Welcome! to my world..

It took some planning and convincing to get all the permissions for the Trip, i remember having to give personal assurances to some of the parents to take responsibility for my friends…. hehe…… one of my first training in negotiation and leadership i guess…. there are several stories of this trip, i will talk about another time, for now let me cover the overview to prepare you for this trip.The next trips were with my engineering hostel mate Saleel Tambe, Saleel has been one of those character who is like good at every thing they do, accomplished photographer, practically played every musical instrument you can throw at him and expert of Tabla (Indian percussion instrument); he is very good with sketching, painting, topper of his batch in polytechnic in the whole state of MP and the list goes on and on. Even though i have been into photography since i was like 8years old, took my first few snaps with my Dads Kodak Retina series camera, with everything manual and adjusted from your knowledge.I got the real immersion to serious photography with Saleel and another classmate from school Rajiv…. Rajiv had a dark room at his place made out of his parents store room and enlarger etc bought from some closing out sell of some photos store. hehe….. reminds me at that time Rajiv wanted to become a press photographer and was slogging it out with some photographer who was making him work like crazy for peanuts or sometime nothing at all, now Rajiv has sold all his equipment, moved to Delhi and works in Software Sales, cant believe that’s the same guy who used to be so dedicated about photography that would be ready to jump from a train if some one said that would make him a better photographer. That’s life, situation and needs change people, though i am sure if given the change he will jump into it again and again be gugu eyed about it.

Come to think about it, i also stopped (not exactly, but sort-off) photography for about 10 years, this was my transfer from film to Digital, and the testing time of starting the software service company, yes, in-case you don’t know yet, that’s my other passion. Since the company has now reached a certain size and revenue, i can again get back to breath easy and smell…aah photograph… the roses again slowly with caution. Bought my new gears over the last year and polishing up on my skills and knowledge again.Ok, so back to the Kanha trip, finally i have been able to pull together a plan for this for next month with 5 of my management school buddies who are now located in and around Mumbai. The ones agreed to join so far is Joe, Thomas, Girish and Vivek. Tentative schedule we all agreed to so far is April 3rd to April 6th, in and out of Nagpur.

But wait, if you have stayed with me this far, and cant figure what i am talking about this place called ‘Kanha’, let me give you a brief introduction. Kanha is one of the few last refuge left out to nature, or thats what i hope since i have not been there since 1992. Its a 2000 Sq Km, national park at the heart of MP state of India. Its still quite difficult to reach this park, nearest airport is 270Km away at Nagpur, the orange capital of India. Kanha is home to 100 or so Tigers, several other kind of wild life and 300 or so type of bird species. ‘The Jungle Book’ written by Rudyard Kipling was based on the jungles of Kanha and if you travel through the forests you can still find few of the places as described in the book. Kanha is part of the Tiger Belt that cuts across MP with few other national parks like Bandhabgarh and Pench. Tiger is the flag ship of the jungle, its healthy presence proves the echo system is well balanced, this few parks holds major chunk of the wild tigers known to men in the world. Despite several projects like ‘Project Tiger’ and other official and un-official efforts the Tiger population has been declining all over India, some parks has been already poached clean of tigers, and from several reports i read over the web, even Kanha is now facing major threats from this poachers who kills them to sell to China and Mongolia. Who knows how many years more this beautiful animals will be seen in the wild and this makes this trip more urgent and important to me personally. I have seen how the quality of jungle deteriorate after the Tiger population disappears from my visit to few parks in India, notably Simlipal a place close to my hometown in eastern India

Progress in Planning:

So far so good, one of the classmate Vivek just informed that he would like to drop off the list, as something urgent came up. Still awaiting response from the Resort for booking confirmation. Its end of day 17th March, i think we need to finalize everything in the next few days. Tentatively we are going with this resort run by Indian Adventures by the name of Wild Chalet Resort, been there last time i visited but not sure how well they maintained it over the years, bit worried that my friends used to city star hotels might be disappointed, lets see how it goes. One good thing goign for this hotel is the location beside the river and Erich the manager, i meet him before and wonderful person and his knowledge of Kanha and the tigers makes up for some of the shortcomings of the resort if any, he actually knew some of the tigers by names, ya, they do give names and can recognize seeing there faces, go figure.

