One-Horned Rhinos, Here We Come!

We got up at half-past four in the morning. We got ready, checking if we packed everything or not, had a quick breakfast, got down, called a taxi and went straight to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Airport. As we were driven around the city, it was very quiet. There was no hustle and bustle. The roads were lit with yellow street lights. As we went further into the outskirts of Kolkata, the roads became smoother and cleaner. At about half-past five, we reached the airport. We took the entire luggage out and my dad paid the cab driver. My sister went to take a trolley, and placing all the bags on top of another, we walked up to the entrance. There, my dad showed the ticket and his driver’s license to the guard standing there, while I was intently looking at his large rifle. I was mildly impressed by the fact that those people could use guns and rifles whenever they thought it was necessary.

We went in and Appa (as I call my dad) stood in the queue where the ground workers give us our boarding passes. We finally reached the end of the queue. As the lady behind the counter typed in something in the computer and produced four boarding passes for a Jet Airways flight, the guy over there weighed our baggage in and placed it on the carrousel, taking our bags with it as it slowly started to move.

We went up to the first floor and in for security-checking. Appa went to the men’s queue while myself, Amma (as I call my mom) and Akka (as I call my sister) went to the women’s queue. Each one of us went through to a small cubicle-like room, where curtains served as makeshift walls, and the lady-guard checked us with black rod-like things which beeped every two seconds (it beeped continuously if it found any metal in one of our pockets, just so you know).

We met outside and took our bags. We waited for boarding in the waiting-room. About twenty minutes later, we heard the announcement, ‘All passengers departing from Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Airport in Kolkata to Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Guwahati are requested to proceed to Gate No. 5 for boarding.’ We just sat there, waiting for the line to form. Until the last moment, we sat there. Then, when there were only a few people left, we went and stood in the queue. The lady checked the passes and we were allowed inside the long tunnel-like thing.

We were greeted by ladies in blue uniform. We found our seats and sat down, fastening our seat belts. We prepared for the one-hour journey in front of us, praying that time would go by quickly.

At half-past seven, exactly one hour later, we landed in Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Guwahati. After we collected all our belongings, we were met by Appa’s close friend, Dilip Sarma, at the airport. All the adults bought small cups of tea and drank it slowly, as it was steaming hot.

Our plan was to directly go to Kaziranga from there. Luckily, good old Dilip uncle arranged a car with his loyal driver, Digonto. In side it, there was this huge food basket, which had everything, except vegetables. It contained fruits, biscuits, chocolates, a loaf of bread, jam, butter, pistachios and also, a knife to cut the bread and spread the butter or jam over it.

We bid good-bye to Dilip uncle, and his driver drove us to Kaziranga. It was a five-hour drive, give or take some minutes, considering the time interval Akka felt uneasy (‘ulti’ in Hindi, apparently) and wanted to vomit. We also stopped the car just one hour before reaching Kaziranga, because on the way, there was a view-point from where we saw many one-horned rhinoceroses and swamp deer.

One hour later, we were at Kaziranga! Instead of going to Wild Grass, where we were going to stay, we directly went to Kaziranga National Park. We learnt later that the national park has three ranges. On that day, we went for a car safari through Kohora range. We saw many wild elephants, swamp deer and, of course, the one-horned rhinoceros. The safari took nearly two hours.  On the way back, we saw something we never imagined to see. There were about two other vehicles, and all the people inside were looking at the rhinoceros which was passing the road!

I could not believe my eyes. She was on our path, eating grass. She got frustrated that we were all staring at it, and more upset when she found out that her child rhino had not come. So, she again went back into the grasslands, and together, Mother Rhino and Kid Rhino passed through the trail into the grasslands on the other side. It was a magnificent sight, which was too hard to believe!

About two hours later, we checked-in at Wild Grass and went to our rooms. We had booked two, one for Amma and Appa, and one for Akka and me. The rooms looked really beautiful. It had wooden floors and two neatly-arranged beds. The bulbs were enclosed within conical, bamboo baskets. The bathrooms were also very clean (something we did not expect).

After having a hot, soothing bath, Akka and I sat on our beds and read books. I was reading ‘The Mystery of the Blue Train’ by Agatha Christie and Akka was reading ‘The Three Mistakes of My Life’ by Chetan Bhagat, which she had read a hundred times before.

When all of us were going to dinner, we heard a type of rhythm somewhere in the compound. We walked up to the place where the sound was coming from, and what we saw were a dozen girls, roughly my age, in some traditional colourful Assamese clothing, dancing to the beats of a drum, which a man was hitting. There were other spectators. From them, we learnt that the dance was called Bihu. It was really interesting to see. Luckily, there was also a bonfire. We sat and watched until it was over. After that, we went for dinner, which was HORRIBLE! This is the only problem when vegetarians travel to the northeast- no good veg. food. We tried to have something and went back to our rooms. As the food basket was only half-empty, each one of us had two slices of bread, and then, went to sleep.

The next day was very cold and sunny. In the morning, we went to the Mihimukh range of Kaziranga National Park, where we mostly saw birds. This included the very rare, rainbow-coloured Indian roller, parrots, cranes, herons and pelicans.

In the evening, we went for an elephant safari. We saw many swamp deer, rhinoceroses, wild boars and buffaloes. It was something I had never experienced before, and not going to experience any time soon. So I cherished every moment of it.

We were told by the local people there about a small bit of history of Kaziranga. There was a girl named Ranga and a boy named Kazi who fell in love. Every day, they met in the forest. But one day, they did not return. So, all the locals over there started calling that place Kaziranga. Cute story.

That night, I slept long and hard, because the next day, we were going to drive back to Guwahati.