BIRD WATCHING

Almost 24 years ago,I joined Sion hospital for my post-graduation course in paediatrics. Our lecturers and Professors did an ice-breaker session with us to get to know each other well. There was a questionnaire to be filled by us and one of the question was What's your hobby?? my answer to this was "Bird Watching". My colleagues and to a certain extent my lecturers understood what I meant by my hobby. My HOD oblivious to the sarcasm even invited me to her place to watch and share my knowledge about birds as she stayed at a place which had lot of trees. I never dared to accept her invitation and  share my rudimentary knowledge about birds as I lacked every bit of it.

After almost a decade as I was into midst of demanding practice, read about Namdapha. As I had trekked many a times in Himalayas in the past and Namdapha was about exploring the jungle and that too on foot. I had never trekked in a jungle and this was something unique so myself along with couple of my trek-mates registered for the journey during the month of February. We were going with BNHS(Bombay Natural Historical Society). For some reason our briefing couldn't happen and were told to meet at Paltan bazar in Gauhati in Assam.

Namdapha forest is an evergreen and one of the most diverse forest in India. Infact this place is so remote and if one sees on the map, this is where our country borders with Tibet and Myanmar. Our plan was to reach the basecamp called Miao and then explore the jungle for next 5 days on foot. My group of twenty most of them in their 50s but looked more than that and thus I was little sceptical about their endurance as far as trekking was considered. There appearances was more of a Professors or Scientists and had hardly any resemblance to hard-core trekkers. Our team had two charismatic leaders Mr Issac Kehimkar and Mr Nikhil Bhopale. Post breakfast at Miao,we started our trek.

Within next ten minutes we three were warmed up and started gaining speed when a young lad,a porter, running after us and advised us to turn back. To my astonishment there was no one behind us and was not surprised as not a single fellow remotely looked like a trekker and this was going to be 5 days trek in a jungle. 'Issac ne bulaya hai' the lad said in a very different accent,an accent I was new to, as I was to this state, Arunachal Pradesh,one of the remotest but very beautiful place in our country.

As we approached my group who had gathered in one corner and looking somewhere up on the trees intermittently with the big size binoculars which I had never seen in my life. What they are upto?? Are we here for the trek or just to do some time pass?? How can these guys take a break when the trek has just begun. 'Kaay doctor kuthe paltaay'(Where are you running away, doctor) asked Nikhil,a young, charismatic, skinny guy in his late twenties. 'We are here for birding and not for trekking' and this sentence came as a shocker for 3 of us. The rest of the gang were scanning us above downwards with their invisible laser beams. We were here for Bird Watching trip or a Birding trip and not for a trek, for that we needed to hike in this diverse forest of Namdapha. Bird Watching,I remembered by Sion hospital ice breaking session and thus was going to live with my so called hobby in literal sense for the next five days and with me were senior birdirs of our country and to lead them were top two naturalist from BNHS,Nikhil Bhopale,a birding expert (written a book) and Issac Kehimkar (butterfly man of India) senior naturalist and encyclopaedia on Butterflies,and here we were, absolutely novice, raw, naive and elementary as far as watching birds was concerned. That day I came to know the sheer difference between 'Bird Watching and Watching Birds'.

My knowledge about birds then was at the kindergarten level i.e. from Crow, pigeon,parrot to sparrow. Till then I had never seen our national bird in wild too. Though we're asked to get a binoculars, I was hesitant and equally ashamed to remove it from my backpack. My binoculars were from the road side seller on a crowded pavement at Chowpatty all for hundred bucks after hard bargaining. But this is where I learnt plenty of life lessons. 'More the knowledge....more the modesty'. The birders were very accommodative to say the least. One of them gave an extra binoculars and they started teaching us from the basics with help from books and a  birding telescope. From just a sound they were identifying the species and after seeing the birds they could identify it's actual name,sex and age. In the evening we used to discuss our sightings and I was privy to it by listing the numbers. And it was around 300. Amazing isn't it! It was all new for me.

For next five days we kept on moving our necks similar to an owl's and seeing new birds every now and then. Tracing a bird through a super zoom binoculars is an art as most of the birds are camouflaged. The second lesson I learnt was 'Silence is Golden' and started learning to whisper,an art I have nicely imbibed whenever I visit jungles. Here we used to call each other by names even if you are someone senior,professor, CEO of any company or for that matter our porter. No Sir, Madam, uncle or aunty here we were all naturalists. We are all equal in front of mighty nature.

Namdapha opened my eyes to a new world. A world I never knew existed. To see different types of birds with different shapes size colour sounds and lifestyles,from Sultan(Sultan tit,a beautiful bird with yellow crown) to Helen(a beautiful native butterfly and the famous Hoolock Baboons which are considered endangered. We visited the tribals who have a different lifestyle and were oblivious to the world we live in. Hiking in that dense diverse jungle watching out for the sound and sight, an amateur like me was doing good progress. This particular trip changed my lookout and I started loving wildlife more than ever. Till today I have visited plenty of wildlife sanctuaries and done lot of birding. My seniors from Namdapha would be proud of. I give them credit for introducing me to this world.

I came back to Mumbai and very next day went to the Bora Bazaar and purchased a Nikon 10*50 binoculars and a birding book by none other than Salim Ali saab. The very next Sunday morning I was at Maharashtra Nature park at Dharavi with my newly acquired binoculars and the birding book when a cell phone rang. On the opposite side was a sweet voice of my HOD from Sion hospital 'Mandar kaay kartoys tu??' I replied....'Bird Watching'