You need to be in a state of preparedness to visit the Sundarbans. I suggest that you wait until you are over 30 and have experienced a few knocks, some heartbreak, and a little disappointment in life. It would help if you had ever searched for anything—God, happiness, truth, yourself. It might also be useful to believe that it is necessary to get lost to find your way. If you are the sort of person who finds music in the sound of the quiet lap of water against the tarred hull of the boat or the metaphor of life in drifting along endless waters on a little vessel, then you are ready for the magnificent mangroves.
Because the Sundarbans is not for the weekend holidayers, the types who would want to drink beer, scratch their bum/crotch/head/something, throw plastic and Styrofoam into the water with impunity, and hope to get laid. I only hope that the crocodiles that eat them would not develop indigestion.
It is important to find the right tour guide for the Sundarbans, as we did. Bikramaditya Guha Roy was our Noah, gently prising us away from the grit and greyness of the city, setting us tenderly down the brackish waters like newly hatched ducklings, regaling us with facts and stories about the world’s largest littoral mangroves, helping us adjust to the rhythm of the place that could almost slow down one’s heartbeat, and reaching deep into our souls with old boatman songs on occasion.
Before going to the Sundarbans, I never really thought about it. I knew from my middle school geography that it is the estuary of the Ganges and assorted rivers, comprise mangrove forests, and was famous for crocodiles and tigers. And my brush with Bangal had given me access to some breathtaking pictures clicked by friends, but nothing beyond it.
It was a good thing to have been so ignorant, I think, because it gave a chance to the immenseness of the place to comprehensively awe me. The journey started in a pedestrian way—we turned off left at the Science City junction, rode through the East Kolkata Wetlands, amidst strong smelling waste water tracts and vegetable fields, onwards over rural roads for a bone rattling three hours. The scenery was quintessential Indian countryside—bazaars and paddy fields and goats and cows and chicken and dust and marsh birds. We got down at Godkhali to board a boat. Even then, nothing was spectacular or distinctive.
It was after an hour down the river, which was like any other river I’ve ridden, that things suddenly changed. As we left villages and towns that showed advanced human colonization behind, the river suddenly widened—to three Hooglys wide. The water surface took on an enchanting haze and the vegetation around started looking unmistakably mangrove and different. Familiar things such as power lines and trees I can name disappeared and everything around were of and by water. This is where we started feeling really small and nature got very big. It was like being delivered into a different world, a different planet even.
Our feeling of smallness was enhanced that afternoon when we were taken to the confluence of five rivers—land was very far away and most of the time invisible. It was just us, the sputtering thrum of our boat engine, occasional birds flying overhead and vast waters around us. Conversations had a way of petering out into long silences, broken by the brilliant splashes of color different birds brought, especially the kingfishers. Our moment of excitement came in the form of a crocodile and later a crocodile-sized water monitor.
That evening, we were treated to a local folk theater performance of Bonbibi, a synthesized Hindu-Muslim goddess who represent the human advance on the territories of the Tiger Dokhin Roy. There are tensions and truces out here. Our resort, the Sundarbans Jungle Camp, is cozy and rustic and in the middle of the Bali village, where people seemed to be living a life that hasn’t changed much over the centuries. Farming, honey collecting, and fishing seem to be the chief occupation. Life is amphibious, a struggle with the clayish mud and brackish waters.
Later at night, after dinner, we went on a walk to the Japani ghat, led by the feeble light of our torches and a benevolent half-moon overhead. Silvery water and a silent ghat greeted us. We listened to the dying down of noises in our head and to Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne. Friendly village dogs paid us a visit and stayed with us. Anything could have happened that night—love, poetry, murder…
The next dawn saw us once again on the honeyed waters, visited by swallows, sand pipers, egrets, herons, and gulls, busy with the business of another new day. Mist was curling up from the waters. Mangroves with their breathing knee, buttress, and snake roots seemed to be in deep meditation. We drifted further away from the world as we knew it. Breakfast was on the boat, mustard flavored and delicious.
