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There had been no rains in Rajasthan for three years and the drought had taken its toll. As we raced along the road to Alwar from Delhi, the Aravali hills on our right looked ravaged and defeated as even the scrub seemed to have withered. If Sariska was in as bad a condition as the rest of the Aravalis, we figured we migh as well pack up and go home. That night we cleaned and set up our equipment, focusing new lenses at the moon until we got tired of fooling around, and then we retired and dreamt of tigers.
Sariska is a fascinating place. The main park is situated in the long valley which runs from the Baran Tal gate to Pandupole, and there is always something happening around the water holes at Kalighati or Salopka. The rocky cliffs and hog-back ridges are teeming with sambar, and these were to be the venue of some exhausting climbs and chases as we raced after elusive leopards. The drought had affected the vegetation, but it was still fairly dense. The grass had withered a long time ago, but this was to our advantage for visibility increased and one got a few vital extra seconds to film. We had hardly returned from our morning recce when it began to cloud over and the peacocks began to dance in the courtyard of the Palace Hotel where we were staying. Rain at any other time of the yar would have been more than welcome, but we were dreading it then for the animals got scattered which made our life that much more difficult. Everyone thought it was very funny, for the last time I had been filming in Sariska two years ago, it had rained and rained, and there were plenty of wise cracks about sending me to Madras which was then facing an acute water shortage.
We were particularly keen to film the Indian wild dog which had mysteriously appeared in Sariska a couple of years ago, and we had then been fortunate in getting them on film. Three of these dholes had then been sighted, but subsequent reports said that only one of these animals survived. Ram Prasad, the ranger at Kalighati who was with us for all our previous shoots suggested we concentrate on the dhole for we may get some interesting footage of it interacting with jackals. Since the rain had left us with limited options, we started searching and looked like quite a tall order to find a solitary dhole in a huge sprawling reserve like Sariska.
The next few days saw us sitting and waiting for the dhole in all the likely places. We were at Salopka when a sambar called in alarm from a narrow valley and before it called again, Ram Prasad was running through the vegetation with me a few yards behind him while the tripod followed. We scrambled up the steep cliffs, the heavy equipment wearing us out and after circling the area, we hound ourselves just above the sambar. The entire herd was looking away, and the alarm calls were rapid and sharp. Panting for breath, we snapped the camera on to the tripod, the sound sending the smabar crashing through the undergrowth.
With the quick exit of the sambar, a silence descended on the valley. In the distance, parakeets screamed at each other and we lay there suddenly feeling very exposed. It had to be a leopard for a tiger could never have concealed himself in that confined area. But searchas we may, we couldn�t see the big cat. After a couple of minutes, Ram Prasad dropped down into the valley, where a leopard�s pug marks were clearly visible. They were so fresh that little air bubbles were coming out of the compressed earth. Then a sambar called from behind us, which made us look quite silly. The leopard had outsmarted us, hugging the ground it had got away form under out noses.
We continued to miss the big cats. Again and again we would stake out an area and sit for hours only to be told on our return to camp that so-and-so had seen a tiger a such-and-such-place. On at least two more occasions we stalked one of the big cats on the slopes only to be beaten by the sheer cliffs as the tiger crossed over into another valley. A large group of people, including Bishen Singh Bedi were in Sariska for two days and they were agog after having seen a pair of tigers on the road. On a nearby table, listening to them, we ate our hearts out, it was quite frustrating. We concluded that the tigers had come to see the great left-arm spinner for themselves.
Somehow, our luck with the dhole was different. We kept running into the wild dog while everyone else complained that they could never see it. Ram Prasad kept insisting that we might get some footage of the dog along with some jackals and that there had been reports of the two species interacting. The only time we saw a jakala near the dhole, the dog was quick to chase it off. However, on a subsequent rip, we were to see this strange phenomenon for ourselves, but then the only cameras we had were still cameras.
Again it was Ram Prasad who picked up the kill that lay concealed in the bushes some 20 yards off the road. How he saw it, I don�t know, but when the two of us walked up to it, we were in for a bit of a nasty shock. It was a young nilgai and it had been killed minutes ago, for the blood was flowing freely from its neck where the tiger had grabbed it. We beat a hasty retreat, and waited for a while, but since the tiger showed no sign of returning and it was getting dark, we pulled out. Early next morning we dashed off to the kill. The tiger had returned at nigh and eaten half the nilgai from the back. By the time we reached there were only jackals there. We parked ourselves nearby, and started photographing the jackals � some 20 of them were around the kill � who were busy fighting each other. The amazingly, the dhole appeared and we expected the dog to shoo off the jackals.
