An armyman at Keoladeo

The first impression of the town was not at all impressive. It8217;s like any other Indian town with narrow and dusty roads full of potholes, ponds of stagnant, greenish, dirty water, stray dogs running up and down aimlessly, hawkers and cattle occupying a good portion of the road and garishly made-up girls hunting for clients in the red light area. The state transport bus stand at the far end of the city wears a forlorn look. A straight narrow strip of main road, which runs through the entire township, divides the town. Fruit market, vegetable market, grain market, temples, garment stores and automobile showrooms, eateries, cinema theatre and police chowki are located on this stretch of road.

Into the twilight zone and the town gears up to do some business. Suddenly, the main road comes alive, and men and women pour in in hordes, as if the entire town is out on a shopping spree. Eating joints are full of people. Juicy jalebis vanish as fast as they are fished out of the kadai. Barely two hours into business and the seth is already packing up, burying his neck deep into the gulla, raking in the moolah.

The only place townsmen boast of, of course, apart from the bird sanctuary, are the two ancient temples, built by the Maharaja of Bharatpur. The sandstone structures are simply marvelous, as are the carvings. Inscriptions written in English and Hindi at the Devi temple say it was built in the British era. However, with the passage of time and apparent neglect, the temple is losing its splendour. A portion of the temple is crumbling, with peepal saplings sprouting on the walls of the sanctum sanctorum. The Gopalkrishna temple, however, is in a slightly better condition.

The Keoladeo bird sanctuary, or the ghara, as the locals call it, is just 5 km away from the town. The best time for bird watching is at dawn, we were told. So here we were, much before sunrise. It was a chilly winter morning and the roads to the sanctuary were full of health-conscious locals jogging in twos and threes.

The favoured mode of transport in the sanctuary is the cycle-rickshaw, as it is pollution-free and noiseless. Our puller, the turbaned Charan Singh, was a walking encyclopedia. His knowledge about birds was astonishing. A feeble noise behind the lush green leaves of a peepal tree alerted him to spot green pigeons, almost invisible with the naked eye. As we stre-tched out our rubber necks, he pulled out binoculars for us. A slight murmur in the grass and he stopped the rickshaw, warning us to be silent and pointed his finger towards the black snake-bird, perched atop a driftwood, wings spread apart. As we proceeded from dry land to the marshy area, it was like stepping into a different world. Thousands of birds of all hues and sizes, from the tiny munia to the huge cranes and saurus, were in attendance.

And as the retreat began, Charan Singh furnished another piece of information. The last large-scale hunting of birds was done here by none other than an army top brass, before shooting was banned. This particular reference flashed in the mind as I read that the ammunition dump at Bharatpur has been destroyed in a fire. Was it a curse of those winged beauties who fell to the armyman8217;s bullets?