June 23, 2012. 5.30 am, Ramnagar (Uttarakhand) reservation counter inside the office of field director, Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR)

Two dozen olive-green Maruti Gypsies with yellow Uttarakhand taxi plates crowd the field director’s compound. Their hoods ripped off, the idea perhaps is that Corbett lovers get a better experience of treasures beyond the Bijrani Gate three km away. Some Gypsies won’t be assigned to Bijrani though, but Jhirna, famed for more biodiversity, but lower chances of sighting the tiger.

It’s been drizzling since 4 am when I bolted from my bed 37 km away. As I dodge three local hustlers, I can’t help but notice that least two battered pieces of tin are experiencing hiccups already. Their engines come alive, roar like aging dinosaurs, and then threaten to die.

“S**li, kal se yahi drama kar rahi hai,” Faim, a driver, mutters under his breath. Does CTR check these antiques before they venture into the wild? Of course they do, I tell myself out of no particular basis except faith in the almighty. I ward off odds of the creaking Gypsy popping off right in front of a raging pachyderm! Or “what if” a tigress having had an irritating night checkmating the sambhar nearby.

“Huh, come off it,” I scold myself, “focus, young man, get a Gypsy and entry ticket combo in the first place.” 

The mind wanders into flashback. It’s been 24 years since I treaded inside what’s India’s most accessible elephant-tiger habitat. The last time was when my father was chief conservator of forests for Kumaon and Garhwal. Life then was a breeze. Enter the bee in my bonnet rather than have him, at 79, bother Uttarakhand’s forest chief, Dr RBS Rawat, let me make it on the dint of being a common man. If challenged for my credentials, I could try telling the CTR folks which “chaur” has the maximum spotted deer; what Col Corbett did differently in Rudraprayag versus Champawat or Mukteshwar; or even which forest land had politician Akbar “Dumpy” Ahmed arrogated.

Let it be said of the morning, I wasn’t quite a sentimental gate crasher. I had failed with the CTR official page (corbettnationalpark.in) which hosts a facility for online reservation. Aware of its inauguration around CTR’s platinum jubilee in November last, my faithful staff had tried several times but like tatkal reservation in the Indian Railways, the writing on the wall was to invoke Dr Rawat. Though forbidden to break any protocols, one colleague did make phone calls to the field director’s office.

“Subah 5 baje chale jayiye, ho jayega,” one Mitu Seniwal told him, in what I was assured was in a very non-sarkari tone. Our target, as advised by Mitu, should be the range forest officer (RFO) on reservation duty at the crack of dawn.

5.30-6.18 am
No prizes for guessing this one. In the drizzle and the unearthly hour, there’s no sign of the RFO or, in fact, any way to get him on his mobile number. Should I call Mitu? Bad idea, she might just bang the phone on me.

6.19-7.20am
By now, this place is reeling with Gypsy drivers and touts. Very few of them have actually taken off with tourists. The penny drops! The bucks lie in taking forward positions on the safari market. This works fine, except that today the honourable touts are badly stuck because of the rain. Two cheeky ones make a direct offer. “Uncle-ji, why’re you wasting your time in director sahib’s office? Don’t you want to step out to the jungle?” they ask. I feel like imploding on the “Uncle-ji” bit, but instead string them along, bring down the rates, note down their alias, make a citizen’s video…all the time hoping that three foresters sitting across the window will rescue me from the emotional ordeal of writing against an organisation which afforded me great joys of my life. The foresters look, but then they look way. Meanwhile, the touts, in slippers and shorts slide in and out of the enclosure, do “khus phus” in fraternal terms, get the odd nature enthusiast showing up to sign against a fake identity, replace guests against the original list, all oblivious that Rajan Mishra (IFS, 1993-UK), field director, lives in the same compound, just 150 steps away. Gypsies keep leaving with more than the specified number of adults. Some go without the mandatory guides.

I sit in the reception testing the efficacy of my self-inflicted satyagraha. The drizzle stops. By now, only one jeep is left.

7.20 am
In ten minutes, the Bijrani Gate would stop allowing visitors for the morning. Miracle! The booking clerk tells me that the RFO is on the line. A Gypsy will be given to me, on an exclusive basis, with no extra charge whatsoever. Fed up with me and with no other takers for the safari, a very kind tout has vacated his position.

I hardly have two hours to push through the safari and return to Bijrani Gate. My fate is no different from a majority of the 70,000 visitors whose love for Corbett brings them to suffer this sleaze. The sun is up. I see 13 spotted deer, nine sambhar and some peacocks.

Should I have walked across to Mishra-ji’s bungalow?

PS: His version when he called me as I was returning to Delhi: “Yes, my software has problems. But no tiger lover will be turned back at the gates.” Ha!

Some names have been changed to protect identities.