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“Tigers of Kishanpur”

A STORY OF FEW BLUE BULLS, WHISTLING TEALS, BARASINGA AND WILD THINGS IN DUDHWA NATIONAL PARK

Few deers, several blue bulls and many troupes of wild bors, distraught with hot and humid tone of the air, saddened with scorchingly fiery and plasmatic aurora of radiations, for too long, today, seemed quite delighted to have clenched, in cool breeze, born out of long simmering constant drizzle since morning in early September of 2015. For all of them in wild, autumn begins, with a bit of ceremony as usual, contrary to what they might resolve to acclimatize with utmost discipline. They were so negligent that almost all of them don’t acknowledge the fact that Tiger’s are the sole owners of the wilderness of Kishanpur in Dudhwa National Park. Indeed, few blue bulls, some whistling teals and few swamp deers, together with some Bengal floricans can change the fortunes of Kishanpur Tiger land….A K Singh

About thirty kilometers from Dudhwa, a village named Kishanpur, is an extent of worldly domain of few things in wild. Five tigers are sole owners of some two hundred square kilometer savanna woodlands of this Terai alluvial flood plains in Uttar Pradesh as of now. The Kishanpur sanctuary is interspersed with number of phanta or swampy grasslands in between. It is not only the boundaries that dissolve with vast expanse of Sharda river, which rambles across Kishanpur but also the thoughts of being bounded. Like other sanctuaries, things in wild need to pay reparation to too few tigers, the sole owners of this land. Of late, like other tenants, few Bengal Floricans, Emerald doves and white rumped vultures are aggrieved and refuse to pay their visit, even quite often, since some goats and sheep raid their zone of perch, men robs off their bed-of soft-grasses and delicious-tubers of green-lawns and flood-plains take away their newly born babies from the bush-hidden-nestlings quite often with an impact of El Nino monsoons.

For Tharu tribals, these Sal forests bring fortunes to their life on the turf of Typha, Phragmites and Sanccharam grasses in wet low lying Kishanpur, and Imperata, Erianthus and

Cymbopogans, on dried soils, when some Cervus duvacelli duvacelli or “swamp deers chant their songs with rutting for selecting their soul mates, few family of one horned rhinoceros play hide and-seek games together with lapwings, egrets and some jungle maynas. Few hog deers dance to the tune of streaming and curving rainy waters enveloped in green frilled skirt of Arundo and Desmostachya grassy pastures until the flock of some pied great hornbills ends flying from one branch to another, on ficus and gutel trees. Most of these swamp deers never complained before scorchingly hot sun god of summer time, these rhinos never grumbled for extremely cool climate of winter days, and Bengal floricans never lodged protest for assaulting on their

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cuisine of dining in spring and autumn seasons. Few spotted deers, many blue bulls and most of the wild boars roam around the thatched and fuel-wood-studded hutments of Tharu and Gond tribals, proclaiming their boundaries, stumbling upon the play grounds of some children, pricking some twigs of rice and chewing the delicious tubers. Forest fringes of this sanctuary is home to many creatures wild or non wild.

Books or no books, homework or no home work, that is the question for some Tharu girls. They are negligent and intransigent about the lessons to be read for schools, before straying into jungles with their herds of buffalos, late in the morning. Pack of Blue bulls, herds of spotted deers, flocks of saras-cranes, every alternate days walk down to their millet fields, pulse grounds and grain-crops. Crop cultivation is frisked by many dwellers from wild, some time for fun, some time for searching for laying eggs, and many times for search of foods. All these wild stories take place in the grey darkness after an hour of twilight or with the break of each dusk and dawn on the outer forest fringes of Kishanpur. A number of wild stories are carried away in his bag by Sun before the rise in the morning or after the setting in the evening, as the night falls, hour by hour, bringing the twinkling stars on the night sky or some times with the carriage of loads of cloudy mist, laden with torrents of rains. Woman folk of this country has many wild tales to tell, they have complaints to grumble, they have indictments to charge, they seize the moments to make all proclamations to declare about their loss of food grains this year. Old Tharu woman lying on the bed, cursing the government for being unheard, for being ignored and unheeded for too long.