We went on a canopy walk, which is a big word for a middling 800 meters walk on top of the mangroves. Our guide familiarized us with the different mangrove colonizers and talked about vivipary. We didn’t meet any tigers, but we did see a lot of bright crimson and yellow fiddler crabs. In the afternoon, we saw archer fish and several more crustaceans. The day was punctuated by kingfishers—ubiquitous, startling, in six different varieties.
We set out for a full day cruise the next day. We entered the smaller, greener, and incredibly beautiful creeks, adjoining the deep and secretive reserve forests. We spent a lot of time squatting on the bow of the boat, sun beating down our heads and wind blowing our hair. We saw birds of prey such as white bellied sea eagle, osprey, and brahminy kites. A crocodile came swimming within 15 feet of our boat. We saw yet another water monitor lumbering after some lunch. We saw a lesser adjutant stork that spread its great wings and flew across the water and some aggressive rhesus macaques. Flocks of egrets raced towards our boat. It seemed like we had wandered into a bit of paradise.
As dusk was falling, as it does at 4:30 p.m. in these parts, we killed the boat engine and drifted aimlessly on the waters for a bit. The sun sank, first crimson and then pink.
There was only one more thing to do—to ride the small country row boats. We had this wish granted the next morning by our thoughtful guide. We took the boat through a small water way adjacent to the village, overhung by trees, lined by houses and visited by parakeets, bee-eaters, king fishers, and some frolicking geese. Being on the level of water gave us an entirely new perspective of the world.
We also walked through the village, overlooking golden harvests, observing morning village routines and peeping into a small thatched village elementary school. We encountered an enormous bee hive and said hello to tailor birds, orioles, ioras, babblers, woodpeckers, doves and drongos.
Not long after that, quietly, the holiday came to an end. The entire staff of the resort came to the ghat and waved us goodbye. We had said goodbye to Nobo, our superman spotter, a child of the village who speaks halting but perfect English, the previous evening. There was nothing left to be said or done but to board the boat one last time. The city came upon us and swallowed us all too soon.
You can see the pictures here.
Because the Sundarbans is not for the weekend holidayers, the types who would want to drink beer, scratch their bum/crotch/head/something, throw plastic and Styrofoam into the water with impunity, and hope to get laid. I only hope that the crocodiles that eat them would not develop indigestion.
It is important to find the right tour guide for the Sundarbans, as we did. Bikramaditya Guha Roy was our Noah, gently prising us away from the grit and greyness of the city, setting us tenderly down the brackish waters like newly hatched ducklings, regaling us with facts and stories about the world’s largest littoral mangroves, helping us adjust to the rhythm of the place that could almost slow down one’s heartbeat, and reaching deep into our souls with old boatman songs on occasion.
Before going to the Sundarbans, I never really thought about it. I knew from my middle school geography that it is the estuary of the Ganges and assorted rivers, comprise mangrove forests, and was famous for crocodiles and tigers. And my brush with Bangal had given me access to some breathtaking pictures clicked by friends, but nothing beyond it.
It was a good thing to have been so ignorant, I think, because it gave a chance to the immenseness of the place to comprehensively awe me. The journey started in a pedestrian way—we turned off left at the Science City junction, rode through the East Kolkata Wetlands, amidst strong smelling waste water tracts and vegetable fields, onwards over rural roads for a bone rattling three hours. The scenery was quintessential Indian countryside—bazaars and paddy fields and goats and cows and chicken and dust and marsh birds. We got down at Godkhali to board a boat. Even then, nothing was spectacular or distinctive.
It was after an hour down the river, which was like any other river I’ve ridden, that things suddenly changed. As we left villages and towns that showed advanced human colonization behind, the river suddenly widened—to three Hooglys wide. The water surface took on an enchanting haze and the vegetation around started looking unmistakably mangrove and different. Familiar things such as power lines and trees I can name disappeared and everything around were of and by water. This is where we started feeling really small and nature got very big. It was like being delivered into a different world, a different planet even.
