Growing up, many of us especially the 80s kids would have at least heard about The Jungle Book! Rudyard Kipling's book about an Indian boy who is brought up by a bunch of animals after his father is killed by a tiger.
The tale of Bagheera, Baloo, Kaa, Akela, Raksha and ofcourse Mowgli the Man Cub, set in the dense dark jungles of Central India. One name keeps cropping up frequently through the story - "Seoni". This is a sure indicator that the story was set in Pench, which ofcourse is located in Seoni district of Madhya Pradesh state in Central India.
With this background, each of us had a huge build up of expectations with respect to the forest and ofcourse the recent sighting of a melanistic leopard or a Black Panther (Bagheera of Jungle Book) further raised the expectations.
The Republic Day weekend in January presented an opportunity for us to make a long overdue trip into the jungles. The initial plan of going to Jim Corbett National Park was shot down due to non availability of permits and then it was a toss up between Kanha and Pench.
With the rich background of expectations, the decision to go to Pench was easy and so we booked our flights to Nagpur. Pench is a two and a half hour drive (approximately 120 km) from Nagpur and an early morning flight into Nagpur meant that we were very comfortably positioned to reach Pench by noon, freshenup, eat lunch and head out for our first safari.
With an itinerary planned for a total of 6 Safaris, we started our foray with a drive into one of the Buffer Zones. Masurnala Gate was the entry point, located about 30km away from Turiya, where we were accomodated. While remote from the more popular core areas of this large Tiger Reserve, Masurnala (Rukhad) is a difficult terrain comprising mostly of rocky and hilly areas. This did not for a minute reduce the extent of green cover. The forest was still thick and visibility was hardly a few meters into the undergrowth. This meant that spotting any fauna was next to impossible, unless some animal decided to step out on to the road/ pathway.
Although there was no sighting of the usual suspects, we did have a couple of Gaur peacefully grazing and one of them decided to cross the road to join the other one, just ahead of us.
Just being there in the forest and enjoying the beauty more than made up for not being able to see the usual attaractions. Enjoy a glimpse of the pristine and beautiful forest.A beautiful forest, the company of some fantastic people - Aap, mai aur jungle....was a fabulous time. More about our forays into the other zones in my next blog.
Till then Ciao!!! Take Care and Stay Happy!!