Nearest field babblers affirm, in a clear chanting song, the complaint, “there-is-no-country-for-old men” shall be heard, as all other field babblers one by one, collect at one babul tree, and recite a good melodious sonnet, conveying a cue for their proclamations to begin, for their respite from inflictions of being in the vicinity of deep, darker and mystical woods. At this moment, woman folks wipe out their tears, old men shed their worries, village boys forget their pranks, village girls feel anxiety of their burden of homework and men are taxed with unease, about their real hardships to begin.

For millennia, their fields had been an ecosystem of living for those many packs of

lesser floricans, a green lush

grasslands for some herd of rearing black bucks, a luxurious

abundance of grassy woven thatched houses of some ever pregnant pigmy hogs, replenishing rich muddy banks for burrows of some interacting society of hispid hares is now known only to too few old men of this country of nostalgic wilderness. They narrate the old wild stories of bygone era to their children when the league of wild nations used to meet on their wild hinterlands, used to hold summit of their social pacts, used to agree to the terms of their picking wild foods, snatching away edible morsels of few birds, grabbing their share from amongst few squirrels, seizing their portion of bite from wild macaques, capturing their prey from amongst them by shikra, or by kestrels or fish owls. Their glorious past is sung on Tanpura and damaru, that their fields were grounds of battles among wild society of alliance of many day wanderers, few night crawlers, some venomous mischiefs, few spotted yellow delinquent felons

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(cheetah), few kidnappers ( stripped hyena) and too few killers. All treaty of coalitions break with leap of a tiger, with no solace to one innocent victim, a deer, befallen in the clutch of fatal claws, his flesh split apart into flying pieces, his meat delicious cuisine for number of hyenas, a delicacy for jackals in wild, a lunch for few vultures, reaching in spiral fashion one by one, his flesh, a tiffin for rearing fish eagles set besides a dried forked tree, a dining orchestra for millions of grubs and sumptuous banquet for creepy maggots, an extravagant feast for millions of flies.

Now some five to six tigers hold their share of terrain of Kishanpur sanctuary of wild things, they assign few wild stories, recount some past chronicle of natural history, they lay down protocols as to the distribution of all things in wild, they write commands on the fair slate of the survival of all wild beasts, decide their fate, give options of fortunes to some and resolve the vicissitude of their collaborators and conspirators. These few tigers acquiesce in their happy accord to mate, build families, rear their cubs and decide to expand their home range, but they are unhappy to find this island of wild sylvan surrounding field of farmers, which coils around swampy wetlands of wild grasses, centers around streamlets of Sharda river, but does not connect their wild tracks with Dudhwa and other wild hinterlands of Tarai suburbs of Himalaya. This is a sad story. Earlier the forefathers of these wild beasts roamed the realms of not only Katarnia Ghats and Dudhwa but also Bardia forests, Chitwans in Nepal, Valmiki Reserves from Kaziranga to Corbet and Rajaji in Uttarakhand.

Barasinghas are seen taking rest more in summer, feeding on grasses of swampy wetlands

amid back water of sharda river , they walk, they feed and remain busy in rest even during winter nights. Some lapwing and egrets give them a cheerful company in feeding and resting. Whistling teals, spot billed ducks and lesser whistling teals, queer in a primordial grunts, flying in a V fashion keep landing in the vicinity of herds of some swamp deers, one by one, sharing their chunk of the food, in summer feast, joining in the party of rest and feeding all the time. There is no dispute at this time. Vast domains of wetland swamps translate the green loveliness of hundreds of fodder grasses into satisfaction of craving of a hunger, fired in

number of bellies over festival of feasts, celebration over meals, long standing banquets of buffet, set amid rising moon, stars

