Dudhwa

The soft pink light at the rear end of the passenger train paled out and eventually disappeared as the thick white mist gradually engulfed the whole station. The few waiting passengers, wrapped in their shawls and huddled together beneath a single shade of the desolate platform, appeared like ghostly figures under the yellow halogen lamp illuminating parts of the platform. It was one-thirty a.m. Weary after a whirlwind few days at Dudhwa, and rendered numb by the frosty winter of northern India, we yearned to be home.

Phulkumari stood near the entrance of her mud hut, weary of approaching strangers. We paused and smiled hoping that she would smile back and the ice would be broken. She didn’t. We took a couple of measured steps towards her. She didn’t seem to mind. Sudeshna, my wife, went forward and introduced herself. She reflected on what she heard for a few seconds and eventually smiled and mumbled back in broken Hindi. She turned and called out loud, apparently to her family, for, in an instant, a couple of kids, an elderly woman with a toddler hanging on her back fast asleep emerged from nowhere and the whole family stood queued in front of us as if awaiting marching orders. This was our first visit to a Tharu village.

True to her name, Phulkumari stood with the demeanor of a queen, in front of her blazing yellow mustard field lined by wild flowers mostly with a violet hue. The flowers were beautiful and the beds neatly arranged one after the other. We were ushered in to a courtyard bounded on three sides by mud huts with thatched bamboo roofs. Huge stacks of hay brought up the remaining side. The courtyard was neatly arranged with a charpoy placed under an asbestos shade and earthenware pots stowed away to one side. An incessant drone at one corner revealed a quaint pig sty with chickens fluttering about while a parrot kept pecking at the small metal door of its cage.

We took our seat on the charpoy and sipped on to the cold water which was served to us. Being unaware of each others tongue (their Hindi broken at best), conversation was limited to sign language and a few words here and there wherever applicable. So for example, Phulkumari pointed at the pig and made a sign of eating with her hands and mouth to ask us if we wanted an authentic tribal pork preparation. We politely shook our heads, pointed at our tummy and smiled to indicate that we were not quite up to it! In due time, after we had our due of looking around the picturesque little hamlet, we said our good byes and left.

The Tharu are a primitive tribe who has settled down to an agro-based economy. They are engaged in a number of activities typical of village folks like animal husbandry, and fishing in the Sarda River that flows through the jungle - Dudhwa National Park - close by. Their presence (as well as the presence of other villages) at the edge of the forest often brings the two into a conflict. Not surprising therefore, man-tiger conflict at Dudhwa is pretty high as compared to other national parks. Animal deaths further result from a meter gauge track that runs through the forest for the small number of settlements that are within the periphery of the park. After a series of tiger and elephant deaths, the Government has finally woken up and has decided on an attractive package – about 10 lakhs for anyone above 18 in a household – for them to evacuate. It has also decided to extend the buffer zone and connect it to the nearby Kishanpur Sanctuary, thereby creating a biological corridor of sorts. Currently, the 15 km stretch between Dudhwa and Kishanpur is all agricultural land.

Dudhwa National Park is a prominent, yet lesser known, tiger reserve near the foothills of the Himalayas in the terrai region of Uttar Pradesh near the Nepal border. The closest town Palia is about 10kms away and the nearest railhead for most tourists is Shahjahanpur. Bungalows run by the forest department inside the forest can be rented at a nominal price and the only place outside the forest but close to it is the one run by the UP Tourism – offering very basic facilities - some 5 kms away.

The reserve spreads across acres of dense forest and sprawling meadows lined in the north by the Shivalik range of the Himalayas and occasionally dotted with lakes and swamps. The forest begins way before one enters the National Park, almost half way through the road joining it with the nearest town - Palia. This road is in fact a highway which cuts through the forest and passes by the Tharu village and heads towards Nepal. All along, the road is lined on both sides with marshy lands – an ornithologist’s delight. The swamps are brimming with fish, snakes and hundreds of different smaller reptiles and insects. This obviously leads to a variety of water birds either in the water or perched on the lower branches, sitting dead still, on the look out for any trace of movement below. Some of the branches are so crowded that they look either spotless white or brownish black depending on whether it’s a flock of heron or commorant perched on it! Often one can spot a royal blue kingfisher, suddenly swooping down at full speed, scooping up a small fish from near the water surface and settling on another branch close by – all in one smooth motion. And all along, the higher branches remain occupied by the king of the skies – the eagles. Dudhwa being close to the Himalayas, one can easily spot a variety of predatory birds which are difficult to spot in the warmer forests. The chances of spotting are even higher in winter when more number of these birds come down from the higher slopes to escape the extreme climate. One may find the dark brown Serpant eagle, Pallas’ fishing eagle or even the white feathered crested hawk eagle perched on the bare branches of some dead tree often appearing like a mere extension of the branches, moving only to make a smooth, calculated descent with their huge wings flapping regally. Further inside the forest, on high branches along the river, Osprey’s aren’t difficult to site either.

The winter mornings were usually cold and foggy with the fog gradually dying down by mid-morning. The misty jungle in the early mornings was a breathtaking sight with the trees, the moss, the grass, the leaves all seemingly conspiring to create a mystical atmosphere - reminiscent of the woods of the fairy tales. I could almost catch a glimpse of Red riding hood trotting by the nearby bush! The afternoons were pleasant – we would laze around Banke Taal – a lake in the middle of the forest - and spot Barasingha’s and black necked storks basking on the small islands on the lake. The Barasingha population is larger in the larger lake at Kishanpur, though – no wonder therefore that the banks of the lake are a favorite haunt of the tiger with pug marks visible all around.

The fog that picked up again by late evening was severe and almost created zero visibility at certain stretches which made our drive back to Shahjahanpur for our night train a harrowing experience. Eventually, after at least 4-5 narrow escapes and almost certain that we had missed the train, we reached Shahjahanpur only to find that our train hadn’t even arrived – its arrival uncertain because of dense fog! There was a passenger train on the platform heading for Delhi. We ran to catch it. As luck would have it, we missed it!