The crisp and chill night breeze tunnels in through the partly unzipped tent flaps, forcing you to curl your icy toes deeper into the double blanket. Visible beyond the vent, unfold ghostly vistas. Like giant exclamation marks the bamboos punctuate the inky black horizon. A million stars sparkle, festooned across the Milky Way-sparkle and pulsate. Suddenly, like an apparition, the Flying Squirrel flashes into sight. Gliding and diving between the branches like a remote-controlled aero-model, the amazing mammals nocturnal display dazzles the senses.

       You are at Muthodi Nature Camp. Flush the swirling waters of the Somavahini in the Bhadra Wildlife Sanctuary. Spanning 492 square kilometers of moist deciduous in Karnatakas  Bababudan Range astride two contiguous districts in Karnataka, Shimoga and Chikmagalur. Fast asleep, within the warmth of the adjacent tents are nature lovers from many cities and towns of southern India. The diesel-fired generator has long since purred to silence. Only the low muffled bellow of a solitary stag, or an eerie creak from a hollow bamboo interrupts the quiet of the jungle night.

      Hark! The dawn whistle! Splash some freezing cold water on your frozen face, and come to wrap your benumbed fingers around steaming mugs of tea. The chug to life of the forest department van signals a frenzy of mobility. Quick grab your jerkin and join me for a hour long ride through the rough and tumble of the four-thousand foot high range in the Western Ghats. Groan over culverts, skirt around looming teak boles, skid over damp and dew. Pen in your log-book, the check-listing the sightings of your morning sojourn. List out amid lurches, as we careen down the slopes or sputter up the gorges. Your page reads like an extract from Rudyard Kipling: Scarlet Minivets, Green Barbets and Coppersmiths, Peafowl and Jungle Fowl, Bulbuls, Drongos, Hornbills, Orioles, Doves-spotted and rufuos, Kingfishers-spotted, blue and stork-billed, Bee-eaters, Shamas and Golden-backed Woodpeckers; Langurs and Wild Boars, Dholes, Cheetal, Sambar, Barking Deer and Giant Malabar Squirrelsand please add that solitary Bull Gaur that out-stared you, standing resplendent in the dawn sun like a monolith of black marble.

      Come,lets breakfast in the open-air bamboo tabled mess. Ready your boots and binoculars and follow the camp guide as he leads us on a ten kilometer trek. Up the boulder strewn screes and down the moss lined cairns. Identify the sheer Tectona grandis, the teak, the Ficus mysorensis and the thorny thicket of Bambusa arundinaceaand dont miss that sinuous strangler fig! Pause at the much-stomped salt-lick. Whats that? Wow! A panthers pug? This calls for a plaster cast. Observe too, the plate sized footprints of the elephant. Spoor, and scat science. Foot-weary and boot-sore, grumble back to the campsite. The never weary, ever smiling guide is busy overturning a wet rock or two. Dexterously he maneuvers a slithering specimen into the confines of his haversack.

      Somavahini beckons! Splurge and splash, dive and delve. The tepid waters and gurgling cataracts eddy round your tired feet. Half submerged watch the dainty skippers and danaids, the Bluebottles and Blue Mormons flit across to sun themselves languorously on the outcrops. Lunch awaits hungry appetites. Spicy and steaming. Somnolent? No me!

       Group discussions and resumes on the morning rambles. Nature games amuse the young. You and I to watch the Giant Malabar Squirrels, wooing and waltzing as they scramble over ridiculously slender sky-high twigs. A dusky haze envelops the scenario. The evening sun sets the once-azure skies afire with gold. The wheeze of the Scopps Owl.sip your tea.the staccato chucks of the Nightjar. Stifle a yawn. The hiccups of the camp generator heralds twilight and nightfall to the capers, the piercing calls of the Red-wattled Lapwings does so for the denizens of the forest.

      Come on, pick up your torch and come along to the near-by Salim Ali Corridor. Within the dark confines of this tile-roofed cottage, which doubles as a makeshift museum, cram and squat amidst stuffed muggers, tigers and sloth bears. Lose yourself in the slide show and video on nature and wildlife. Any questions? None today. Vacuous stomachs want no time wasted on mind-expanding exertions. Wait! Hold itthats the camp director ordering assembly. From out of his sack he deftly extricates three wriggling slimy serpents. This fellow is a hump-nosed viper, and this one a Malabar Pit Viper.and he pulls out another from his jacket pocket- a Shield-tail. Suddenly, hunger is all forgotten. A hundred questions have to be asked and satisfactorily answered! The session ends with a gentle reminder that supper toots have long been sounded. Novice campers are assured that the morrow will see the reptiles free.

      Weary goodnight wishes. Muffled conversations. A slumbering little camper is toted on wiling shoulders to his numbered tent cot. The petering out coughs of the generator heightens the decibel of the cacophonous cicadas. A hush descends. I am not asleep yet, and if arent toowe could wait awhile right here, under the star-spangled and starlit canopy. If we wait long enough, and remain silent enough too, we may well hear a dull crack in the branches above, and be treated to an exclusive exhibition of aerodynamics of the prodigy rodent Icarus, the Flying Squirrel.

    This Nature Camp ends tomorrow. From these moist dark confines we return to stark and dank concrete cubicles. Let us shake hands and exchange addresses, and pledge to cement the bonds we have forged here, in Muthodi. If wishes could be willed to, we could all be here again next summer. We have learnt many lessons here-to live as one with nature, and more importantly, to live as one with each other.

Note: The Muthodi Nature Campsite is situated about 30 kms from Chikmagalur coming under the Wildlife Division of Shimoga and Bhadra Sanctuary. It remains one of the few still un-spoilt and pristine habitats in South India. It boasts of elephants, bisons, panthers, wild dogs, tigers, birds of many hued and butterflies.and reptiles.

Postcript: Last evening as I was rummaging through my papers I came across a sheaf of yellowed chits of paper. The bundle contained the remarks, comments and observations I had collected from the camping children at Muthodi in 1989. In a childlike scrawl one seven year old had scribed, Uncle, we all were thrilled to hear an elephant blowing his own trumpet..  I just shook my head, and smiled to myself. Innocence.

Suddenly the page in front of me became a wee bit hazy now, now, is that a tear brimming in my eye, clouding my vision?

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reprinted from: WW-India Nature News / Camping at Muthodi, 1989 / Arunachalam Kumar