Two Tigers and Three Masked Men

Three masked men on a foggy morning. All in their 70s, yet spirited enough to brave the chilly winds in central India in an open jeep in middle of January. To do what? To venture into a jungle to 'meet' the king of the jungle!

All three love wild life in its natural habitat. All of them have been to many National Parks and Tiger Reserves. But two of them had not been to Pench Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh India. So, one phone call in December set the ball rolling. It was to be a stag trip. While Animesh and Ashok came from Mumbai, Ghumakkad Harsh travelled from Hyderabad to RV at Nagpur. It is a 70-80 minutes drive from Nagpur to Pench. See the location map later in the story. Cab charges are Rs 4200 for an SUV.

The scene shifts to Pench Tiger Reserve. Safari vehicles lined up at Turia gate of Pench tiger reserve on dot in the morning. See the pictures as the day dawns.

See the short video showing the safari ride.

Safari vehicles enter the jungle. Five minutes into the jungle, our safari vehicle driven by Ram Prasad slowed down. Two other vehicles also pulled up. In hushed tones, the forest guide pointed to thick grass 20 to 30 meters away. Movement which could be barely noticed. Yes, there were two tigers one each male and female. They were in the mating phase which lasts couple of days. With dim lighting, fog and thick grass cover, photography was ruled out. In any case, Ghumakkad believes in the privacy of the animals or birds in such moments. So, within five minutes of the safari, the three masked men were rewarded with a sighting. Sighting of two tigers enjoying each other in Nature's lap, well camouflaged and hidden from the prying eyes and intrusive cameras of the visitors. Sharing few pictures of the national park below.

Video clip below takes you through the dried up grassland.

How would you like to be alone in this dry jungle? See the short video clip below.

Does the tale end here? No.

The masked men continued hunting the jungle. Looking for more tigers and other animals. When you are braving the morning chill in an open jeep, you need a bio break after some time. The forest department has made field toilets at a designated spot for those needing a bio break. The surrounding grass is shoulder high and makes for a perfect shoot. See the pictures below.

More than two hours into the jungle, as we were negotiating a rocky bend we found couple of vehicles stopped on the track. A family of leopards had been sighted on top of the rocks. A female leopard with three cubs. Binoculars revealed their spotted coat merging with the rocks of the Satpura range. Phone cameras started clicking. I took out my 600 mm lens. In an unsteady vehicle, it was a challenge to keep the lens steady. Besides, the lighting was not all that great for the required shutter speed. I had to switch to AV mode. My monopod came handy and I could manage to capture the Leopard family up in the rocks some 50 meters away surrounded by trees, bushes and boulders. The leopards apparently had feasted on a spotted deer and were resting after the meal. Enjoy the shots below which are unprocessed to give you a feel of dimly lit rocky outcrop where the leopard family was resting.

As we soaked in the thrilling moment admiring the leopards, we noticed some langurs running away. Which meant that the tiger was somewhere close by. We turned our attention down the slope where our safari vehicles had lined up. And through the thicket, we saw the golden glimmer of stripes in the morning Sun. A tiger was approaching us and sniffing in the direction of the rocks where the leopards were resting. Another tiger followed. Two tigers and three masked men! Encounter of a life time.

As it turned out, it was a tigress with her cub. The cub also looked grown up. As is well known, the tiger cubs remain with the mother till they are about two years old. You can see in the pictures and the video below that the cub leads her initially. Later, she pecks the cub as she passes by. The cub then sits down, as if to pose for us. The tigress by then has got the scent of the kill and presses on. Both the mother and the cub then climb the rocks where the kill is. In the meanwhile, the leopard and her cubs run for their life and climb the trees nearby. All of this happened in less than a minute. But it was spell binding and a life time experience. Even the forest guide and safari driver admitted that it was a rare sighting of leopards and tigers in a matter of minutes!

The video below shows the entire sequence of events that morning.

Here is another short video capturing the excitement and commotion caused by tigress's arrival and scampering by the leopards. The video camera was not steady but listen to the panicky calls by the langurs and leopards captured in the video.

We did not sight any more tigers during the afternoon safari the next day. However, we did shoot some other flora and fauna. See the pictures below.

Bisons are unpredictable as you can see in the 15-sec video below.

Here is our crew that morning. Special thanks to both Ram Prasad our pilot and Rajesh, the forest guide. It is mandatory for every vehicle to have a forest guide onboard.

Thanks are also due to Akanksha for video editing.

For those interested in the leopards, may enjoy the Leopard Safari in Jhalana in Jaipur. You may click to browse our earlier story linked below:

Leopards In A City? Yes, Rajasthan forest department offers leopard safari in Jaipur city itself. Do visit if you haven't yet been there. Online booking available both for morning and afternoon safaris.