What followed was amazing, fro though the jackals continued to fight each other off, the dhole moved around freely, even eating room the kill while the jackals fed off it. The jackals were all around us, and the dhole wandered around, returning to the kill every now and then. Then the vultures started coming in and it was all very weird as we were right in the middle of it all, so we pulled out. The wild dog in Sariska continues to puzzle almost everyone. Ram Prasad insists that there is a fair chance that it might even mate with the jackals. That would be something else!
Sariska, along with Ranthambhore was to form the basis of the film. Though the Desert National Park (DNP) near Jaisalmer was to be included in the film, most of the wildlife regions in Rajasthan were former hunting preserves of the local maharajas. Most of the areas are overlooked by imposing forts, which create an interesting blend of history and wildlife viewing. We filmed the Kankwadi Fort, which is the domain of leopards and was earlier the prison where the Mughal emperor Aurangzed held Dara Shikoh captive in the war of succession which followed Shah Jahan�s rule. At Pandupole the langur troupes created havoc, sitting on the camera lenses everytime we tried to photograph them. A huge sambar stage wallowed in the mud a tSalopka, while large herds of chital formed a spotted wall as they drank from the water hole together.
From Sariska it was a 200 kilometre drive to Sawai Madhopur, and once again the effects of the drought were very obvious the moment we left the sanctuary. We hadn�t got a tiger in Sariska, but we had plenty of other good footage, and the pre-Sariska uncertainty was replaced with a happy optimism as we drove in at night into what was locally advertised as �Tiger City�. After meeting the Field meeting the Field Director, Mr. Nathawat we elected to move on to Jogi Mahal where we were to stay. Dipti had been to Ranthambhore before, I hadn�t and she was busy pointing out landmarks which the jeep�s headlight kept illuminating. With all the tiger talk, I could feel the back of my neck go cold when I had to push open the medieval fort doors and was quite relieved when we pulled into Jogi Mahal.
If we hadn�t been so tired that night, we would have sorted out equipment before going to sleep. As it was, the delay in the morning to get going cost us what could have been very exciting footage, for a tiger had dragged a large sambar stage across the road in full view of a couple of jeeps. For our tiger hungry crew, it had a shattering effect, and things didn�t improve through the day as we drove from Nalghati to Lakardah to Bakola and continued to draw a blank. A film on the wildlife of Rajasthan without a hint of a tiger� it was a terrible thought.
Our luck simply had to improve, and the next day it did. In the morning, the tigress which had killed the sambar on the previous day was reported to be feeding on the kill with two large almost full-grown cubs. The conditions were extremely good, slightly overcast skies and mellow, almost dull light. At the kill, we were fortunate to run into Fateh Singh Rathore, the former director of the park, and together we watched and filmed the three tigers at the kill. The made cub dragged the unfortunate sambar�s head out of the undergrowth and started chewing its ears while the other two lazed around. Through the lens, the entire thing looked unreal and subsequently this was to form one of the most exciting sequences in the film. We watched these tigers for almost two hours and then the mother led them off into the undergrowth. Fateh Singh said we were lucky and we all grinned at him and agreed happily. We had got the tiger and now the pressure was off or so we thought!
On can never have enough of tigers. One may have seen a tiger a hundred times, yet each sighting is greeted with the same high pitched intensity. The stomach tightens; voices drop to a whisper and no one can take their eyes off this magnificent creature. Yet our next encounter was amazing. In the early afternoon, as the jeep negotiated a steep slope downhill, Dipti said the magic word �tiger�. After the usual �where� and �don�t be silly that�s a piece of wood we all saw one of the most impressive looking tigers sitting in a clump of trees. I dived for the camera and zoomed in on him when Abdul, but the tiger was slinking off so I stayed with him. Then another tiger appeared, as if by magic, and took off after the big male.
Abdul was literally manhandled back into the jeep and we raced around the hill hoping to catch the tigers on the other side. A track of sorts existed on the other side and there at the end of the road sat the big tiger while the smaller female was stretched out beside him. The fear of god had been deeply instilled into Abdul by then and he was hardly likely to move, so we ran ff yard after yard of film on this pair. Once again the two tigers got up and moved along a dry nullah, and we desperately tried to get the jeep into position. As it happened, when they began to mate, we were in no position to film them.
Tigers have interesting mannerisms while mating. The actual process lasts less than a minute, then the two go and flop down nearby, almost as if they need to recover. The male grips the female by the scruff by the neck, and it all looks very rough and dramatic as the female snarls and growls at the male. After that the male is all attention, watching the female like a hawk, and the moment she begins to move, he follows a few yards behind. This moving method of theirs was proving to be quite a nightmare for us, for we could only follow the tigers over the rough ground. Again they mated, and again we missed it, and by then tempers were beginning to fly. I even jumped out of the jeep to film them (a silly thing to do for the female can be very aggressive) and eventually we got them when they mated for the third time. We stayed with them for another hour or so, but the tigers never mated again.
