Blog Post
An Evening to Remember | 15 Dec, 2014 | Author: RARE - destinations and experiences
Ever since I was a kid I was excited about reading stories
about jungles be it tracking man-eaters, encounters with rouge elephants or
just about wilderness experiences. All of them got my imagination running wild.
Whenever possible I would try visit the places mentioned in these books. As I
grew, so did my passion for wildlife. I would try and get my hands on any piece
of information I could find on the subject. In fact the only news that really
interested me in the newspaper or the news channel was when a case of poaching or some unique animal
encounters were being covered (there was no animal planet or discovery to
showcase wildlife documentaries at the time). That’s when I first heard of
Belinda Wright and her fight against wildlife crimes by getting valuable
information about the tiger trade, trade routes and poaching activities taking
place all over the country to the forest department and other concerned
government offices. This really intrigued me and got me searching for books
written by her. The only one I could find was “Through the Tiger’s Eyes – A
Chronicle of India’s Wildlife”. This was around 1999.
Six months ago (almost 15 years later) I joined RARE. As a
part of my job profile I had to market a jungle lodge called Kipling Camp in
Kanha National Park. Kipling is one of the oldest lodges in Kanha and is owned
and managed by Anne & Belinda Wright. From the time I realized I would be
promoting Belinda’s lodge I couldn’t wait to meet her and see the place that
she called home. Since it was already May, the lodge was closed and it was only
last month that I could actually make the trip.
Although I have visited Kanha many times my last trip was in
2004. I remembered driving long hours from Jabalpur on roads that practically
didn’t exist, and since my focus at the time was deciding which pothole to
avoid I missed the entire landscape of the area. Belinda assured me that it is
going to be a beautiful scenic drive and would not take more than 3 hours, and
sure enough the drive was spectacular. There was the Narmada flowing on one
side and beautiful farms and forested areas on the other. The picturesque view
and the birds I saw on route made my journey from Jabalpur to Kipling Camp seem
shorter than the 2 hour 50 minutes.
The area that is today Kipling Camp was acquired by the
Wright family in the late 1970’s – at the time it was agricultural land. The
area was then allowed to grow wild and today the camp is practically inside a completely
forested area adjoining the buffer zone forest. I entered the camp to be
greeted by Tara, Belinda’s pet elephant who had just returned from her daily
bath in the nearby Banjar River. Belinda along with Ivan De Klee, the new
manager at the lodge, were both there to welcome me. With the sun going down I
was given a quick tour of the camp and we all settled outside the “Shamiana” –
a lounge, a library, dining area and a bar all in one. The camp was filled with
the sound of birds all settling down for the evening and a small herd of Chital
deer made its way to the waterhole just behind the cottage. Belinda spoke about
the lodge, its history and the recent experiences during the monsoons and it
was surreal– I was finally at Kipling Camp!
The evening became
more interesting when an old friend of Belinda’s came visiting from
Bandhavgarh. His name was Aditya Patankar. This got me even more excited as
Aditya was the one who had helped Mark Shand acquire Tara, who used to be a
begging elephant in Orissa. Mark then rode her across the country and wrote a
bestseller called “Travels on my Elephant”.
After his book he wanted to sell Tara and so visited Sonepur. At
Sonepur, Mark set up his tent with a Union Jack fluttering outside. Dressed in
a dhoti, he prepared to sell Tara to the highest bidder. He received a number
of offers as Tara was a particularly docile creature who stood out among the
many difficult elephants that were for sale. Anne and Belinda were visiting
Sonepur at the time. Mark was delighted to see them, and rather impulsively
decided to gift Tara to them so that she would have a happy home at Kipling
Camp, rather than continue life as a working elephant. The evening was spent
with Aditya regaling us with his hilarious adventures with Mark and Tara. Till
now I had been reading most of these stories in books and it was definitely a
high sitting across the table with people who actually lived the adventure – most
certainly an evening to remember!