We are also sharing below some of our earlier picture stories of tigers at other Tiger Parks in India:

Tiger Ahoy - how a tiger heard us to give 'darshan' and then led us!

How Do Tigers Enter Water? - See how Baghdoma aka Waghdoh, then the oldest tiger of Tadoba, does it!

Maya The Tigress of Tadoba - Enjoy the company of her cubs in this story

Follow Me Said Sonam The Tigress - And we followed her for 10 minutes in the jungle!

More Than Tiger Sighting - The forest is larger than the tiger!

The Infamous T-24 of Ranthambor - Our first tiger sighting after 17 years of relentless search across several tiger reserves in India

Where to Stay in Pench

There are 100+ resorts of varying budgets in Pench. We had stayed in Camp Gondwana, 7 kms from Turia gate. More about our stay in another story.

Location

Pench is located 70 kms north west of Nagpur on NH-44. See the map below.

The highway passes through the reserve forest. MP Forest department is to be lauded for its conservation efforts. It has constructed several elevated corridors with underpasses for the animals to freely cross over. These elevated corridors have been fenced with sound barriers to prevent noise pollution in the forest area. See the video below.

Safari Booking

Safari booking is online and is the first step in your planning. Safari for six, forest guide fees and vehicle hire charges comes to Rs 3600. Id Cards are required. Rates may vary in future. 16 seater safari 'canters' are also available. See the picture below. 

In addition to the core zone, buffer zone safari is also available near NH-44 entrance. 

About the Park

Readers may view our YouTube video by our forest guide Rajesh. It was shot after the tiger sighting on 19th Jan 2024 in Pench.

The Park recently observed two events. Firstly, the 88th death anniversary of Rudyard Kipling, the legendary writer who wrote 'The Jungle Book' which became famous after a movie with the same name. Secondly it observed the 2nd death anniversary of Collarwali, the tigress of Pench who gave birth to a record 29 cubs. She died at a ripe old age of 16 years. See the pictures of the signages created by the forest department on the occasion.

The Park is disabled-friendly as you can see the picture below. It also has a nice Interpretation Centre meant for education and creating awareness about the environment.

Hope you enjoyed the 'encounter' of the three masked men with the tigers of Pench! When unmasked, they look like this:

Thanks for browsing. More stories on the Night Safari, Bawanthadi River Bank, Camp Gondwana and birds of Pench will follow soon.

Other stories on Pench already published, are listed below. Simply click to browse.

Rural India- Real Happiness A picture story of villages near Pench and how a village panchayat has helped in tourism development.

Jungle Walk At Night - How does it feel to walk at night in a jungle in pitch darkness? What do you sight during a night safari?

Pottery Magic at Pachdhar Village - The story takes you to Pachdhar a village near Pench National park on NH-44 where the residents have been creating amazing designs in pottery.

    - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with inputs from Animesh and Ashok/ Pench MP India/ 24th April 2024

#Leopard #Tiger #PenchTigerReserve #NavyVeterans #Wildlife #Safari #SatpuraRanges #MadhyaPradesh #ForestDepartment #Conservation #NightSafari #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #indianbison #gaur #cheetal #langour #collarwali #rudyardkipling #junglebook

Teaching Design Thinking Differently

'Design Thinking- such a drab subject!'

'We know the five phases - EDIPT!' 

'We have seen enough examples on YouTube.'

When your MBA class is so forthright in expressing their views, you have to think differently. Taking a cue from Dr Abdul Kalam's famous quote 'Creativity is seeing the same thing as everybody else, but thinking differently', we converted the remaining sessions of the course 'Innovation In Business' into a Design Thinking Workshop. In a workshop you are supposed to use some 'tools' and 'do'  and 'make' something like in a carpentry workshop. 

We asked the class if they would recommend the college to others? The answer was a chorus 'No'! Do they regret the decision when they joined the college? This time another chorus 'Yes'! When asked why, many reasons came up. That ignited Ghumakkad's mind to do a 'live' workshop on issues plaguing the students' minds. For a class of 70 students, we identified 24 'live' issues being faced by the students. Teams of three each were free to choose any one issue. The process was repeated for both the sections of 70 students each. The die was cast. Few of the issues selected by the students are listed below. Am sure students at other colleges would not feel much differently.

• Improving student quality
• Developing college pride & sense of belonging
• Branding of the College
• Entrepreneurial Support
• Attendance through biometrics

Each team was given 48 hours to complete the first step of Design Thinking 'Empathise'. It involved interacting with the people concerned for the issue at hand. It could be other students, faculty, staff or management of the college. It could also be other colleges in the same geography. By actually empathising with the people concerned, the students learnt the nuances of Step-1 of design thinking. Whether it was mere observations or an interview or a focussed group discussion or collection of facts and figures, the students gained 'insights' of the issue at hand. These insights were then utilised for further steps of Design Thinking.

