Wilderness Reconnect
I have spent most of the time deep in the forest. My profession effortlessly provides me much joy inside the forest. I get the unbeaten path of wild all of my jungle activities. I get love, affection, and care from the wilderness.
In the first week of June 2017, I traveled to Manas with Dr. Kushal Konwar Sarma from Guwahati. We started post-lunch hours of the day and reached Mathanguri around 8:00 pm. Dr. Bhaskar Choudhury (Wild Life Trust of India), Dr. Prabhat Bsuamtary (Veterinary Surgeon of Manas Tiger Reserve) were accompanied by us from the Bansbari range Head Quarter of Manas NP. Mr. Babul Brahma (Range Incharge) arranged our booking at the forest department's heritage inspection (upper) bungalow.
Dr. Prabhat Basumatary arranged a special local brew with roasted pork. It was like a get-together after 4 years at Mathaguri. It was raining cats and dogs, and we hung out with our nostalgic experience. It was not a general tourist season, so we were free to do what we wished. All of us were a bit cranky when we tried to reconnect with the wilderness.
The purpose of our visit was to observe one adult rhino health condition. We started elephant rides the next day early in the morning from the Buraburjhar camp.
Mr. Sundaram (Assistant Conservator of Forest, Manas Tiger Reserve) accompanied us from the campsite. We searched for more than 5 hours in the dense jungle and were unable to trace out the rhino. We took the lunch break and returned to camp.
At the campsite, our forest colleagues prepared our wild feast. They prepared pork curry with wild vegetables, mashed potatoes with roasted fish chutney, dal fry and finally roasted pork with the local brew.
It was a heavy lunch with lots of joy. We again started our post-lunch session rhino search operation. We then covered different locations. After covering 1 km, we located the rhino. Dense grasslands made it difficult to observe the rhino.
Rhino looked fine, and no major injury was observed. We were following about 3 km and then decided to return to the campsite. We were happy that rhino was out of danger, and we also got a chance to reconnect with the wilderness after a couple of months.
Originally published at
http://mansaisbeautifuleverinuniverse.blogspot.com
on June 28, 2017