease.
Photographs by Vikram Nanjappa, Cover Photo: Freepik
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