Two questions
irritate me. One, after a session of meditation or chanting to be asked “how are
you feeling ?”, followed closely by a second one that of being asked “Kuch
dikha kya ?” after a safari in the jungles. The former seeks approval for
something that should be so personal that one should be allowed to savor or
atleast discover what exactly the hour or so of the quite inside journey has
accomplished. The latter simply because what I want in the jungle or I feel
inside the jungle is something you may not wish to put on the board of your
favorite sightings. Most times when I am in the jungles, I am looking up at the canopy overhead, asking my naturalist buddies all kinds of
questions, urging them to stop for everything from bee hives to burrows, trees
to watering holes, a butterfly ‘huddle’ to swarming dragonflies. And that for
me is the jungles….. untouched, a termite mound as mighty and important to the forest
as the tiger, as mysterious as the sudden chatter of birds at dusk exactly the
same way they rise to the gently breaking dawn, as beguiling as the silhouette
of a bird in flight. The jungles restore in me a sense of peace, in the brief naps I take especially when the chill of the morning
is pervaded by the welcome warmth of the rising sun, I sleep better than I do
in the comforts of my home. A thoughtless, dreamless, deep slumber. Then there are the jungle stories of stalwarts like Gabbar and Kankati, the high tension drama around an alarm call, the smell of
grass high after the monsoons, early morning mist hanging low, the gaur and its resemblance to a bison, a ruddy mongoose crossing our path, an inquisitive sambar
peeping from behind high grass the sun behind making its ears curiously translucent,
endless games my naturalist buddies play of collective nouns, anecdotes of VIP visits, umpteen stops to check a track or
a scat.... aah ! I could go on. Each has his own reason to
seek the forest and it is not always to see the tiger. May that ilk flourish.
The forests are an
intrinsic ecosystem, in one sense not very different from urban jungles as they have
their own law and rhythm. Only more natural and stories that should continue
undisturbed if only we , the most intelligent beings on earth can only see
that everything does not need intervention, thrift is a virtue and every tree
need not end up as paper on your table nor every mountain as the floor under
your feet and jungles are not only about tigers and leopards just as ‘Apple’ is
not the only mobile maker !! As such ‘kuch dikha kya ?’ is a trick question !