Tales from the Wild Gurpreet Singh
NATRAJ PUBLISHERS New Delhi • Dehradun
Copyright Š Gurpreet Singh ISBN: 978-81-8158-197-6 All rights reserved.This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electrical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher of the book. First published 2014 NATRAJ PUBLISHERS 17, Rajpur Road, Dehra Dun 248 001 INDIA Tel: 0091-135-2654584, 2653382 Fax: 0091-135-2749914, 2741110 www.natrajbooks.com Production & Layout: Kumar Raman Published by Upendra Arora for Natraj Publishers, Publications Division, and printed at Shivam Sundaram, New Delhi
CONTENTS Square Peg in a Round Hole 01 Chhota Sahib 21 Paradise called Harmutty 35 Seleng 49 Hattialli and the 1962 War with China 83 The Sound of Wings and Gunfire 95 Koilamari and the Elephant Trail 103 Meleng 133 Marriage 153 Trailing Tigers 163 The Killer of Methoni and Other Elephants 193 The Intervening Years 215 The Rogue of Bukhial 221 The Rogue of Dirai 235 Postscript 245 Glossary
AUTHOR’S NOTE
A
s the autumn of my life approaches and the shadows begin to lengthen, the fragrance of spring is now in the distance and the heat and light of summer have become subdued. Memories keep flooding back and I am forced to turn around and look at those wonderful years spent in the paradise called Assam. There is no doubt left in my mind that nowhere on this Earth could I have lived a better, more meaningful and fulfilling life than here. For this privilege, my gratitude to my maker is supreme. So too is my appreciation to all the people of Assam who gave me so much for so little. There is no way I can repay this debt but with my love for them and their lovely land. May the peace, plenty and tranquility that they enjoyed for so long in the past, return to them and may their rich culture, traditions and bounty of nature survive and flourish till the end of time.
POSTSCRIPT
T
he years have slipped away and the clock turns even faster. The whole scenario has changed on all fronts and so too, there is a change in the way one views the world and life, both ahead and behind. Gone are the days of plenty, the never-ending stretches of open wilderness, vast jungles and endless time. The guns and rifles have been oiled and put away and a camera rests in those very hands that carried a high power rifle through jungle and stream. When I look ahead, I see the ever shrinking world through the lenses of my Nikon and when I look back, I see flashes of a past with over-sized images that blend with one another on a screen that stretches without boundaries, across the vastness of space. On that screen somewhere there are images and moments that are unforgettable. Etched on that screen is the beautiful Shivalik range at the base of the Himalayas lying between the high
246
ROARS AND TRUMPETS
mountain range in the north of the Indian sub-continent stretching roughly from the river Beas in the western part of Punjab, eastwards to the Kumaon region, in what is today the state of Uttarakhand. That time will certainly never return for those who took part in it or for anyone else except in the annals of hunting.