“If only Narendar was here, we’d be doing much better at tracking this damn bird,” said a frustrated Ashish, as he lowered the binoculars and hopped off the perch.

Rohit picked up a flat stone and skipped it across the shallow waters of the river, mentally counting the number of skips. It was a mediocre attempt, well short of his record of fifteen skips.

For the past two hours, the two friends, amateur birdwatchers from Lucknow, had been trudging along the Kosi river, near the eastern rim of Corbett National Park. They were out, hoping to sight the Ibisbill, a dull grey bird, not more than 40 centimetres in length, usually found at lower heights in winters, wading in a mountain stream raking stones with its long, bright red, decurved bill.

“It’s quite easily alarmed, so you should be extra-careful,” their birding mentor, Narendar, had warned them. “If you manage to spot one you’ll probably find it at the same spot, where it spends long periods picking up unsuspecting invertebrates that float by,” he had elaborated.

Ashish and Rohit had been setting out from the fishing lodge every morning at five o’clock for three days now but had had no luck. The lodge they were staying in overlooked the Kosi river and was accessible only over a make-shift wooden bridge that was swept away during the monsoons, quarantining the lodge for five months. The isolation made the lodge attractive to birds. The hut they were staying in, they were informed, was just slightly off the path taken by a herd of wild elephants. The previous year, the elephants had found a hut directly in their path and had leaned on it and pushed it into the river.

“I hope they don’t take a fancy to this one!” Rohit had exclaimed when he heard the story.

“Don’t worry, sir,” the naturalist at the lodge had reassured them. “They stick to their lane…not like Delhi drivers,” he said, laughing at his own joke.

“The gajraj always warns us,” the maali had chipped in. “The leader of the herd always rings the bell of the temple on the way,” he said pointing to the temple that had been created on the base of two giant Semal trees.

The look on the naturalist’s face had told them that this was probably just a folklore to impress city dwellers.

It had been three days, and Ashish and Rohit had not spotted an Ibisbill yet. They had been presented with many interesting sights during their early morning trips. They had spotted the Golden Mahseer and the giant catfish, Goonch, in the pools of the Kosi. They had watched a Ghoral, a shy goat antelope, standing aloft a cliff on the opposite bank, looking majestic and almost spiritual. They had seen otters and the Serow, another rare and shy goat antelope. But the Ibisbill had eluded them, and in desperation their thoughts had turned to Narendar.

“Any idea how he manages to spot so much?” Rohit asked.

“Maybe he sniffs them out,” said Ashish, who was a banker and himself had quite a nose for debts that were about to go bad.

“I don’t think so. Maybe some things he can, but not birds that are flying two hundred feet overhead with a strong wind carrying off their scent,” said Rohit, settling down on a large flat rock, tired by the hour-long uphill trek. He carefully arranged his camera bag on a rock, opened the thermos and poured two cups of tea.

“I think he reads the jungle, like a book, you know, taking into account temperature, humidity, cloud cover, angle of the sun, things like that, feeling the pulse of the jungle somehow,” said Rohit, passing Ashish his cup of tea.

“Narendar’s Jungle Book, that’s nice. Okay, that’s a plausible theory, but how does it explain the Gauri incident?” Ashish was referring to a trip that they had taken with Narendar and some other friends two years ago.

The ‘Tiger Tamers’, as they had called their group, were traveling in a convoy of three jeeps in the jungles of Corbett, not too far from where Ashish and Rahul were at the moment. Narendar, who was in the leading jeep, had suddenly shouted “Stop!” This was unusual for one who would mostly just listen quietly. The surprised driver had reacted instantly and applied the brakes hard with the other jeeps following suit. Most people thought that a tiger had been sighted and asked by gestures where it was. Binoculars were at everyone’s eyes, and cameras were on the ready.

Suddenly, a mature mother elephant had emerged, from the forest cover, barely 20 metres ahead, with two calves in tow. The driver’s eyes had shown panic and he had frantically waved to the rear jeeps to reverse as he had put his jeep in the reverse gear. The elephant had now come on to the narrow path and had stopped and turned towards the jeeps. The calves had scrambled back into the forest and were out of sight. The guide muttered under his breath, “Please, no movement, no camera.” All this while, the jeeps were inching backwards. All eyes were on the elephant. The mother took two steps towards the jeeps as if demanding a little more space. Then she stood still for a while, watching the jeeps inch backwards. When she was satisfied, she motioned imperceptibly with her trunk and the calves appeared, scrambling behind her as she crossed the road towards the river.

“That was so awesome!” Ashish had said.

“No sir, it’s a relief!” said the guide, solemnly. He had then told the group about Gauri, the elephant they had just encountered.

