Life in the land of the dead

Marubhoomi, the Sanskrit word for desert, means ‘land of the dead’. A cursory glance at any desert would make you believe this term fits well. Vast stretches of sand dunes are dotted with tiny specks of lifeless green. There are mirages that look like water, but there’s not a drop to drink.

But look again, and you will find beetles looking for food, reptiles looking for beetles, and birds looking for reptiles. The cycle of life is in perpetual motion. Over millennia, the flora and fauna of this unforgiving landscape have adapted to survive on bare minimum food and precious little water.

This holds true for the Desert National Park, too. Situated 40kms to the west of Jaisalmer, the park is a veritable storehouse of Indian desert wildlife with over 40 species of reptiles and over 120 species of birds. Did someone say it is the ‘land of the dead’?
The Park, which stretches for about 3,200 sq km, falls in the Great Indian Thar Desert, one of the harshest terrains in the world. A part of this desertscape spills over into the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, where the shifting sands transform into flatlands with layers of salt.

The first impression of the Desert National Park, however, was a big let-down.  The Sam sand  dunes, a magnificent stretch of undulating dunes, were once picturesque shifting sands which have now been ruined by irresponsible tourists. Rajasthan’s tourism department and forest department are at loggerheads with each other. Due to their apathy, mounds of plastic have piled up at the destination that was once nominated to be a World Heritage Site. 

I soon realised how the wildlife of this area stayed away from this area infested with Homo Sapiens. I decided to do the same and headed where the wildlife had shifted — four kilometres ahead, towards Pakistan, and then turning left towards the Sudhasari Gate of the park.

Just as we entered this area of the Park, we were rewarded by a rare sight: over a dozen white-backed vultures spread over a cluster of three trees. This number doubled in the evening as they gathered to roost. It was a heartening sight, because all species of vultures are disappearing at an alarming rate across India.

Balveer Singh, the forest guard, informed us that this large scale decimation is due to Diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug used to treat cattle. This drug enters the body of the vultures who feed on the carcasses of cattle, and kills them instantly.

On the drive back to the Sudhasari Gate, we spotted the Imperial Eagle and the equally royal Egyptian vulture. At the gate, Dharamdas, a forest guard, excitedly told us that he had spotted a small group of the highly endangered grassland bird, the Great Indian Bustard. We rushed and drove up to a kilometre through the open grassland to reach the spot. But the Bustards had eluded us.

From Sudhasari, we proceeded to a little-known village called Khuri, located 20 kms away. There, we feasted our eyes on rippling sand dunes undiscovered by most tourists. A couple of decades ago, this is how the Sam sand dunes would have looked like — full of pugmarks criss-crossing along the desert rather than scattered boot marks of reckless revellers.

On our way back to the guest house, the car came to a screeching halt. I looked at Babloo Chawla, my driver, but he simply pointed to the road ahead. There I saw a beautiful Red Sand Boa, slowly crossing the road. We alighted and watched it glide into the grass.

Babloo, in the three days he was with us, became an excellent spotter of desert fauna. He admitted it was the first time he had ever been with people who stopped at every turn to trail butterflies, birds, reptiles and mammals. He even started spotting animals faster than we could, which meant that he took his eyes off the road ever so often!

The day after, we decided to drive down towards a village called Dhanana near the Pakistan border. Here, I realised that the pristine sand dunes on the way to Khuri were nothing compared to what was in front of our eyes — all along the 40km drive, endless stretches of breathtaking sand dunes interspersed with the regular desertscape.  Here, we spotted flocks of sandgrouse, a lone spiny-tailed lizard and the puny desert fox. I wondered at the way nature made a miniature out of the fox so it can find food easily in such harsh conditions.

Soon, the desert showed signs of greening. The changing patterns of monsoon and increasing irrigation facilities were bringing in more water into this arid zone than before. Newer plants were making their way into the desert, and the fauna, too, were undergoing ecological changes. Will the artificial introduction of water be detrimental for the flora and fauna that has evolved over the millennia to adapt to these harsh conditions? Only time will tell.