Tigerless in Sundarban

Tigerless in Sundarban

Inspired by the joyful thought of sharing the account of my travels and trips with you, it seemed an excellent idea to tag along with Mani when he went on a business trip to Kolkata, and agreed to extend it by just a day to tilt it into the category of pleasure.

The Sundarbans National Park was never on my list of places to visit but not the one to say ‘no’ to travelling, and with all the recent talk about conservation of tiger population, it was with a fair amount of excitement that I landed in Kolkata.

The Kolkata stay was very comfortable. The rain god was in a good mood, so one could open the windows to enjoy the breeze instead of being cooped up in an air-conditioned room.

The nearest airport to Sundarban is Kolkata. There may be other routes to reach the park; we drove out of Kolkata, reaching Godkhali via Canning in a couple of hours. The nearly two-hour diesel boat ride with just us two passengers, took us to the hotel/resort we were to stay at.

From the initial reading, I had gathered: 

Geography The Sundarban (trans. beautiful forest) which includes the National Park, the Tiger Reserve and the Biosphere Reserve, lies in the expansive delta on the Bay of Bengal, formed by the confluence of rivers Ganges, Meghna and Brahmaputra. Only 40 per cent of the 10,000 km² mangrove forest falls in India in the two districts of North and South of 24 Parganas of West Bengal, while Bangladesh has been blessed with the larger part. 

The Sundarban National Park, open to visitors, forms only a small part in the north of the whole area.

It, however, came as a surprise to me that the islands in the Sundarban Tiger Reserve are outlined by the rivers Bidya, Matla and Gosaba and Ganga/Hooghly do not circle around them.

Physiography Said to be the largest river delta on our planet, the area is a complex labyrinth of tidal waterways, mangrove forests and islands, mostly formed from sediments deposited by river waters due to tidal activity.

Fauna This unique mangrove is not only known as the home of Royal Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris), the continent’s largest predator, but also its ‘food’– chital (deer), fishing and jungle cats, macaque monkeys, wild boar and pangolins. There are snakes and pythons on land, a variety of fish, shrimp, crabs, water monitor lizards, turtles, and crocodiles in water and of course hornbills, storks, and several other species of water fowls, besides birds which fly freely above them.

Top L & R: Only the top of trees visible during high tide.
Bottom L & R: Whole trees can be seen during low tide as water ebbs.

Plants and trees Sundarbans may even have gotten its name from the fact that the area is abundant in Sundari trees. Keora and gewa, Nipa palms and salt-tolerant mangrove forests that can survive the temperamental tidal waters besides algae and orchids, flourish here.

Conservation Recognising and acknowledging the uniqueness of this World Heritage site, Unesco and World Wildlife Fund, have worked here to preserve the ecosystem and conserve wildlife habitat. Tidal surges (reaching 7.5 metres), storms/cyclones happening more often now due to climate change, pose a bigger threat to the ecosystem here than the ‘collectors’ who go into the forests to forage for honey, timber, resin, fish, or grow deepwater rice where they live or catch shrimp-fry.

Bengali folklore and literary works are full of stories of Sunderban, including its gods and goddesses, and English authors including Salman Rushdie (Midnight’s Children), Kunal Basu (The Japanese Wife), Amitav Ghosh (The Hungry Tide) and Emilio Salgari (The Mystery of the Black Jungle), have used it as the backdrop for their stories.

Weighed under so much expectation, it was only when I settled in my room, did I realise that real time experience is different from theoretical information and Youtube videos.

We reached late in the afternoon. The boat safari in the mangroves is allowed only in the mornings before the tide rises. Naturally, that day was gone.

The guide who had been our encyclopedia, was disappointed that Mani decided against the evening bird-watching tour. Naturally, there was nothing left to do except take out my crochet hook and watch something on the phone in the room. So much for enjoying nature!

Rivulets of water through sediment deposits.  

We did take a short walk but it becomes dark soon in the area and is not advisable to move about much for the fear of snakes.

I have no idea how long people who upload videos of sighting the high-profile tigers, wait to see one, also because the latter keep moving about without a visa between the two countries. No non-human species living in the whole mangrove area, thought it fit to make an appearance for our benefit, considering we were the only foolish tourists who went during monsoons when rain hampers normal life in the delta, the resorts have no guests and not enough supplies.

The resorts claim organizing tribal dance and cultural shows, honey collection tours and other activities, but all during the tourist season.

Spending only one night was unwise; I want to forget being woken up by the guttural chirping of two lizards in our room. Needless to add, I spent the rest of the night watching them and praying that they stayed where they were in the bamboo roof.

After the nightlong heavy rain, the birds were quiet and the aquatic animals seemed engaged in their own business, so here we were back in the boat, headed back to the crowded city after 24 hours.

A fisherman walks
through the swamp.

Biggest lesson: Go in the dry winter months and stay for a few days to be able to see terrestrial or aquatic life. The only mode of transport in the delta is boats and the decision about their movement depends solely on tides which are the cause of the floor moving up and down from 3.0 to 6.9 feet above sea level at different times of the day.

Whatever fauna you can see, is only during these boat trips into the mangrove.

The forest department official who okays movement in the waters, opens office early at 8.00 am. but the boat tour depends on the weather and tide timings.

The difficulty experienced in access and managing transport besides sometimes lack of facilities are, however, the deterrents to tourists flocking here.

There are schools in the area, but no college/university; anyone who goes out to study is lured by city life and stays away, with very few ever coming back.

Fishermen and collectors use small boats, large vessels are
for carrying goods and supplies. 

All that information I had swallowed about marsh, mangrove splays, tidal/mudflats/sandbars, subaqueous distal bars/levees, is forgotten, as are the names of the canals and estuaries forming the maze-like waterways or the salt water mixed forest, mangrove scrub, wet/brackish water mixed/littoral forest or wet alluvial grass forests.

I have no pictures of tigers/monkeys, crocodiles/fishing cats. The beautiful mental image I have is that of the vast expanse of water and the trees that looked similar yet were in fact, different when you carefully observed their roots, leaves and height.

The biggest surprise? All through the boat ride and in the resort, phone calls went through smoothly and there was no disruption in internet services. Internet addicts, I found your heaven!

I am also unsure how people with children would keep them occupied or entertained as there seemed very little to do.

Anyway, I tried to make it worth our effort by being extra-attentive during my return trip, expending the battery of my phone taking pictures of paddy fields, bad signboards, village markets and roads.

Indian invention: motorcycle/moped engine pulls this mode for
transporting both people and goods in villages

Not exactly a vacation fail though, because it was a pleasant break in the middle of what seemed like nowhere, surrounded by the silence of the water which seemed to be moving in several directions. 

A visit to the Sundarban has been ticked off the list of places to be seen. 

Top: This eyesore of a building is the jetty. Bottom: The back of the eyesore.

Will somebody please remind  the Government that Sundarban is a site of national and international importance?

 

                                                                                            - Anupama S Mani