The heart of India

Out of the parched forest flow the cool waters of the Charan Ganga. It is no insignificant stream this, weaving its course through the famed Central Indian forest of Bandhavgarh, carving its signature across the land, quenching thirst of deer and tiger and langur, and bringing life to the dry earth.

Here in Central India, in the middle of May, the forests appear to be baking in the sun. The seasonal drought has turned many trees in the tropical forest nearly leafless and the grasslands are brown. The heat of summer is hard to escape, here, in the heart of India.

Finding water, is key. The deer make their daily beelines to the waterholes…

through the browned grasslands, unmindful, perhaps, of lesser predators, such as this jungle cat…

Although, it is good to be alert perhaps, when you reach a waterhole…

For a tiger may be waiting, nearby. This one, though, snoozing under the trees and the bamboo, behind a little rise and beyond our prying eyes, appears to be merely waving a disdainful paw.

The heart of India is tiger country. People come here to see tigers and be awed by their presence. They have learned that where there is water is a good place to wait to see a tiger. Some have learned to mark the tiger’s progress through the forest by the alarms of the deer, or the paw prints on the dusty roads. Others note that the tiger needs such a forest to exist. But, is this the main message from the heart of India? Don’t we need such a forest, too?

The heat is stunning and the soil is parched. And yet, the trees, as if knowing something we do not, or from habits derived over the ages, are putting out fresh green leaves. There has been no rain—only an anticipation of it. The mahua and the sal have fresh leaves, too, and the branches of the latter are laden with winged fruit. Perhaps there is an anticipation of wind, too. Even in this heat, as fields lie dry and fallow in the human countryside, the trees have found their moisture and are investing in growth, and in their future. And from the forest, the waters of the Charan Ganga continue to flow.

Deep in the forest, lies a great idol of Vishnu, the Sheshshaiya, a supreme deity signifying, pertinently, existence and preservation. The waters of the Charan Ganga appear to emerge from his feet. It is not hard to imagine, in a hot, dry summer as this, that a place from where springs clear water, which can keep the trees green here and for miles downstream, must have some divine origin.

A different perspective may obtain if one can emerge above the forest, high above, and soar on the wings of a vulture such as this one. Then one sees the vista of forest in the landscape around the spring where rests the Sheshshaiya.

From here, it seems it is the forest that taps, and soaks, and channels the water through aquifers to emerge as a spring. The forest is divine, in an aesthetic sense, but needs no divinity to perform this basic hydrologic function. Now, it seems that Vishnu, as a being signified by the idol, is but a wise person who, like the tiger, found a good place, close to water, to rest under the shade of the trees and the bamboo. His presence, as a preserver, is but a marker of what needs to be preserved.

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The anticipation was not belied. The wind and rain were coming. As the day came to a dusky death, and as the jackal trotted away into the growing darkness of the evening…

… so did the clouds gather, with gusts of wind, thunder, and lightning.

The fruits of the sal trees, around the courtyard of the Mahua Kothi lodge where we were staying, took wing. Whirring like a fan, they dispersed away with the wind, until the ground was carpeted with the winged sal seeds. The naturalists of the Mahua Kothi lodge joined us in watching this magnificent spectacle with delight and an excitement that grew with every gust of wind. As interpreters of nature, from the humble sal to the royal tiger, for us and for the many other visitors, these splendid naturalists do a daily job, whose value is immeasurable.

With the pre-monsoon thunderstorm has come the wind to carry the sal seed, and the water to nourish the soil where they may grow. And yet, the water is an unwanted burden on the fruit itself, as it makes it short but enormously important spinning journey away from the tree.

Such is the economy of nature that, even as the parched earth soaks the water, the sal shrugs it off its seed.

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