Roaring retreat!
A trip to the Panna Tiger Reserve turned out to be a nature and art lover’s delight recently, the guides of the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh found a few interesting cave paintings in the midst of the dense jungle. They claim that these date back to 10,000 century BC.
The Reserve is also a wildlife lover’s dream; it’s frequented by the cheetah and wolf and also the ‘claimed’ three surviving tigers of the reserve. Not all the tourists are allowed to visit this area of the forest, but the Philosophy department of Mumbai University arranged special permission for us. A 20-minute drive in an open jeep from the entrance of the reserve took us to a thick area of forest. And right in the midst of the thick, dense jungle, a huge overwhelming sedimentary rock seemed to stare down at us. A little rock climbing later, we saw something lovely old rock paintings of different animals in a reddish hue. It was overwhelming to see such old art. While one painting portrayed a series of a monkey’s attempt to jump up to fetch food, the other showed a large wild bull. And there were a few smaller ones that also reminded us that ancient men and animals lived in perfect harmony with each other and also with nature.
After looking at these crude paintings carefully, we noticed that some figures were filled with colours and some were simply lines. The fully coloured ones are for those with filled stomachs and the lines represented empty stomachs. Interesting! Next stop was an elephant shelter. I saw a little elephant (I was to learn she was all of two months) called Vatsala. She played with us, ran around, pushed a few of us and playfully allowed us to shake her trunk. Thankfully her mother was equally friendly and didn’t mind if her child was teased a little! In fact, at the end of it even the mother shook her trunk with each one of us. A quick question occurred to me. Don’t these animals love us? So, why are we killing them!
d_riddhi@dnaidnia.net
source: http://epaper.dnaindia.com/epapermain.aspx?queryed=9&eddate=2%2f11%2f2010