Tryst with Pobitora: some cheers

The roads are bumpy, dusty and what not. Normal journey with this background would have been a cumbersome exercise indeed. But a golden January sunshine made us forget these at least for two hours on the way to Pobitora Sanctuary on Wednesday.  

The weather was fine. But the timing was wrong. The season was fine. But the day falls on the eve of the Magh Bihu. That’s why, the abode of one horn rhino, wild bores and buffalos along with lots of migratory birds was not throbbing with tourists footfalls. Accompanied by a forest guard our seven seater jeep gradually moved inside the sanctuary. Much to our excitement, we came to spot four rhinos grazing beside a hard of wild buffalos in the open field.

Another one horn animal was seen wallowing in neck deep mud silently in a waterbody. After a brief halt, we resumed the journey. The expectation reached the flashpoint when a full grown pride of Assam started gazing at us from a point blank range forcing us to halt till it cleared the road. After a few careful snapshots, our vehicle reached another swath of excitement---a family of wild bores. The group had three bores along with at least four dappled pigs. All they dispersed as soon as we started moving close to them albeit we were at a stone’s throw distance.

The pythons and king cobras remained out of our sight perhaps because of the inclement season. Then our hearts leaped up when we got a good glimpsed of flocks after flocks of birds ----both of home and abroad chirping at a water body. On our way back on the road side our eyes struck at a female rhino with a calf. With a heavy mind full of the flashback of the every tiniest moments we left the Pobitora sanctuary. The disassociation is physical. But the golden moments will remain evergreen in the whole vistas of our memories.