Our feeling of smallness was enhanced that afternoon when we were taken to the confluence of five rivers—land was very far away and most of the time invisible. It was just us, the sputtering thrum of our boat engine, occasional birds flying overhead and vast waters around us. Conversations had a way of petering out into long silences, broken by the brilliant splashes of color different birds brought, especially the kingfishers. Our moment of excitement came in the form of a crocodile and later a crocodile-sized water monitor.
That evening, we were treated to a local folk theater performance of Bonbibi, a synthesized Hindu-Muslim goddess who represent the human advance on the territories of the Tiger Dokhin Roy. There are tensions and truces out here. Our resort, the Sundarbans Jungle Camp, is cozy and rustic and in the middle of the Bali village, where people seemed to be living a life that hasn’t changed much over the centuries. Farming, honey collecting, and fishing seem to be the chief occupation. Life is amphibious, a struggle with the clayish mud and brackish waters.
Later at night, after dinner, we went on a walk to the Japani ghat, led by the feeble light of our torches and a benevolent half-moon overhead. Silvery water and a silent ghat greeted us. We listened to the dying down of noises in our head and to Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne. Friendly village dogs paid us a visit and stayed with us. Anything could have happened that night—love, poetry, murder…
The next dawn saw us once again on the honeyed waters, visited by swallows, sand pipers, egrets, herons, and gulls, busy with the business of another new day. Mist was curling up from the waters. Mangroves with their breathing knee, buttress, and snake roots seemed to be in deep meditation. We drifted further away from the world as we knew it. Breakfast was on the boat, mustard flavored and delicious.
We went on a canopy walk, which is a big word for a middling 800 meters walk on top of the mangroves. Our guide familiarized us with the different mangrove colonizers and talked about vivipary. We didn’t meet any tigers, but we did see a lot of bright crimson and yellow fiddler crabs. In the afternoon, we saw archer fish and several more crustaceans. The day was punctuated by kingfishers—ubiquitous, startling, in six different varieties.
We set out for a full day cruise the next day. We entered the smaller, greener, and incredibly beautiful creeks, adjoining the deep and secretive reserve forests. We spent a lot of time squatting on the bow of the boat, sun beating down our heads and wind blowing our hair. We saw birds of prey such as white bellied sea eagle, osprey, and brahminy kites. A crocodile came swimming within 15 feet of our boat. We saw yet another water monitor lumbering after some lunch. We saw a lesser adjutant stork that spread its great wings and flew across the water and some aggressive rhesus macaques. Flocks of egrets raced towards our boat. It seemed like we had wandered into a bit of paradise.
As dusk was falling, as it does at 4:30 p.m. in these parts, we killed the boat engine and drifted aimlessly on the waters for a bit. The sun sank, first crimson and then pink.
There was only one more thing to do—to ride the small country row boats. We had this wish granted the next morning by our thoughtful guide. We took the boat through a small water way adjacent to the village, overhung by trees, lined by houses and visited by parakeets, bee-eaters, king fishers, and some frolicking geese. Being on the level of water gave us an entirely new perspective of the world.
We also walked through the village, overlooking golden harvests, observing morning village routines and peeping into a small thatched village elementary school. We encountered an enormous bee hive and said hello to tailor birds, orioles, ioras, babblers, woodpeckers, doves and drongos.
Not long after that, quietly, the holiday came to an end. The entire staff of the resort came to the ghat and waved us goodbye. We had said goodbye to Nobo, our superman spotter, a child of the village who speaks halting but perfect English, the previous evening. There was nothing left to be said or done but to board the boat one last time. The city came upon us and swallowed us all too soon.
You can see the pictures here.
Comments
Keep writing.
I hope you write down more of your experiences.
Keep writing
Happy Diwali.
Altaf