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My visits to Kazi (short for Kaziranga) have been numerous,
piecing together my incremental awareness of its fascinating
beauty, its myriad fauna and more seriously, its immense significance
as a World Heritage Site. You have to visit this rhino territory
first hand to be able to absorb on the one hand the awe-inspiring
grace of the hulking gentle giant, and on the other, the tenacity
with which the local people guard its ancient habitat.
To spend three nights there, visiting each of the three ranges
by day, and soaking in the legends surrounding the park by
night, in the company of some very interesting hosts, is to
take your unexceptional visit to just any national park to
another level.
Getting to Kazi is rather easy, once you have decided you
wish to visit the Northeast, that is! Kaziranga is within
100 km each of two airports, both serviced by Alliance Air,
at Tezpur (Salonibari) and Jorhat (Rowriah). If you plan to
visit Kazi from Kolkata, the twice-weekly (Tuesday and Saturday)
Alliance Air flight leaves Dum Dum at 10.45 am to reach Salonibari
at 12 noon and Rowriah at 1 pm. But then why would you want
to pay more to fly further up to Jorhat and travel the same
100 odd km to Kohora, the main entry gate for Kazi? Most travel
guidebooks, however, tick Jorhat as the closest airport to
Kazi. This is wrong.
About two decades ago, the 4-odd kilometre long Koliabhomura
road bridge was built across the Brahmaputra (the second crossing
apart from the bridge at Guwahati at the time; a third bridge
has since come up at Pancharatna, connecting the old town
of Goalpara with the highway that leads you to the chicken's
neck out of the North-East). The Koliabhomura Bridge provides
an important link between upper and lower Assam, up northish
in those regions of the state that border the high Himalayas
of Arunachal Pradesh. It is this bridge that allows an unbroken
terrestrial journey to Kazi from Tezpur without having to
ferry the river on a vehicle boat like I remember doing in
my youth!
Of course, if you wish to visit from somewhere north of the
country, you are better off flying to Borjhar (now Loknayak
Gopinath Bordoloi) airport at Guwahati and driving 240 km
to Kazi along NH 37 via Nowgong (erstwhile AGP Chief Minister
Prafulla Mahanta's turf). The other route is to drive on the
highway to Tezpur, follow the Tezpur-Kazi stretch, and join
NH 37 at Koliabor Tiniali (T-junction). This route is longer
by about 25 km, but avoids going through the city of Guwahati,
which is not really known for anything resembling orderly
traffic management. Taxis (4-wheel utility vehicles, the ubiquitous
Ambassadors and Maruti vans) are rather expensive and your
powers of persuasive bargaining can leave you with a lot of
money to spend on other things.
The real action for visitors out for
a rendezvous with Marco Polo's 'unicorn' is at Kohora, 60
km from Koliabor Tiniali in the direction of Jorhat (you do
not have to be a rocket scientist to figure out by now that
from Kohora, Jorhat is another 100 km). Within 5-10 km of
this little township, dotted with cafes and little stores,
are located all the places
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where you may wish to stay. There
are a few Forest Department run tourist bungalows, like Aranya,
Bonani and Bonoshree, and a few lodges (very budget type).
A new resort has come up, that is closer to Koliabor Tiniali.
Charges range from Rs 400 to Rs 800 for a double room.
Like all states with a poor industrial infrastructure, the
government is conspicuous by its overwhelming presence. Various
state department rest houses are where your 'babu' on retreat
takes her or his family. If you can wrangle one of these,
you are blessed. Not as much as one who can leaf through school-day
telephone books and unearth a friend from a tea garden and
manage an invite to one of the many plantations surrounding
Kazi along NH 37.
The really exciting place to stay in, however, is Wild Grass,
a resort that takes its name from the primary feature of the
verdure in Kazi, the elephant grass that is often 12-15 feet
tall, big enough even to camouflage grazing elephants. To
get to Wild Grass, you drive some 5 km from Kohora, through
paddy fields past a small village settlement. You enter the
complex with the road banking sharply right through a natural
canopy that is fronded by the overarching tops of two tall
bamboo bushes. The three buildings in the complex — one
dining/parlour/ office, and two guest blocks — are in
the local architecture style, known as 'Assam-type', which
is quite similar to the broad lattice work construction style
found in many South-East Asian countries, like Cambodia, due
to unstable seismic conditions. Wooden frames hold the walls
up and are in turn filled up with plaster applied over sheets
comprising interlocking strips of bamboo. No brick and mortar
jobs these, and, therefore, light and complementary to the
ambient greenery that so typifies the Assam landscape.
