From My Notebooks In 1977: Nepal to India

Still in Nepal, we’re moving across the lower reaches of the Himalaya to the Indian border. First, I wanted to visit Darjeeling, famous as an outpost of Empire and for the tea that bears its name. After that we intended to enter the state of Assam, and visit two tiger sanctuaries, Manas and Kazirenga. Assam was politically sensitive, and tightly controlled. It has a tribal population, and borders with China, but I believed we had been given the necessary permits from the Indian consulate in Kathmandu.

January 6th. Dahran to Siliguri

Indian road continues. People are unusually indifferent to traffic. To border with 4 rupees (Nepali) left. Tea and puri. Border crossing easy, tho’ much to-ing and fro-ing with carnet. On the Indian side a single individual in a tent observes a calm ritual, with good humour. Marked contrast, but carnet has to be done in next town. Both given cups of tea. I walk away and am called back. “Have you any small arms? Have you nothing to declare?” Then smiles, and we’re on our way.

January 7th. To Darjeeling

Oberoi hotel built 1914-16, by Armenian. Bought by Oberoi [a hotel chain] in 1957. Grey stone fortress. Cosy English bedroom. Coal fire. Cast iron grate and moulding straight from Edwardian England. Hot bath. Old-fashioned bed. Very comforting. Even fog begins to acquire some charm, and even if the water doesn’t run hot in our bathroom there are hundreds of other bathrooms to choose from. Otherwise, the Youth Hostel and the old English Tea house called Glenary’s. Then Campbell Cottage and Primrose Villas. Painted roof with fretted wood, and wood frames painted liberally with white paint, like a war-widow’s lipstick. Toy train’s whistle through the fog. Tibetan boys touting horse rides. (Three rupees an hour).

Oberoi manager (Mr. Mattol) very pleasant. Took picture and promised to send print with caption for his travel magazine. Hotel virtually empty. (I’m sure the six other guests were enjoying special favours.) The town seems to be all road, with vertical drops between on which houses, hotels, shops teeter precariously. Remember the Buddhist home for children, listen to voices chanting from inside. A sound that evoked a complete life. like Trench Hall perhaps, so foreign yet so familiar.

The problem of how far we travel together has many faces. As I confront any one of them I feel the others staring at me from behind. The Saluga hotel in Siliguri is scene of a decision. The bike is too heavy with everything on it. I suggest that Carol find something to do with her stuff, or take train to Gauhati. [Capital of Assam.] C. says, most equably, that it’s entirely up to me (and for the first time I can believe her). But if I leave my own gear at Siliguri that might save enough space to leave one bag behind. Reluctantly I try it and find she’s right. She leaves a few things for me to take as far as Delhi [We planned to meet again briefly in Delhi.] and the leather bag and a few bits go into the storeroom. For once the whole thing is managed without a crisis and I’m very grateful.

When confronted with the choice of saving weight or saving a relationship, how can any decision have value. Of course, I could theoretically surrender control of everything and see whether it is returned to me as a gift. But I could not be so free with my life (and it seems to me that nothing less is at stake.) Between Katmandu and Siliguri we had two difficult moments. One was outright anger by Carol at my “supervision” of the packing.

“You must think I’m totally stupid. I don’t know why you would want to be with such a total moron.” I came back in the same vein.

Sunday January 9th, East from Siliguri

21,018 miles. Tightened chain. Noticed that oiler had dried up and opened it an eighth of a turn. Reset tappets. Rt exh. very loose. Pt setting right, but pts should be levelled and polished. Cleaned air filter. Oil is now down to “full” marker, i.e.used a lot in last 100 miles as against almost none from Katmandhu. [Oil consumption had become a mystery.] This oil was changed at 21,050. [Obviously a mistaken reading.] Plugs now a good colour. Petrol consumption seems to have been high but will see how much tank now takes. Since Hetauda 398 miles. 20 litres plus 10.

Manas

[Tiger population in Manas down from 2000 in 1964 to 2 or 3 hundred now. 3000 in Kazirenga. Meanwhile I had gathered more information about Manas, where we were now headed.]

Assam trees – Sahl, hardwood. Teak will grow, and plantations are starting.

Tigers move in triangles – in one spot for a week or so, then 15 miles to the next spot, and so on, to return to original site.

SW monsoon comes up from the Bay of Bengal to hit the Khasi hills, where it divides into two streams. Half follows the Brahmaputra. Other half stays south. Each carries hundred inches of rainfall. They meet and the rainfall doubles, but on top of hills it is dry in places.

In Orissa, see Chauderi (SB) Field Director, Simlipur, rearing a tigress.