The slog continued, and gradually the film began to take shape in our heads. There were more tigers, a mad twilight chase after a pair of sloth bears, the endless searching and the frustration of missing something every now and then for however much one may practice, wildlife photography often seems to be a question of surmounting the offs. I always preferred to drive myself, for one can work out the angle of the shot. The assistant at the back needed a few seconds to clamp on the camera and level the tripod and while Dipti gave us the light reading, I�d be in position to shoot. This worked most of the time, but then there were always shots which we never did get, and that rankles.
On our last evening in Ranthambore, we were at Lakardah when a jeep came up from Bakola. Bakola is a beautiful valley with a stream running through it and the slopes opposite are covered with cactus. The people had seen a tigress sitting under a tree, and even before they knew what was happening, we were heading for Bakola. The sun was already beginning to set and it was now a matter of getting there on time. On the broken track, the jeep drove beautifully and in minutes we were looking at the tigress as she sat there. Our high-speed magazine threaded on, we began to film the tigress when a large male stepped out of the bushes and rubbed his forehead with hers. Then he began to walk away towards the stream and just when he began drinking, the magazine jammed.
We had no option; despite the zero light conditions we went back to normal film, and using our fastest lens, we filmed the tiger going up the cliff anyway. Till today one marvels at the quality of the film for by playing around with it in the lab, we managed to salvage that footage. A tiger at dusk on film�it was terrific.
The next day saw us in Jodhpur where we were to stay at the Umaid Bhawan which is the palace of the Maharaja of Jodhpur. Our main objective was to film the Bisnois who are spread out in the villages of that region. The Bisnoi cult is perhaps mainly responsible for the survival of black buck and chinkara which road freely in their villages. A Bisnoi will protect any living creature with his life if necessary, but even they were helpless in the face of the drought which had reduced the number of animals greatly. It was a bit sad to see so few animals in areas which were reputed to teem with blackbuck and chinkara, and a bit of a surprise to see that some had survived at all.
The palace itself was our link with the past, for though the walls were adorned with shikar trophies, it gave us a chance to talk of the creation of national parks in Rajasthan which were initially protected by the maharajas as shooting reserves. Gaj Singh, the Maharaja of Jodhpur also agreed to talk about wildlife and this formed and introduction to Sariska and Ranthambhore in the film.
The road to Jaisalmer from Jodhpur runs through real desert and the highway is one of the best ones to drive on. The 300 kilometre stretch took less than three hours and we drove into the golden city well before schedule. The DNP is situated around Jaisalmer, but we were headed fro Sudhasari where a small water hole had been created. On the way there we ran into a mirage, but all of us suffered from the misconception that it would not appear on film. We shot it anyway, and when we found ourselves looking at the blue water while watching the rushes, we couldn�t help but kick ourselves for having filmed it so casually.
At the DNP we wanted to film the great Indian bustard, the lesser bustard (tilur) and the imperial sandgrouse. A small hut served as a hide near the water and here we spent endless hours waiting for the birds to come to water. On the first few days, all that we got was the odd chinkara which came in cautiously to drink. We often chased the tilur around in the jeep, but these birds were too shy and quickly took to wing the moment one approached them. Desert foxes also always outsmarted us, and the bustard just refused to put in an appearance, once again, things were getting desperate.
Watching the sand grouse come in each morning is a fascinating sight. They usually came in at nine in the morning and lying in the hides, we could hear their guttural calls as they circled the area in ever increasing numbers. The crew had to freeze inside the hide, for the slightest noise would see the grouse abort their daily trip to the water. But after what always seemed like an eternity, they would come in waves, birds landing and taking off in a furry of wings. At times the birds would step into the water trough, which was their chicks who would take the moisture off their breast feathers.
The bustard continued to elude us. On our last day, I was lying in the hide by myself. The morning had been an absolute blank. I was to be picked up at 10, and with a few minutes to go, I gave up and began packing my equipment. Before dismantling the camera, I gave it a last look, and then my eyes nearly poped out of my head, a bustard was standing there, looking around and the breeze was ruffling his feathers. After all that waiting and waiting, the bustard had put in an appearance. I had to count to 10 dozens of times to stop my hands from shaking, and ran off an entire magazine on the large bird. Out of film and contented I continued to watch the bustard. The sound of the approaching jeep had him depart in a hurry, and as I stuck my head out of the hide, I could see the rest of the crew grinning and waving as they came up in a cloud of dust�they too had seen the bustard.
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