It is unlikely, however, that you
will meet Barua. You are likely, instead, to meet Ronesh Roy,
friend to travel writers, itinerant visitors, activists of
various shades and hands-on in-charge of the resort. A product
of St Stephen's College, Delhi, ex-tea planter, and collector
of trivia, he is an ideal conversationalist. If Barua is all
about substance, Roy is about flair; he lives in a room done
in curious style with artefacts from around the North-East,
is gaunt with an intense, albeit friendly gaze, is wide-eyed
about Barua's achievements and generally very forthcoming
(if he takes to you, that is) about Kazi and its little legends.
Your stay in Wild Grass is likely to be exciting. The largish
rooms with cane furniture aesthetically laid out, bamboo sheet
ceiling and large windows will look out into a darkness you
are seldom likely to see. There is something about the night
in the North-East, almost eerie in its complete lack of even
any starlit outlines (thanks to the lushness of the undergrowth
that appears to absorb all light). Then there is the cascade
of sound, escalating from the infinitesimal to the jarring,
created by the innumerable insects that spring to life at
the first hint of rain. A walk around the largish complex
is quite elevating; you could also, if you so decide, perch
yourself on a stilt hut (machaan) and get into the spirit
of things on uplifting beverages.
The Kaziranga sanctuary is divided
into three ranges — Central, Eastern and Western —
that have distinct identities. The Kohora gate gains you access
mainly to the central (most popular) and western ranges. The
Baguri gate, 17 km short of Kohora along the stretch from
Koliabor Tiniali, is the gateway of choice for the eastern
range, famous for its birding experience. Elephant back rides
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four-wheel
drive safaris follow trails that take you deep into the heart
of the sanctuary. Little known to many, Kazi is an ornithologist's
delight, boasting of more than 483 species of birds, 18 of them
globally threatened species. Because of the varied habitat-types
that the Park comprises, and also of the strict protection accorded
to them, birding in Kaziranga is very special. Water birds such
as the Falcated Teal, White-eyed Pochard and Spot-billed Pelican
(a colony of 200 pairs is located in this range) are abundant
here. For grassland birds, the Western Range is ideal. The Bengal
Florican can be seen during the elephant ride in the Central
Range. The nearby Panbari Reserved Forest provides good sighting
of woodland birds like the Yellow-vented Warbler, Great Hornbill,
Dark Necked Tailorbird, Grey-bellied and Slaty-bellied Tesias.
The forest also hosts primates such as Hoollock Gibbon and Capped
Langur.
The central range is where most of the Kazi's 1552 rhinos can
be found (as per 1999 census, which in Manju Barua's opinion,
is an under count). Besides there are the Asiatic water buffaloes
(about 1600), 1048 elephants (elephant census 2002), 526 Eastern
Swamp Deer (the number is disputed) and 86 tigers (according
to tiger census 2000) though here Barua believes this could
be an over count; "but 75 plus tigers, given the prey density
is plausible".
I remember that on a visit in the early 1980s, I actually saw
two tigers on one day, though during my last visit I was told
how that is very rare these days. But with expert guides like
Polash Bora of the Wild Grass, you are likely to see the Royal
Bengal Tiger with some luck; since the lie of these grasslands
is different from the terrain of the North, tigers are difficult
to spot, but not with the likes of Polash by your side.
Kaziranga is unique as a grassland-wetland habitat. It is the
largest representative habitat of the Brahmaputra river flood-plain
grassland that is still undisturbed. The technique of maintaining
a grassland habitat in perpetuity was devised early in Assam.
The indigenous technique of patch wise controlled burning of
grassland at the appropriate time in order not to allow the
woodland to colonise the grassland has been practised for long.
"Over the years," warns Manju Barua, "due to
improper burning, woodland cover has increased and this does
not bode well for Kaziranga as it has a very dense mega herbivore
population."
As you stand facing the park with your back to the highway and
the Karbi Anglong hills, with the snow-capped range of the Himalayas
looming above the tall grasslands ahead, for one last time you
observe the lazy saunter of the majestic rhino. By now you have
been told how fast it can run; that mistakenly, its horns are
believed to possess aphrodisiacal properties; and that despite
its enormous size and strength, it is a gentle creature that
is possibly lost in a time and place it was hardly supposed
to be.
And as you drive away, the lovely rhino begins to flash before
your "inward eye"; its immensity imprinting deep into
your consciousness. This animal is from so far back in time
and there are so few of them. People from around the world come
here to pay obeisance to it and I am lucky to have been so close
to it in the greatest natural habitat available for it anywhere
in the world. These have been my thoughts. Thoughts that will
always flash upon the inward eye, as Wordsworth so pithily termed
the human imagination. |
