We are going to Kaziranga and Namdhapa and are eagerly looking forward to it. We have travelled to many places in India and all over the World but for some reason never travelled to India’s North East.
As soon as the flight to Gauhati takes off I turn on my Kindle and start reading Breath by David Nestor. Only a few pages are left in the book I started reading a couple of days back. Normally I would have stayed up a little later in the night to finish the book but last night I decided to leave it for the morning mainly because I had to get up at 3.45 in the morning to catch the 6.15 flight. And in any case the book was interesting enough for me to want to read the last bit with a fresh mind in the morning.
I have been doing Pranayama for many years and had read Swami Rama’s book Science of Breath (co-authored with Dr Ballantine and Dr Alan Himes) many years book. So I was not very keen to read Breath. I didn’t expect to find anything new in the book. But a good friend had pushed me and I started reading the book. It was an easy read with very interesting insights based on scientific studies. And, as it happened, it was the appropriate book to read on the way to Kaziranga.
The Kaziranga Forest Reserve in upper Assam is about a four hour drive from Gauhati on a good road. Made up of large plains with elephant grass and swampy land in abundance it is home to the one horned Rhino. It’s claimed that 70% of the one horned rhino population of the World are to be found in Kaziranga. Our guide provides an exact number — two thousand six hundred and thirty one. He says all rhinos are electronically tagged and tracked to control poaching. The forest also contains nearly 1400 wild elephants, and a hundred and twenty one tigers. There are wild buffaloes, deer, wild pigs, eagles and hornbills in this beautiful forest reserve.
And beautiful it is. We have left at 6 am from our very nice hotel to go on a elephant safari. Sitting on top of an elephant walking at a leisurely pace through the forest is a wonderful feeling. I read in a leaflet in our hotel reception that Lady Curzon asked her husband Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India in 1905, to act to save the dwindling population of the one horned rhino in the region. Kaziranga National Park was the outcome of that. Over the next five decades the Park evolved from a wild game reserve to a National Park focused on preserving the wildlife not hunting them. This story of Kaziranga is a reminder that, at least in some ways, mankind is evolving in to a more considerate species. The image of royals and their footmen — indigenous and British — riding on horses and elephants, armed to the teeth, hunting the beautiful creatures of the forest is revolting.
There is no dearth of wildlife to see now. We see two large rhinos, one the mother who is the size of a Hummer and her child only a little smaller than her. They are grazing peacefully and don’t glance back at the half a dozen elephants standing with swaying trunks a little distance away or the excited human beings atop the elephants busily clicking away on their phone cameras. We see many deer, also grazing quietly but moving a little faster than the rhinos. Our safari is quite a success as we see a wild buffalo and a few wild pigs. Our guide however is not happy because he thinks we didn’t see enough animals.
For us though the animals are a bonus. The view of large flat lands for miles around us abundant with grass, swamps, shrubs and trees is enough to make the safari a wonderful experience. We could do this everyday. The only green I see in Mumbai is on the golf course. The beauty of the varied landscape spread over thousands of acres here is a feast for the eyes and the soul.
The beautiful landscape stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction and reminded me of a story my father used to tell us when we were children.
A city dweller looking for land to buy landed up in the Africa and was awestruck by the unending fertile flatlands of the savannah. He managed to get a translator and communicated to the chief of the village that he wanted to buy some land there. The Chief wanted to know what he wanted the land for. The man said he wanted to farm, get a wife and raise a family there. The Chief told him to take whatever he needed. The man asked the chief how much he would have to pay per acre. The chief said,” Oh go ahead and take what you need. There’s plenty of land here.”
The man couldn’t believe his luck but was suspicious. He kept asking if he could take as much as he wanted. The chief said yes, sure. The man said but how much? The land given to me must be marked. Finally they agreed that he would walk around and put stakes around the land he wanted for himself. The Chief was amused at the man’s excitement and said, “But make sure you are able to complete this tomorrow by sunset. You can have whatever land you mark from sunrise to sunset tomorrow.”
The man was very excited at the naïveté of the chief and decided that he would set out early morning as soon as the sun rose and cover as much land as he could in the day. So next morning he set out and walked towards the rising Sun in the east until it was well up in the sky. He covered many miles before he decided to turn right towards the south. He walked many miles and looked up to see the Sun starting to bend West. Now he was worried because he had to get back to the starting point before sunset to stake his claim. So he started walking back towards the setting sun. After walking many miles he could see the village in the distance with the tiny figures of the villagers gathered around in a crowd. As he looked up he was dismayed to see the sun setting. He had to get back to the village before the sun set ! He started running towards the village as fast as he could. The sun appeared to be racing with him and was sinking fast towards the horizon. He was panting now but quickened his pace and started sprinting towards the crowd. The villagers were also excited now and were shouting encouraging words to him. It was a race with the setting sun and he ran as quickly as he could with an eye on the setting sun and with one last desperate lunge reached the starting point just a moment before the sun set. The villagers cheered loudly for him but the cheers turned to worried murmurs as they realised that the body which had crashed to the ground was not getting up. After twitching for a few moments the body stopped moving and there was silence all around. The last ditch effort that had got the man to his destination had also burst his heart which would beat no more and desire no more. The Chief broke the silence with the words, “Dig a six foot by three foot ditch and bury him. That’s all the land a man needs.”
For some reason this is the story that came to my mind when I saw the huge open lands around me.
( Footnote: I think the story narrated by my father was written by the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. I am not sure though and I decided not to Google it. )
