Tiger Show Two

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Day 9: Oct. 11 -- Kahna Nat'l Park, Chitvan Lodge

My last entry was very brief because I was whisked away to dinner. The Lodge has been over the top. We have a wake up call at 5 am, and are served tea and coffee as requested. By 5:30, we load into a jeep to go for a nature drive. Mid-morning, in the park, we have breakfast, consisting of hard-boiled eggs, paneer on white bread sandwiches, tea, coffee, crackers, English biscuits/cookies, and fruit. We drive in the park looking at birds, flowers, spiderwebs, barasinghr (yes, I think I spelled it right), spotted deer, wild boars, guar, etc. We are always looking for the tiger.

Where the forest is dense, Tiger walks on the road. Sometimes, we see tiger pug marks (footprints) in the sand in the road. The park was closed for three months for the rainy season, and only reopened Oct 1. Our guide, Mr. Khan said that the tigers are unused to the vehicles and are therefore more shy, so they dart into the woods. Later in the year, they will languish in the roads more. (Mr. Khan told us his first name, but none of us understood well enough to try to call him that.) Mr. Khan has an accent (as you would expect) and talks fast, so that Susan and Frank at first had a very hard time understanding. I think they have gotten more accustomed, and we have asked him to talk slowly.

We had a Tiger Show today. As we were photographing cobwebs, a forest guard drove past, and alerted us to the show. From what we have seen, most of the other visitors to the park are Indian. They are not interested in cobwebs. Mr. Khan said that they only want to see Tiger, not birds, plants, etc.

For the Tiger Show, we had to wait at a forest camp for awhile. We ate breakfast, wandered, and talked to the Indian children who want to come meet us. When it is our turn, we drive a little way away, and wait again. When it is your turn, you climb a ladder to get on an elephant. The mahout (elephant driver/trainer) takes you close to Tiger. Our mahout carried Indira Ghandi and other prime ministers. He is very experienced. I believe that the elephant's name is Katana.

Mr. Khan says that the elephants have to be at least 25 years old. They are trained for a year. The mahout applies for the job, and if hired, is an assistant mahout for about 3 years. The assistant washes the elephant, feeds her, and saddles her. "Saddle" is our word. It's really more like a table.

On this Tiger Show, Tiger was a six year old female with dark markings, sleeping under a lantana vine, near a stream. Susan and Laura rode a different elephant. Their mahout said that she had four cubs, who have just grown old enough to leave their mother. Both male and female tigers are territorial, but a female's territory will be contained within one male's. The female's territory will be 15-20 square kms; the male's 50-100 km. They kill any other predator in their territory, so the leopard and wild dogs cannot cohabitate with them. Leopards also live in the park though. They are hard to spot, unless they are in the trees.

Anyway, back to the food... Two nights ago, they gave me a cooking lesson. I learned the sauces and we made a roti ("whole wheat flour" (?) bread).

Susan and Laura came over for lunch, so I have to make this fast. Last night, they really spoiled us. The Baiga tribe, apparently spontaneously, decided to perform a traditional dance ceremony for us. There were 19 participants total. We saw three dances. In each, the older men drummed and sang some. The younger men danced together in a line, going around the fire in a circle, with different footsteps for each dance, and one of the dances had three different foot patterns, which were fairly complicated. The younger women danced in a line around the fire also, with a different foot pattern than the men and at a different pace, so that the men passed them. The women with babies and older women stood together in a line near the drummers and sang a soprano part, also dancing but with a simple pattern. After the dance, they showed us how to roll a tribal cigarette, of which three of us partook. I gave them a chocolate bar that I brought.

We also were treated to a feast. A daal with six types of lentils and butter, tandoor chicken (served as an appetizer during the dance), chili chicken (appetizer), basmati chicken, and two types of tandoor breads. One is called the handkerchief bread because it is thrown like a pizza to make it very thin then cooked on top of the tandoor. Kheer for dessert. It was absolutely delicious. Today, I have to walk because we are all getting fat.

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