Guest blogger Gretchen Ferrao takes a walk on the wild side as she explores Madhya Pradesh’s hidden paradise, Panna. Share her experience of the Indian wilderness…
I’m going to Panna.’ ‘You mean Kanha.’ ‘No, Panna.’ I’d had similar conversations, my Seinfeld moment, if you will, several times around the time ofthe trip. Owing to its low tiger population, Panna National Park isn’t exactly number one on most tourists’ bucket lists, and is lesser known than the aforementioned reserve that inspired Mr Kipling’s The Jungle Book. In 2009 though, the 543-square-kilometre park clawed its way into the limelight, no thanks to a national poaching scandal that left it without a single tiger. The situation spurred a big cat population revival programme with the translocation of a tiger and four tigresses from Kanha and Bandhavgarh. The tiger count currently stands at 18, making this the first successful big cat revival programme in India. Since then, more so after the recently lifted Supreme Court ban on tiger tourism, the focus has been on ecotourism.
The hour-long drive from Khajuraho International Airport to Rampura, the reserve’s highest plateau,sees a varied topography. Plains ofmustard – about as much Bollywood melodrama as I could handle – guarded by quirky scarecrows clad in corporate fashion. The still waters of Ken River, the lifeline of the park, touted as one of the cleanest in the world. And a bumpy, uphill climb flanked by dried, crumpled-leaved teak trees that make you feel a little dehydrated and oddly claustrophobic all at once. 20 minutes later, the car turned into the gate of Pashan Garh, Taj Safari’s fourth lodge in Madhya Pradesh.
AM: Panna National Park
At 5:30 the next morning, I was greeted by naturalist Yajuvendra Upadhyaya, my guide for the park drive, along with a few of the other staff who are always game for a reserve visit. Armed (more like pampered)with blankets and hot-water bottles, we set off for the Madla gate of the park in an open-top four-wheel drive. Incidentally, Madla is the lowest of the three plateaus that make up Panna National Park and offers a relatively varied topography with a combination of trees, grasslands and water bodies. Hinota, the middle plateau, is quite dry with more grasslands – “like a less crowded Africa,” described Yugdeep. The wildlife on both levels is similar.
We made a quick stopover at the interpretation centre to pick up the tickets and a park guide. “It’s a sort of revenue-generating initiative for the local community. Rs200 from the ticket goes to them; plus we pay them. It’s not easy money; they have to work for it,” explained Yugdeep. Recent limitations on the number of vehicles entering the park have been good for conservation but not so much for the hospitality industry.
It was rutting season, and our first encounter was a clash between two male chital (spotted deer), each trying to herd the females together. As we drove further we saw grazing herds of sambar (Asia’s largest deer), chinkara (gazelle) and nilgai (Asia’s largest antelope), a camera-shy wild boar and playful langurs aplenty. Sloth bear and leopard tracks were everywhere to be found, yet the creatures themselves eluded us.
We’d stopped by a lake for a glimpse of a resident baby ghariyal, when we heard the alarm cry of a spotted deer. Scuttling back to the vehicle, we chased the sound to a firebreak where we sat patiently waiting. As Murphy would have it, a langur sounded off an alarm cry from the other end of the park. The dilemma of which call to heed was settled by a leopard’s cough. Being shy creatures, the chances of us spotting this big cat were slim. Besides, as trichromats, langurs are a more dependable indicator of a predator than deer with their monochromatic vision. We headed to a grassy gorge in the hope of seeing a tiger. There we were met by a line of safari vehicles, each with their own set of inferences on the whereabouts of our striped friend. But it wasn’t in our destiny to see one today. We made our way to the riverside for a consolatory breakfast, spotting along the way, birds like the plum-headed parakeet, kingfisher, jungle babbler and rufous treepie among others.
PM: Nature Walk
A leisurely evening stroll across the 22-acre buffer zone that Mahua Kothi sits on, served to reiterate my learnings of the last two days – leopard tracks, their territory markings, bird calls and all. We finally settled down to a traditional Bundelkhandi dinner. The highlights were bhafori tarkari (fried black-lentil dumplings in a tomato and onion gravy), Bundelkhandi chicken curry prepared with stone-ground bay
leaf and black pepper, dumaari raita flavoured with charcoal-roasted mustard seeds, thaddula puri (rice, lentil and wheat flour with coriander-onion ginger paste), and gehoon ka kheer for dessert. Another speciality at the lodge is mahua kheer, made with the flowers of the eponymous deciduous tree.
Gretchen is the editor of Time Out Explorer India. Get a chance to be featured in the magazine by participating in our “Share Your Travel Secret” contest on Facebook!
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