It was late evening, and the sun had already disappeared behind the trees. With ‘Sunset etched’ minds we mounted the wooden stair case of the ‘Elmar’ for tea and snacks. The light was fading fast now. Kerosene lamps were lit. A two hour session began at 7 by a group of folk singers with age old instruments on top of the deck. It was a mixture of folk tales, songs and dances. And I longing for some recluse went for a stroll. By 10 we finished dinner on the deck and retired. It was a simple but a memorable night in a cruising boat. Only when most of the group had left for the rest house was there silence. The boat intermittently jerked with mild shrieks, I opened and fixed the wooden pane. A splash of a cool gusty breeze pierced in. The clear night sky portrayed a myriad of stars. The air seemed unsullied and in abundance. The water pleasantly fluttered. A change in tides was taking its course. Nature had wrapped the Surroundings with conifer darkness. What lay at the back of the murky jungles appeared a mystery. Day 2 Our next morning cruise through the serpentine river channels commenced at quarter to eight with a number of stop overs in between. After a quick breakfast we scattered around the open deck with our cameras, sun glasses and drinks. As ‘Elmar’ violently jerked to life, we looked back, somewhat bemused to see our microbus driver as the captain of our ship. ‘Sinking of the Titanic is near’, I mocked in silence and was wrong. ‘Elmar’, attained the required permissions from the forest office, located just opposite to the Pakhiralaya village, and head for the jungle rendezvous. This boat cruise would last till sunset and during this period we will visit 3 islands falling under the Sundarbans National Park, Sajnekhali, Sudhanyakhali and Dobanki. Simultaneously, a forest guide will assist us from Sajnekhali point for bird watching and spotting wild life. Akin to Breakfast, lunch and other refreshments will be cooked and served on the boat. This massive cluster of low-lying islands in the Bay of Bengal spreads across India and Bangladesh. There are 102 islands in the 9630 sq. km. of the Sunderbans that falls in the Indian Territory. Approximately 4264 sq. km. of the total area remains under forest cover, while 2585 sq. kilometres of area forms the largest Tiger Reserve which is known as the National Park in India. The West Bengal part of the forest lies under the district of South & North 24 Parganas. The flora of Sunderbans is one of the major attractions; consisting of a large flora population like Sundari, Gewa, Dhundal, Passur, Garjan and Kankra along with the Impenetrable Goran trees covering almost the entire region. ‘How is it like to view it from the Bangladesh?’- asked my German friend on a whim. ‘More charming’ the writers reply was blunt, even though he didn’t mean it. Apart from the vegetation part most of it in Khulna is almost the same. The next remark was even haughtier when declared, ‘Sundarbans to Bangladeshis is what Blackforest is to the Germans.’ She smiled upon hearing. ‘As a matter of fact, international exposure of this largest chunk of tidal halophytic mangrove is known more through Bangladesh than India.’- I stopped and with a pause added further, ‘Bangladesh occupies 81% to India’s 19% of the total area of the Sundarbans.’ By then the Indian pair’s point of ‘affronted attention’ was the holiday-maker from Bangladesh. Realizing that, my way of explaining had an audacious touch, and that too, was in Indian waters in front of the Indians. I changed my track. Our first stopover was the Sajnekhali tiger reserve. It is a part of the Sunderbans National Park as well as a bird watcher’s paradise. The Sanctuary is situated on the confluence of Matla and Gumdi rivers; within the buffer zone extending over 885 sq km. March is not the ideal time for bird watching. The ideal season is ranged from September to May. We were shown around by an amiable forest guide who had spent over three decades working as a forest guide. To us He turned out to be a knowledge hub of this jungle; to me, he proved out to be a devoted fan of the former skipper of the Bangladeshi cricket team. Sakib-al-Hassan has spread out his aura even in to this dense woods. We as visitors were allowed to observe the crocodile enclosure, shark pond, turtle hatchery along with the Mangrove Interpretation Centre. There is also a tourist accommodation facility in Sajnekhali. After an hour of scrutiny we boarded our boat. Spotting the wild life is done through river cruises and we were lucky enough to see deer, monkeys and crocodiles. Among the birds there were herons, swamp partridge, kingfishers, and white-bellied eagles with a few other unknown species. Our group gathered a plethora of information from the forest guide. An Irony of this forest is that now it may be renowned as a UNESCO world heritage site, a little over a century ago, in 1911, was described as a tract of waste country by the British. Moreover, it had never been surveyed by them, nor had the census been offered to it. Human settlements in Sunderbans are believed to have started since the 16th century, and the area was mapped in 1764 after the British gained control of the delta from Mughal Emperor Alamgir II. Out Of the total 102 islands that went to India, the British