and hundreds of constellations

from east bank of Sharda river every night. Tale of resting and feeding set in a constant

spectacle of changing pattern on the canvas of sky is heard in remote hutments of neighboring villages. Ignorant parcels of hamlets have little news or no news about the night wanderings of palm civets, small and large civets, jungle cats and leopard cats. These cats demanding on food of darkness, busy whole night keep searching every hole, pigpen, dump and hovels, in quest of their hunt for prey. Rising sun, from behind the lofty grasses standing on water flooded vast wetlands, paints each wild story of Kishanpur sanctuary, in a spectrum of different colors, minute by minute with the rutting of few buffalos in herds, with hog deers smashing grassy turf, finding its game in most appealing

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hinters of wildlife, with hispid hare coursing on excursion sprinting long distances amid shadows and lightened vast expanse, taking a chance to the struggle for survival amidst the threat of roaming yellow-stripped-wild-mischief.

Few Bengal floricans wandering aimlessly in the thick of the Dudhwa forests, still narrate the old chronicle of wild stories about their sister lesser floricans of Kishanpur. Villagers still sing the song of hip hopping of lesser floricans, in the forest fringes, on the outer edges of farmers field, inviting them to participate again in each of their festivals of summer season, praying for the onset of monsoon. Rainbows never emerged with the heavy deluge of rains until the lesser floricans lay their eggs in their well protected shrubs and bushes. Rains never came with thunder and lightening, until their eggs hatch with young babies every season, rain gods never showered torrents of heavy rains until there was interplay of jump and jolts by few families of lesser floricans, in the outer fringes of farmers field, towards the edges of the forests. Ladies of Tharu and Gond tribes, still, even today, chant their carols, giving a most fervent appeal to the disappeared lesser floricans, with a welcome note for these ugly ducklings to again come into their back yards. Too many worms, centipedes, lizards, frogs, insects, locusts, flying ants, and caterpillars have started raiding their agriculture farms and therefore render crop loss to them, since the lesser floricans had abandoned their harvest. They will never see the male lesser florican leaping from the high saccharam grasses, croaking and knocking, with the flutter of his wings, falling back with his open wings in the early morning and late evening in cloudy weather. Tharu old ladies cursing from behind

the huts, reading the darker sky of changed fortunes swinging in doldrums.

Few egrets, some lapwings, few starlings, and most of the whistling teals still moan in dreary, lackluster and monotonous setting of their neighborhood, in these lofty grassy swamps of wetlands, bereft of the company of their antediluvian fraternity of greater-one-horn rhinoceros. They left them decades back snatching away their fair share of feast of life, embedded in routine nourishment of their long term survival. This is here we, being part of the larger countryside, felt disheartened and crestfallen from the warmth of relationship with somebody who bit by bit secured our morsel of vivacity, who sheltered our passion for living, in our quest for living with vigor, with vitality of strength and breathing with more freedom and wisdom.

Old railway line, entrenched amidst clarodendron and kari patta weeds, ingrained in a big hall of irregular forest of two dominant crops of Sal and Teak, drifting apart animal crossings, slithers like cobra, or glides like banded crates, slips indolently like pit viper reciting the heartbreaking glory of pathetic exploitation of these sky high forests by British regime back in time, during the last two centuries. Forests are antic, crying loud about their wild story of hard abuse for timber and again seeding them with teak plantations as these appear to be standing in uniform age class but with flourishingly lush growth. Of late, some wild mischiefs clad in yellow strips have sparked off terror in and around Kishanpur, unleashing a message of their debut once again from behind the swampy grasslands amidst thunder and lightening.

A K Singh is the member of Indian Forest Service in the Ministry of Forest, Ecology and Environment of the Government of Karnataka. Views portrayed here are

expressed in the wake of visit to Dudhwa Tiger Reserve Lakhimpur Kheri Uttar Pradesh on September 12, 2015. Contact: 9481180956. aksinghifs@gmail.com