S.Debroy, Field Director, Manas Tiger Project

Mr Das, Conservator (Forestry) – previously Finance.

[The road to Manas left the main highway at a village called Barpeta Road. I followed it to a fork where I could see no signs, and took the left fork which passed through another village and came out to rejoin what I realised must have been the other fork. We continued to Manas where we were well received by Das and Debroy.]

Village houses in Assam.

Debroy is of medium height, medium colour, good physical shape. Square head and face, straight mouth, level brows and close-trimmed mustache just above the lip. At first last night he seemed a bit sullen, reluctant to talk, but this may have been resentment at being towed along in the wake of the other dignitaries. At any rate, when I began to ask about tigers, mentioning that Das had told me they move in triangles he became more animated. Made it clear without saying so, that Das didn’t know what he was talking about, and began to pour out tiger lore. Latest census shows 54 tigers at Manas. They are a solitary animal, being together only for mating (there is no strict season) and for the first 18 months of the cub’s life. They are very shy, always move in heavy cover, are not nocturnal like leopards but hunt very early or late in the day, eating as much of their kill as they can, and hiding the remains from vultures and other smaller cats. Then they find water before lying up nearby to sleep. If there’s plenty of game they don’t move far. When the game is gone, they move on. From the pug marks you can tell sex and age of tiger.

Debroy said he had noticed that the deer had disappeared from a place near the road and went out in the jeep that morning to see whether a tiger had been moving through. Sure enough, he found the print on the road where he would have expected it if the tiger had made a kill and then gone for water.

I began to get interested in what could be read or imagined into game tracks. Debroy has been round the main reserves of East Africa. He says he got “fed up” with seeing so much game. Now I begin to understand his tastes, when it becomes a matter of constructing the presence and behaviour of an animal you can rarely if ever see, when all your information is based on the disturbances on the environment, like studying magnetism, or God. (NB it might be interesting to postulate a novel in which for some reason a person must be investigated without ever being seen [Harry Lime?]

I asked if I could accompany him on such a trip in the sanctuary. He thought about it and said he might be doing it again the following morning but, gesturing with his thumb at the upstairs room where Das could be heard enthusiastically lecturing Carol, you never knew what might happen. But if he went, I could come.

I asked what the light was, suffusing an area on the horizon. It was whitish like the lights of a distant town. He said it was probably controlled burning of grass. (Thatching grass). They did this to prevent the grass from catching fire accidentally in later months. There was some controversy over whether it was ecologically sounder to burn or not. In the first case you destroyed many micro habitats, perhaps driving some small species out altogether, in the second case you risked wholesale destruction. Debroy thought that since burning off land had been practiced in India for thousands of years the ecology was probably in balance with it by now. But the balance was delicate, particularly where tigers are concerned. Their numbers were so reduced now, that theirs was first priority.

Mrs Ghandi wanted all tourism banned in Manas until the numbers had grown. They were now investigating and reporting to establish whether this could be a useful step. Das earlier talked about the same thing but seemed to think that Mrs.G should not get her way. “We are a democratic country,” he said. “We can’t stop people from coming here.” A non-sequitur, but the feeling of resistance to imposition from Delhi was there. My own prejudice, however, suggested that Mr. Das was more concerned to project his own authority than the rights of the people.

Next morning Debroy sent a man to the tent to wake us. It was just after dawn. Grey light. He came soon afterwards with a jeep. He had a woolen hat over sleekly groomed hair and a green army jacket. The shoelaces of his half boots were undone. A man crouched in the back. We set off down the road we’d come in by. He showed the tiger print he’d seen yesterday. There were no fresher prints. He thought he must have been wrong about the kill. If she’s made a kill she would have come back for it. We saw deer tracks, elephant (wild because they won’t cross culverts or bridges) wild buffalo, with the widely separated segments of hoof spanning 7 or 8 inches, and the wild ox, or Gauer, with closed hoof. Wild buffalo grow to nine feet at the shoulder, the sturdiest animal in the jungle, and very strong. From the dirt road we went onto a grassy road and into a marshy area of shrubs covered with creepers and all ground choked with vegetation. Here a lot of elephant grass grew and at last I found out what it was. A stalk 3 to 4 feet high with substantial leaves growing from it. Man can eat the tender portions too. More tiger tracks on the road when we turned back.

This experience with Debroy transformed for us, the nature of the Jangel [The Indian word for Jungle. Strictly speaking for a forest to be called Jungle there should be tigers] and it became possible to visualise the life that went on inside it.

More exciting adventures to come. Watch this space!