“About four days ago she stepped on the bonnet of a Scorpio. The Scorpio had got too close and the mother had charged. On reaching the Scorpio she put her foot on the bonnet, lifting the rear wheels off the ground. The front of the vehicle was flattened, but fortunately no one was seriously hurt,” he informed the startled group.

“She reacts like this when she sees a vehicle because a few years ago a calf of hers died because of a jeep being driven by a tourist. No, no, the jeep didn’t kill the calf. You see, the jeep turned a corner, and the calf, which was with the mother, was startled. It reacted in alarm and lost its footing and fell down a gorge. The mother stayed with the body for two full days, you know. Since then, she has been edgy around vehicles.”

“So, Narendar has saved our lives!” a friend had remarked.

The guide hadn’t liked that one bit; the jungle was his province.

“I had spotted it. I was keeping a close watch,” he said. “She recognises us, you know. It is these tourists who don’t know how to drive in a jungle that create the problems. You now, earlier people used to get off their vehicles and go into the jungle on foot. One foreigner was mauled by a tiger once and since then getting off the vehicles has been banned.”

Tourist or not, Narendar was treated like a hero by all the friends, but no amount of cajoling had made him reveal the secret. Just how did he know? All he had said was “I think I heard a rustle and a deep rumbling which didn’t sound nice at all.”

The next day, the guides had been a little more attentive to Narendar. Word had traveled through the jungle grapevine, and Narendar had found himself in the leading jeep, once again. As the group had gone around the jungle, there had been many false alarms. Jeeps would halt, reverse and dozens of eyes would stare at a spot where someone had seen a tail or ears popping out of the underbrush. After a few such comical halts, as the chater grew, Narendar had said, “I think a tiger is out hunting. We should hurry.”

“Kahaan, Sir?”, the guide had asked. “How would I know, it’s your forest, isn’t it?” Narendar had replied impishly. “Where will you find the barking deer? I can hear its alarm call,” he had said.

“You can?” asked the incredulous guide, and then cocking an ear and pretending to hear something he turned to the jeep behind him and said to its driver, “Deer bolta hai, jaldi chalo!”

After a quick conference, the drivers had scrambled the jeeps to where a large herd of deer had been spotted. When the jeeps reached the spot they had found the herd in a state of high tension, staring towards the jungle. The deer on the edges had their ears perked and were scanning the forest, intermittently letting out alarm calls. Some of the younger deer, towards the centre of the herd, grazed peacefully, unconcerned with the commotion. Suddenly, a yellow blur had shot out from the grass. The herd had dispersed at top speed and the tiger had given a short chase but didn’t manage a kill.

The guide in the jeep had turned to Narendar and said, “That was Rani, a three year old tigress. They are not always successful, you know.”

All Narendar had said was, “Hey, I can hear an Ibisbill!”

“I remember that trip, and the way the guide was trying to get one up on Narendar was quite funny” said Ashish, sipping the tea. “I was so impressed that I decided to make Narendar my guru. Remember the early days when he would take us to the banks of the Gomti?”

“Yeah,” said Rohit, skipping another stone, remembering the trips with Narendar, who would sit silently, and throw a challenge to the two friends, “The moorhens are mating. You should be able to spot one gifting weeds to impress the female.” A statement like that would be enough to account for hours of committed bird watching on the part of Ashish and Rohit.

Countless times, the friends had seen birds only because of Narendar’s ability to mimic them. “I remember once at the Okhla Pakshi Vihar, Narendar had mimicked the mating call of a pheasant-tailed jacana to such perfection that within minutes we had a responding call and the bird appeared within a few feet of us,” said Ashish.

It had become a game. When Narendar was in the mood, the friends would throw names of birds at him, challenging him to mimic their calls:

“Rufous treepie”
“ko-ki-la”

“Striated Laughingthrush”
“Hooooooo-weeeeee-chew”

“Red-fronted Rosefinch”
“Are-you-quite-ready, Are-you-quite-ready”

“Crested lark”
“Tuee-tuu-teeeooo”

“Red-vented bulbul”
“be-care-ful, be-care-ful”

“Black-crested bulbul”
“Weet-tre-trippy-weet”

“Stonechat”
“hweeet, tsak-tsak”

“Verditer Flycatcher”
“Tze-ju-jui”

“Golden Oriole”
“weela-whee-oh”

“It would have been great if he could have accompanied us on this trip. I’m quite fed up lugging all this equipment for three days,” said Rohit.

“Look at the bright side,” said Ashish. “You’ve managed to get a lot of interesting photographs, even if they are not of the Ibisbill.”

Rohit got up, wiped the dust off his trousers and motioned Ashish to follow him. As they headed back to the lodge, Rohit said, “I don’t know man, sometimes I catch myself thinking that I wouldn’t mind being blind too, if I could sense the jungle the way Narendar does.”