Remaining steps namely Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test were completed by each team after two days in the class itself. Breakout areas gave freedom for brainstorming. The teams had two hours to deliberate the issue and apply the design thinking to come up with suggested solution. The teams were also given a chart paper and coloured markers to summarise their design thinking effort and present it to the class for greater learning. The posters were thereafter displayed in the college foyer for wider viewership by other students, faculty, staff and management of the college. The whole event thus generated lot of enthusiasm and energy by the students in experiential learning mode. Sharing few pictures of the event below.

Through the workshop, the students could address many real-life issues like how to select the internship company? Big vs small? Branded company vs a startup? And so on.

The whole design thinking workshop was conceived on the go. The idea came because of students' disenchantment with the college (a normal reaction towards the end of the two-year-PGDM-program). Germinated in the class, a 'drab' subject was successfully transformed into an invigorating and participative workshop. It led to experiential learning. See the video clip below of the poster designing in progress.

For teachers like Ghumakkad, there is never a dull moment. With 140 inquisitive and restive minds around, it is a pleasant challenge to devise and conduct such 'live' learning events. Special thanks to all the students who participated, both the class reps and Dr V Jayashree for the wholehearted support.

Sharing below the links to some of our other 'live' teaching and learning events which had also ensured experiential learning at PG level:

Uri the Movie- Management Lessons

Shershaah Beyond The Movie

Real Life to Real Time Cases

Hope you enjoyed the teaching and learning of Design Thinking with Ghumakkad. Do share your experiences of other modes of experiential learning.

Thanks for browsing.

   - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with the PGDM Class of 2024@VVISM Hyderabad/ 30th March 2024

#learning #experiential #PGDM #MBA #highereducation #nep2020 #designthinking #workshopmode #reallifeissues #insights #innovationinbusiness #creativity #learningbydoing #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh

Who Will Peel The Fruits Now?

'Neeta zara yahan aao' - Neeta come here for a while, 94-year-old would say to her 69-year-old daughter sitting across the room.

'Tum waheen se bolo' - you speak from there itself, the daughter would reply, not wanting to get up so frequently because of an aching back.

'Nahhen yahan aao' - no you come here, insisted the 94-year-old.

'Main yaheen baithee hoon' - I am sitting here, asserts the daughter. And the unending duel goes on witnessed by Ghumakkad every few minutes. Every day.

That was an excerpt of the wordy duel. Both would hold their ground till I intervened. That was my mother-in-law Smt Usha Bhargava (11.11.1929 - 22.2.2024) who passed away recently.

Mom had many facets of her personality. Today, even though she is gone, she continues to live in our hearts. Sharing below few memories of last few years.

Self Help is the Best Help

She would always peel the fruits every morning for breakfast. She had improvised a chopping board on one of the kitchen cabinets so that she could do the peeling and cutting while seated on a chair. She would lend a helping hand while making the pakwan for Diwali. Picture and a short video follows.

She Loved Sweets

Her lunch or dinner would be incomplete without sweets. One is not enough. Lately, she wanted a sweet after breakfast also. See the short video below. Of course during the last month of her life, she had stopped taking any solids as well as liquids. She had her original teeth for all of the 94 years! Remarkable, isn't it?

Spirit of Giving

She would heartily contribute to all community pujas and events. Every year on Diwali and Sankranti, she would ensure that all those who worked at home, were given a gift. Picture below shows Ashok our dhobi, cook Pooja and domestic help Farzana receiving her blessings.

Sharing Her Knowledge

She relished sharing her knowledge with others. Be it a recipe or how to do knitting, she would readily share it. In the video below, she can be seen teaching Farzana, our domestic help, how to do knitting. See the happiness on her face when the learner picks up the skill.

Great-Granny

She lived on to enjoy the company of four great grand-children aged between 19 and 9 years. She loved not only her great grand-children but all the children in the colony. See the pictures and the video below.

Fetish for Cleanliness

She would ensure that her wardrobe, side table, dressing table and puja cabinet were always prim and proper. She would rearrange all the cell phones on a table if lying randomly. After all a Fauji's mother-in-law! Her hair would always be well oiled and braided. Pictures below.

Tech-Savvy Granny

In her 90s, she adapted easily to an iPhone and ear phones. Picture and a short video below.

You can see her talking merrily using the earphones and rocking her walking stick.

Her Favourite Spot

The verandah in our house was Mom's favourite spot. She would read the newspaper sitting in bright daylight there. In the evenings, she would watch all the children playing outside. She would also supervise us to prune the plants and branches in the garden from her chair.

Birthdays are Fun

She endured the day-long fatigue on her 90th birthday. With a family lunch for 50 and a dinner for 100 guests, she kept up the smile. Thereafter, she relished the cake on her 91st to 94th birthdays at home surrounded by friends.