Just remembered to remind Ankur and his friend in Nagpur to confirm with the Qualis, that we will be taking them on the 4th morning and return by 6th April 4pm, having a good reliable car for the 270km ride is crucial, also would be good to have a friendly driver who would stop if we find a nice scene photograph. Update 20th March:boy, is it hard or is it hard…to arrange something with companies in India. Being from there and knowing how it works its testing my emotions again. After some deliberations we decided to go with Indian Adventures, Wild Chalet Resort at Kanha. but once i started communicating with there Mumbai head office things started becoming so difficult, that i started wondering how do they even stay in business. With us at office focusing on improving our response rate on 24 x 7 basis to our clients and constantly working on how to make it happen constantly and be monitored, its a very different story with our friends at this company. Not really blaming the company but let me take you through a brief overview to understand it better. Wrote a mail week ago and got a very comprehensive response from one of there sales person, he got back to me and practically sold me to the resort and offer etc. Then i tried to confirm with my friends on the exact date and all and finally could get a fix for 4th to 6th April, good so far, then i tried to write to the same ID and the mails started bouncing back. i even got a mail from the sales guy asking i need to confirm asap of they might not have a room any more, so i tried emailing again and again and it always bounced back with some or other error message. i found the cell number and called this person, he unfortunately was on a train and said will get back asap.Towards the end of that day i got another mail from same email address but different person, a sales lady, saying sorry for the inconvenience but we dont have a room for 4th April, please come from 1 to 4th and we can accommodate……. hehe….. i dont know what to say to that. i tried calling them the lady and could not get through, she does not pick up her cell phone which i got calling there office and there office persons has no clue how to help me. great!  and same none of the emails can be send to there resort. great again! i am not totally lost, started checking the other resort options.

Next morning checking there website i found a page that has the direct resort number, that i did not expect, since when i was there last time there was no phone or cellphone, so that was a pleasant surprise, i immediately called them up and what a pleasant surprise not only i could get through to them, i could talk to there front desk with a gentleman named Dilip and could make all the booking and arrangements without a problem, no talk of room shortage or being sold out etc. makes you wonder whats wrong with there head-office. A few typical process is remaining for the booking, they cant process Credit Card so will have to do some old fashioned process with Demand Draft and all.

anyways so far so good, hope it remains that way.

Update on 22nd March:

Some more progress and the trip started looking more real now. Air ticket booking for all 4 of us are confirmed and paid for. Ankurs friend confirmed about the Qualis also and he has managed to get an additional discount and brought down the price from Rs.7K to 5.5K, great. Now remains the hotel for overnight stay at Nagpur, one Obvious choice is ‘The Pride’ just by the airport, but there are some bad reports about it on the different travel blogs, that the rooms smell old and moldy kind. Ankur will find out from his friend on the ground if there is any other option near-by or if the rooms have been renovated at ‘The Pride’.

But said that, Joe is yet tentative about the whole thing, lets see.

Update 25th March:

Ok, finally joe confirmed, though still complaining about the long travel time from Nagpur to Kanha as he will be travelling back the next day.

We are still to confirm the booking with the hotel as making a DD and sending to the hotel by fax is not as simple as it sounds in India, welcome to the everything a bit harder and longer line nation. Not really complaining, over that stage long time ago, just stating the fact. Joe’s assistant went to SBI and asked for a Demand Draft paying in cash the amount and bank fees, but the bank send him back saying cant do it unless he has an account with there branch. So there it goes one more day lost and hope the hotel will hold on the booking, joe things they will, as they also expect such kind of incidences.