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Waiting till the Bisons come home

The Dajipur sanctuary is perched atop Phonda Ghat that, by Western Ghat standards, lies at a dizzy height of almost 4,000 feet.

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The Dajipur sanctuary is perched atop Phonda Ghat that, by Western Ghat standards, lies at a dizzy height of almost 4,000 feet. No wonder then there are so many waterholes here: by the time animals trudge their way to the top, they must be very thirsty. Each waterhole is named after the animal that visits it the most. So there’s waaghaacha paani or the tiger’s waterhole, sambhar kond or the sambhar deer’s waterhole, and geedhadaacha paani or the vulture’s waterhole.

Dajipur lies on the border between Sindhudurg and Kolhapur districts of Maharashtra. The drive up to the sanctuary from the gate at Dajipur is 22 km long and treacherous. The mud was loose and the stones unreliable. At many points along the way, I had to ask everyone in the jeep to get down so that the vehicle would become lighter and I could negotiate the climb better.

During the journey into the forest we come across strange landscapes called sadaas. The first one was called holicha sadaa. These are massive bauxite boulders, rising from the mist like prehistoric animals. The burnt look of these boulders perhaps gave them their name since they look like they have emerged from a cosmic holi bonfire.

At the next sadaa called sawraicha sadaa, there were tell tale signs of an ancient seismic upheaval: large patches of salvadora, a plant found only in mangroves, and shells of snails scattered all along the tableland. This indicates that this land was once under the sea and must have been flung high up in one massive volcanic eruption. The ever-soggy, moss-laden trees, sprouting exotic orchids, were reminiscent of the dew-dripping trees of Cherrapunji.

The road to sambhar kondwas washed away in the last monsoon. As I walked to the waterhole, a horde of inquisitive butterflies followed me. There, on a crisp carpet of dried leaves behind ghostly trees, Kanta, our guide, heard footfalls, which he said were of a lone gaur or Indian bison. We waited with bated breath for 20 minutes, but the gaur refused to make its entry from behind the curtain of mist. It was only much later in the evening that we would lay our eyes on the tallest and the most splendid of all wild oxen.

The wait at sambhar kond brought back memories of the wildlife census in Tadoba Sanctuary near Nagpur. It was the last full moon of May and night temperatures touched 42 degrees Celsius. There, atop a machaan overlooking a waterhole that was drying up by the hour, we counted a host of wild animals as they took turns to quench their thirst. There was a lone leopard, a troupe of langurs, a couple of porcupines, a sloth bear, wild dogs, civet cats, and even a peacock suffering from insomnia. Each one came at a different time so that there were no unpleasant encounters.

While returning from the sanctuary, we came across an artificial moat called saapla, made by Shahu Maharaj. When we reached the forest gate in the late afternoon, Kanta took us to his village Malaachi Wadi, with the promise of bison-spotting. There we saw the backwaters of a bund that served as a water source for the villagers, and as a waterhole for the gaurs.  

Kanta took us to the most likely spot where gaurs would descend from the forests that enveloped the backwaters. We waited and we waited, but the gaurs didn’t turn up. Just as we started trudging back cursing our luck, we heard a grunt and froze in our tracks. Four majestic gaurs walked to the water’s edge, and as they lapped up the setting sun from the water, we crawled on all fours slowly for a closer look. In the darkness of the descending night, the aperture of my eyes were fully open, as was that of my camera so that I could get two images to last a lifetime: one within, and one without.

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