The bigger bash with grandchildren and other guests had to be scheduled in December to match the holidays of the grandchildren. Glimpses below.

Farida and Anand (Annu) came from Dubai to wish her on her 90th birthday in Hyderabad. Farida wrote such a touching poem. Annu read it out for her as recorded in the video below.

We also share below snippets of her subsequent 91st to 94th birthdays. 

'How was it Mom?' See what she said in the clip below.

What did she have for breakfast on her 93rd birthday? See the approving looks in the picture below.

Surrounded by Loving Family

Weakened but Not Down

About a month before she passed away, she stopped eating any solids. For next two weeks, she did take some liquids like milk, lassi and coconut water. Her body showed signs of weakness. However, during last 15 days, she had stopped taking the liquids also. How long can you survive on few drops of ORS per day? Our daughter flew down from USA and so did our son from Chennai to be with her. While leaving for Chennai on Sunday, Ankush told her 'Nani, main jaa raha hoon'. She quizzed 'kahan jaa rahe ho?' Not to disappoint her Ankush replied 'Bazar ja raha hoon'. She said 'Paas wale bazaar?' Ankush said yes and left. She waved her hand to say good bye. That was one of the last conversations she had. 

Role Interchange in Life

Once she had held both the grand children Ashi and Ankush in her lap. Mom would trim Neeta's finger nails when she was young. With time, these roles have interchanged as in the pictures below.

Gratitude

We owe special thanks to Dr M Sitaram (Cardiologist), Dr CH Mohan Rao (Neurologist and Internal Medicine) and Dr Purna Chandra Rao (General Physician) for taking good care of Mom during last 20 years or so. Dr PC Rao looked after Mom as his own mother. Our gratitude to each one of you.

She went away peacefully with Neeta and Akanksha holding her hands and me at her feet. Her walker awaits her return.

    

Yaad Ayegi

Ashi has made a short video on her life with the song 'yaad ayegi' in the background. Sharing it here.

Mom, who will peel the fruits now? You lived a full life. Keep blessing us wherever you are.

She has reunited with Papa who had left us 35 years ago.

     - Harsh-the-Ghumakkad with Neeta Bhargava/ Secunderabad/ 8th March 2024

Postscript:

What a family friend wrote for Mom:

Aunty: 22.02.24

--------------

She  was  our  beloved  Aunty,

Strong  as  steel,  but  dealings  dainty. 

     Her  smile  was  so  infectious, 

     That  even  lawyers  would  find  it  judicious. 

Residents  of  our  colony,  both  young  and  old, 

Seeing  her,  their  hands  would  fold. 

     " Namaste  Aunty ",  would  be  the  respected  greeting,

     On  every  single  occasion  of  meeting. 

Acknowledged   by  her  charming  smile, 

That  would  remain  in  our  minds  for  quite  a  while. 

     Today  she  has  left  us  forever, 

     Only  to  be  forgotten  never. 

Surely,  we  will  miss  her  a  lot, 

For  the  affection  that  we  always  got. 

     May  she  spread  her  charisma  up  there, 

     And  allow  us  to  touch  her  feet  in  prayer. 

        Dada.

Air Commodore A Banerjee SC

11th March: Ira Bhargava wrote:

This is such a beautiful tribute to Jiji - so well written - the narration grows on you and one can't leave it midway - just want to know more and more about Jiji and the minute details of her life that we missed out on being so far away from Jiji and you all. 

Your narration, the photos and the videos                    are sometimes funny, sometimes somber and at other times so emotional. Thanks for giving such a vivid description of how she spent her life with you and Neeta and the grand and great grandchildren. We have seen how happy she was with you all and the excellent care you both have taken of her throughout the 37 years of her life with you. well done, Harsh and Neeta.

Jiji for me was not only Ajai's eldest sister but also like a sister to me. She was a jovial person, very active physically and mentally, had interest in so many things: I can sum her up as a person full of life. We would chat on the phone for any length of time and there was a time when she would recount jokes that she had read in that day's newspaper and we would all laugh together. Then came the times when she stopped calling but would be so happy when Ajai or I would call. Gradually that also lessened because she would not understand what we were saying even though she was always so happy to hear her Ajju's voice and also her Ajju's bahu's .... The last few minutes before her demise, Ajai kept on repeating, "Jiji aankhein kholo". But that was not to be. 

Alvida Jiji....

#motherpassesaway #94yearold #celebratinglife #weakenedbutnotdown #whowillpeelthefruits #greatgrandmother #4Gsofadifferentkind #peace #ushabhargava #eulogy #4thgeneration #livingonownterms #ghumakkadhb #ghumakkadharsh #obituary