cleared 54 of them for human settlements by erecting mud embankments. We got distracted with our captain yelling; he pointed towards the forefront left. A King cobra mightily swam across the left shores in a lightning pace at a distance of some 50 metres from us and whirled up on top of a Sundari tree. Our next stopover before lunch was the island Dobanki. This is the second point of our tour covering Sundarbans National Park. The grand Canopy Walk is what this Watch Tower is famous for. It is more than half a kilometre long concrete walkway, at a height of 20 feet from the ground and covered with an iron mesh for protection from the wildlife. The place was out in the open; directly exposed to the sun. It did not actually have a canopy on top to protect us from the scorching heat. This Canopy Walk takes you half a kilometre deep into the forest where we walked along a number of mangrove species and deer. We had finished it in less than half an hour before boarding the Elmar. By mid noon, Elmar’s unrelenting cruise through unending labyrinth of water courses had become monotonous. The awning evergreen short trees are grown too closely making our visibility restricted to see through it. Our probability for sighting wildlife was becoming limited. To me, every channel after every turn looked exactly like the next one, varying only in width. Somehow, our driver-cum-captain seemed to know exactly where we were at all times. After a quick lunch we rested for a while before our last stoppage. It was lazy late noon when Elmar anchored in the shores of Sudhanyakhali Island. It is renowned for its Watch Tower, from where tigers, axis deer, crocodiles and other wild life can be spotted. Nevertheless, the tigers along with most of the wildlife in the Sundarbans decided just not to show up that day. With the sun disappearing in the western horizons we now cruised towards Pakhiralaya, where a reverse trip would take us to Calcutta. It was a couple of days sojourn through the wild serenity. Colour of which is green while the tiger being its legend. The jungle ranges from being a victim of Climate change to UNESCO’s world heritage site to Salman Rushdie’s magic realism. Here nature is more subtle than wild. Here Danger is hidden behind a thin veil in the wildness where the Tiger does not always show up. Postscript From the archives of the new Asiatic society office, in Park Street it was gathered that at the time of The British East India Company the forest stretched an everlasting 19,200 square kms and retaining much of its bio-diversity. The history of this jungle can be traced back to 200–300 AD. А ruin of а city built by Chand Showdagar has been discovered in the Baghmara Forest Block. During the Mughal period, the Mughal administrators leased this forest to nearby residents. Many criminals took refuge in the Sundarbans from the advancing armies of Emperor Akbar. In 1928 the British Government assumed proprietary rights to the forest and, in 1830, began leasing out tracts of the forests for reclamation; a process which continued until 1875-76. A Systematic management of this forest tract began in the 1860’s after the establishment of а Forest Department within the undivided Province of Bengal. А Forest Division was created in 1879 with its headquarters in Khulna, Bangladesh. The first management plan was written for the period 1893–98. The first management plan was written was, for the period 1893–98. The management was mainly designed to pull out whatever treasures were available, but labour and lower level management mostly consisted of locals. By 1873 nearly 5,100 square kms of forest land had been converted into agricultural land and the Sundarbans area forest area had been reduced to about 14,100 square kms. Between 1875 and 1876, the government declared un-leased forest reserves, and placed them under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department– a move which created today’s Sundarbans forest. Not until the early 20th century, the Sundarbans forest was managed using Curtis’s working plan which focused on scientific harvesting. This plan was in effect when partition divided the administration of the Sundarbans between Bangladesh) and India. Both countries continued to protect the area after independence. A variety of wildlife survived till the latter part of the 19th century despite the rapid depletion of habitat. According to Hunter, “Tigers, leopards, rhinoceros, wild buffaloes, wild hogs, wild cats, Barasinga, spotted deer, hog deer, barking deer, and monkeys are the principal varieties of wild animals found in the Sundarbans” in 1875. But the events of the next few decades led to the near complete destruction of the grasslands and rainforests, which coupled with the increase in salinity, spelt the death knell for the rhinoceros, leopard, wild buffalo, swamp deer and hog deer Only the tiger, wild pig and spotted deer survived the mass species extinction. Sundarbans’ fact files From Kolkata (India), trains could be availed to take you to Canning (64 km) from where launch services are available for Sundarbans. Or else, you can avail of buses to reach Raidighi (76 km), Najat (92 km), Sonakhali (100 km) and Namkhana (105 km) from where motorboats can be hired to take you to the Sundarbans. (dhaka courier)