In Goa don't do like the Goans do. Instead, skip the Canacona beach and head straight to Cotigao sanctuary that's just 20 kms away.
Cotigao looks like the twin sister of Bondla, another sanctuary in Goa. The forest is as friendly; so is the staff. The landscape is as well-manicured; and the cottages are as beautiful.
When we were unpacking, we were told that it's feeding time at the rescue shelter situated in the complex. Without losing a moment, we rushed there. The first enclosure was of a Brahminy kite. It whined plaintively as we approached it, drawing our attention to its broken wing. When the attendant threw sardines into the enclosure, it stopped complaining and came hopping to eat its meal. Then the spotted deer was offered freshly plucked branches. But it was only at the crocodile shelter that we met their local guardian. It was a bird called common drongo. When the resident crow flew into the shelter to rob the pieces of meat that were meant for the crocodile, the local guardian swung into action. Swooping down from his strategic perch, he drove away the crow in one quick, commando action. Apparently he does this diligently every day, ensuring that the injured animals are not robbed off their rightful share.
In the late evening, we went looking for the elusive night jar, a bird of the night. Just as our guide Deepak had predicted, we found them in a rockland nearby. The whole family - the father, the mother and two juveniles - were stirring up from their sleep and getting ready for the long night ahead. Giving them company was another creature of the night, the Travancore wolf snake.
The next day we got up before the sun, and met him as he was peeping above the forest. In the last village before the forest, Deepak showed us the house from where he had rescued a cobra a week ago. Deepak was nicknamed 'Jeevani' or the 'man who doesn't die' as he had survived five bites of extremely venomous snakes like kraits and vipers. He had a tremendous photographic sense too. If he spotted a bird and the light conditions were not good enough, he would insist that I at least take a 'record' shot. If I missed clicking a bird, he would advise me to ignore the bird and walk ahead till I crossed the bird, and then in a surprise move, slowly turn and shoot. I tried it and it worked. And to this day it remains my adopted technique of shooting a shy bird. I truly felt that he was a photographer without a camera. He was an artist too, as on large drawing sheets he had pencilled many a beautiful bird; though he was yet to find time to colour them.
Soon we came to a watch tower that was so tall that we could get a bird's eye view of the birds. It was all of 80 feet. Next to it were some of the tallest trees I had ever seen; some of them towering above the watch tower and growing up to 100 feet. Looking at them in awe, I realised that a tree is truly a living sculpture.
On our way back, Deepak spotted a tree under which there was a carpet of green yet ripe berries. He collected them patiently, a berry at a time, and took them to the deer enclosure in the evening. It's only when I saw the deer relishing them that I realised that it's a forest delicacy they have been missing in the enclosure. And silently I admired the intense love Deepak harboured in his heart for these injured wild animals.
In the evening, we went to two temples. The first one was the Mallikarjun temple, where the deity is taken out every year to the Talpona beach for an annual dip in the Arabian Sea! The next was a temple dedicated to Lord Parashuram, who is believed to have used an axe to create the entire coastline from Maharashtra to Kerala. And ironically, today we use the same axe to destroy what he created.
Then came the night of the reckoning. The forest jeep drove us into the heart of the forest and dropped us at the machan next to Bela lake. The sun had set but the moon was yet to rise. The dark, leafless tree next to the machan slowly became laden with twinkling stars. Suddenly, a star fell. And
before I could make my wish, another one inexplicably flew across to the next branch. That's when I realised that fireflies in large numbers had intermingled with the stars.
The forest was unbearably silent, and our slightest move on the machan made the wooden planks creak, and the noise amplified manifold. It reverberated in the forest, making us feel guilty for having breached its sanctity.
After an hour-long wait, which seemed like a year, we decided to attract the Ceylon frogmouths that were said to inhabit the area in large numbers. We played back their call which we had recorded on the cellphone; and sure enough we could hear their answer at a distance. As we continued playing it, they came closer and closer, but at one point they stopped. Maybe they realised that our sound pattern was too repetitive to be real.
The long wait for the resident leopard followed. Despite Deepak's inkling that the leopard would skip this stagnant waterhole and go to a fresh-water pond nearby, we kept up the night-long vigil.
Then in the middle of the night, four gunshots pierced the silence. And Deepak told us that a kilometre from where we were was the border of Goa and Karnataka. In that no-man's land or should I say no-animal's land, it was shoot at sight. Where deer, wild boar and even giant squirrels regularly fall prey to man's wanton killing.
At the break of dawn, the rising sun removed the cataract of the night, layer by layer. And the breeze carried many birdsongs, known and unknown. We got down from the machan and stepped into the mystic morning. Just 100 feet away from where we had camped in the night, we came across the scared pugmarks of a barking deer. Close on its heels were the pugmarks of the leopard we had missed. Then we saw the pugmarks of a mama bear and a baby bear. And as if to confirm our observation, nearby was a termite hole completely ravaged by the mama bear.
As we walked back to the guest house bleary eyed, we had a silent prayer on our lips all along the 12 km stretch. A simple prayer that we shouldn't encounter the angry bear with its little cub at the next blind turn.
It's on a walk like this that you feel scared and humbled by the forest and all that dwells in it. And you realise you are just an insignificant speck on a small planet that revolves around an ordinary star in the distant corner of an obscure galaxy that's just one of a 100 billion galaxies.
