Why a visit to Ranthambore left me horrified
Travel is about discovering something. Should a "discovery" always lead to joy? Not necessarily.
Located at a distance of about 400km from our place of residence in New Delhi is Rajasthan's Sawai Madhopur district, famous for the Ranthambore National Park which most know as a sure-shot tiger spotting avenue. I first heard about it when US President Bill Clinton chose to visit the place during his tour to India in March 2000.
It was recently in the news for the controversial shifting of a "man-eater" tiger, T24 or Ustad.
Taking an early morning train from New Delhi, by 10.30am, we were at Sawai Madhopur railway station.
Over the next two days, we undertook a few jungle safaris and came out a tad dejected since the big cat's trail turned out cold.
My dismay with Ranthambore can hardly be because of that. After all, any such excursion is a chance and I was mentally prepared for what eventually happened.
What I was not prepared for was to see this destination plunge to nothing but a dirty, dust bowl, all the way from Sawai Madhopur to the gates of the national park.
The local administration, earning as it does from the oversubscribed park safaris and taxes, has taken no steps to prevent the place from resembling a bin. Pigs scrounge overflowing, plastic-ridden garbage dumps on both sides of the only yet poorly maintained road which delivers an almost back-breaking ride. Dust pours into your lungs the minute you roll your windows down.
Nothing, just nothing, seems to have been done to beautify the place.
Rampant construction activities on all sides only worsen Ranthambore's plight.
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| A jam, several kilometres inside the park premises. |
Coming to the park, the main attraction - to my horror I discovered a traffic jam on every occasion we entered. It was hardly the case that things settled down once inside. Thanks to an old temple, located deep inside the park, the authorities allow unrestricted traffic movement. The tranquility, the rich quality of air you'd visit a forest for, I found blown into smithereens as car owners, jeep drivers, vehicles for tiger safaris honked, fought and sped on the way. As a private car owner you will travel for free, deeper into the forest than a tourist who pays to get on to a route or a zone! On my third excursion into the park, my disgust got the better of me, forcing me to cut the trip short and head to the hotel.
Spotting a tiger has been reduced to the luxury of "VIP routes" as locals call them. These are routes on which those who "know someone" get to go to. Our hotel owner advised us to "make calls to the park authorities" if we wanted to spot the tiger.
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| People and agents queue up at 5am. Sole entrance to the area where one can fetch an entry pass. |
In this trip, I also attempted at breaking out of the "agent-route" and booking the safari on my own. In doing so, I nearly died.
For entry passes, the park authorities have constructed (at quite a distance from the park) a typical, bureaucratic match-box where tourists and agents line up along the dusty highway and wait behind locked iron grills. Authorities, at suitable times, open the grill which ensures an avalanche of people trooping in through a narrow opening for tickets.
I found myself in the middle of a near-stampede where I fell down and got up in time before being crushed.
Why can't there be a less hazardous way of doing this?
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| Inside the museum. |
Before I end, I must also bring to you the tale of a ridiculous "museum" I came across. The Rajiv Gandhi Regional Museum of Natural History, a well-made building where we came across paintings made in school competitions, pictures of bureaucrats giving away prizes among other such absurdities. This "museum" resembled a departmental notice board.
For the sake of this piece, I wish I had spotted the big cat. Perhaps my words would have been seen differently. However, such are the ways of the wild.
My only intention, behind this, is to help unsuspecting animals and tourists get a better deal, moving forward.