My World of Food and Travel

We were chatting over tea at my sister’s house while both our toddlers were fighting over the same toy. Ma and Deta (my mom and dad) were playing the indulgent grandparents when the talk shifted to Deta’s adventures in the jungle. None of us knew much about them. “Tell them about that elephant and how you had a narrow escape,” Ma egged him on. I told her that I already knew about the elephant which had destroyed Deta’s Jeep. “No, no,” she waved her hand. “That elephant you had met when you were returning from the jungle on foot.” Deta strained his mind to go back to the incident which had occurred some four decades ago. Finally, he seemed to recall and began to narrate it to us. It was on a hot summer evening in July in Manas Wildlife Sanctuary, at around 10.00-10.30 pm, that Deta and three of his staff had finished patrolling on elephant-back and decided to return. They alighted from the elephants once they were almost out of the jungle and reac...

I think it was an advertisement for Dhara Cooking Oil that coined the tagline ‘My Daddy Strongest’. It suits my dad so aptly. He has always been the strongest, in all spheres of his life. He spent over 18 years amidst wildlife in Manas Wildlife Sanctuary, the period has today come to be known as a sort of ‘Golden Era’ for the sanctuary. He has so many stories about his life in the jungle but he never shared them with us. We would later learn about them from members of his staff and his juniors.  Most of the stories I have heard about his adventures in the jungle come from my mom. I can imagine what a shock it might have been to my mom, a new bride from the city, on the ways of the jungle. Deta (that’s what I call my dad) was a ruthless officer. He held no mercy for the poachers. Cries of anguish would often reach Ma’s ears from the forest office, where Deta carried out his punishment on the poachers. She would hear the poachers cry out “ Aru namaribi, Sir ” (Please ...