The Sunderbans - Paradise Preserved

So, this was a family trip after a long time, probably the last time we had a family trip was back when I was in Class 10th (yes, like a typical Indian child, I count my life not in years, but in Classes) to Rajasthan, that too was without dada (for the uninitiated to Bengali, it means brother). So, it was after a long while that we were all free at the same time of the year, and I suggested the Sunderbans to my father when he asked me about whether I'd like to go to Sikkim (no offence to Sikkim, but I'd just been to Dalhousie, a hill station, recently).

So, we went on a Government-owned cruise boat. As with everything that has the word "Government" associated with it, dada and I did not have many expectations out of this ship, the Sarbajaya. But we were fairly surprised. The ship was small, by among the much smaller fishing boats and day-only cruises, it was quite large. The lower deck looked like a railway compartment, and the toilets were small, but clean (that, of course, was the biggest relief). The upper deck was done like a small restaurant.

Of course, we had to travel 3 hours by bus to reach the place where we went up on the cruise, Sonakhali. The bus journey was particularly painful, and by the time I reached Sonakhali, my enthusiasm for the cruise had been lost already. And then the cruise started on the river. The first few moments were sheer joy - the cold wind kissing my skin, and soon we entered the "core" area of the Sunderbans (basically, uninhabited land). Dada had expected the Sunderbans to be marshy, but it really felt like a huge ocean and big islands in the ocean. The islands, of course, were fully of dense mangrove forests. Oh, that reminds me - Sunderbans is named after the Sundari (Mangrove) tree.

We stopped at a watch tower in the evening. People were searching for tigers, but I always knew that on such trips, searching for tigers is like searching for toothpicks in a desert. Some people got too excited, calling crab holes as tiger footprints. So, we all went back to the cruise. By seven at night, it was dead cold, the wind was as cold as it gets in Delhi, and I was on the upper deck, sitting in the cold wind (mainly because I was having breathing issues in the lower deck). We stopped at another watch tower for the night, and after a rather good dinner, we slept on board, while the ship was anchored.

Early next morning, we visited two watch towers. In the first one, we saw a rather shy crocodile. Now, tigers I knew we wouldn't see, but I was really hoping for a few crocs on the river, but what we could see were just eyes and a snout. That, my friends, is what disappointment is. This morning, we were going near this German family. They didn't understand English, and despite doing a diploma course in the language (which I usually don't attend), I couldn't understand German. It was only later in the day when the little girls were practicing their numbers did I realise that they were speaking German. There was also another European couple (probably French or Polish), but I barely interacted with them. And in this way, about two dozen tiger-hoping-but-disappointed humans came back at around noon.

So, it was twenty four hours on the sea (yes, the river was as broad as a sea. At times, the eye couldn't even see the other bank). At first, to be back on land was a bitter-sweet feeling. Yes, I wanted to be back all the while, but finally when getting down, it felt like a transition from peace to the noise of human existence. The Sunderbans are still dense, still beautiful and enigmatic. By the time my mind was getting used to that kind of peace, it was all over. And now it is back to the rigmarole of college-life-exams. How I wish there was a middle path between the two. Probably that is there for me to discover.

So, all in all, the Sunderbans is a place worth visiting once in a lifetime. Of course, no big bangs on this trip, just the whole experience of a river cruise (you can also, of course, go on the luxury cruises that cost about 20 thousand per person). How highly would I rate this trip? Decent, not as good as a history-rich Rajasthan sounds to a history buff like me, but its as close to undisturbed forests as you get. You obviously don't get into the forests, and that kind of adds to the entire enigma of the forests. Probably there was a free royal bengal tiger lurking just 10-odd metres from you. You'll never know. And like so many things in life, some questions are better left unanswered.