Navegaon National Park, Maharashtra

The Flame of the Forest or the palash (Butea monosperma) is blooming in Vidarbha. The crimson orange flowers, standing out from bare branches, spread colour on an otherwise drab and tired landscape, offering respite to travellers in the 40 degrees C heat.

The Flame of the Forest is sacred for Hindus. "Among the trifoliate leaves, the middle leaflet is believed to represent Vishnu and the two lateral ones are Brahma and Shiva. The wood and leaf stalks of palash are used in havans (sacred fire) and the tree symbolises the moon, say Marselin Almeida and Naresh Chaturvedi in their book The Trees of Mumbai.

Elsewhere, at the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, the Melghat Tiger Reserve and the Navegaon National Park the forests are blushing waiting for April to burst into flowers. The Mahua is in fruit and one watched tribal men and women picking the forest floor for the whitish yellow marble-size fruit. In April, the tree will flower and the sloth bears will make their visits. The first maroon coloured leaves of the kusum can be spotted now, before they turn green in the summer months. At Navegaon National Park, Bhimsen Sreenarayan Dongarwar took us to a tribal temple with the interior crowded with white coloured horses made of earth.

"The Gond tribals will not cut a tree if anyone places a white horse in front of it. The tree becomes inviolate," explained Bhimsen. Kishor Rithe and this writer started with an evening visit to the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve where the guides talked of two tigresses with kids roaming the interiors though we did not see them. One did hear the alarm and rutting calls of the chital and saw a few of them along with sambhars, blue bulls (neelgai) and two barking deer.

In the morning sitting on the veranda of the forest guesthouse, one watched birds stir with the sunrise. We were amused by an orange-headed ground thrush moving up and down the more than 60-year-old jamun tree a few feet away from the veranda, while a squirrel dared to come up to the plastic chair this writer was occupying. Generally, the birds search the underside of leaves for insects or worms for a free breakfast.

Having tea at the tea-shop, one was surprised by a black-headed golden oriole and a couple of tree pipits. Sometimes one forgets the cup of tea on the table as bird movements grab one's being. In Melghat, there is the Centre called the Muthawa with its flat-roofed bamboo and mud hut, where time waits for one to spend.

On World Forest Day (March 21), Nishibhau, Kishor and I spent a late evening on an elevation in the 20-acre campus. "At around 7 p.m., the owls will call for about 15 minutes and then fall silent busy searching for rodents and snakes. A good owl population is a positive statement on the forest," said Kishor and sure enough the owls called from various parts of the forest. Possibly, in another two years, when the Centre turns green and the trees gain girth, the owls will surely shift residence and come nearer. We slept on the roof of the hut and by about 10 p.m. had to cover ourselves with two rugs each as temperatures dropped.

A moon, scooped like a watermelon, wrested a part of the sky, while the stars and planets took their appointed seats for Nishibhau to give a short talk on astronomy. After identifying the Dhruva nakshatra and the Seven Rishis (saptarishi), Nishibhau was on his own scanning the skies when a satellite came into view. Not that this writer understood much.

Being a college lecturer, Nishibhau has the skill to keep one tuned in though one is not sure if his students at the engineering college will agree. But for me, Nishibhau is a must on any forest trip. While others snored off, one kept awake watching the sky and recalled the famous rhyme: "Twinkle, twinkle little star/ How I wonder what you are/ Up above the world so high/ Like a diamond in the sky." At school, no teacher showed the sky. On this night, the lines made sense and one wondered whether humankind has moved much beyond the anonymous poetry.

Getting up early, we readied for the sun to risein the eastern sky. We take a new day without a doubt, a sunrise is a given and are sure the routine will be stuck to even while human beings deface Planet Earth. The enormity of our easy assumptions is felt when one is alone for a few moments in a forest or a mountain or at a beach. Aren't we taking Planet Earth for granted and that at some moment in the future it may not oblige?

From Melghat to Navegaon National Park is a six-hour drive. As we neared the Park, the driver applied the brakes noticing a sand boa crossing the road. We got down to watch the crawl of the creature and granted it safe passage into the dense foliage on the road's edge. The guesthouse at the Park is a two-tiered structure with our room touching the top of the trees.

In the morning, we were grateful witnesses to yet another sunrise (our third consecutive) over the Navegaon Bandh Lake.

Sipping tea, we noticed an iora hopping around on a bare tree. Before setting out for home, one spent the afternoon watching some 30 to 40 Hanuman langurs, kicking up a racket on the trees outside. Never for a moment they stayed still, with the little ones swinging from branch to branch.

P. Devarajan