June 5, 2004

Tall tales from the sanctuary

Eric Ellis visits Kipling Camp where a retired British major recounts yarns from his 'caddish' life at a nation

The thrill of marvelling at the lordly Royal Bengal tiger up close in the magnificent glory of its Central Indian wilderness would alone be an alluring enough reason to make the trek to Kipling Camp.

But prospective visitors to the most famous of India's jungle encampments would be well advised to make advance contact to determine if Kipling's entertaining patriarch, Major (ret.) Robert Hamilton Wright, OBE, is in camp, as he is every other month visiting from his home at Calcutta's Tollygunge Club.

If your luck is in, and Bob Wright is in good form, you'll get a bonus statesman "and some living history from one of India's last remaining Englishmen" around the camp's groaning dinner table - along with Kipling's other remarkable bluebloods, those impressive striped ones from the animal kingdom.

A "statesman", however, is not how Bob Wright sees himself, despite a gong from Buckingham Palace and, as he tells it, a lifetime at the heart of Calcutta's establishment. As the cravatted octogenarian kicks back in his easy chair overseeing Kipling Camp's myriad activities, pink gin (one of six to eight quaffed daily) and cigarette (one of 40) in hand, loyal Labrador, Becky, at his feet, youthful twinkle in his eye, he suggests an altogether different description. "Cad!" Wright firmly declares. "If I wrote my biography, I'd call it The Cad of Calcutta.

"And it would be a most wonderful book," he adds triumphantly. "I'd be a very naughty boy, I'd tell all my secrets. Well, maybe not all."

Fortunately, perhaps, for India's great and good - and Kipling's guests number the rich and famous of other countries as well - Bob Wright is too busy being Kipling Camp's bon vivant to put pen to paper any time soon.

But gently prod Wright as he seats himself around the camp's open fire after a successful day tiger-spotting, and, if he likes you (and Bob Wright likes most people), tall stories will tumble forth about Bob and the British Royals, Bob and Mother Teresa, Bob living the high life of the British Raj in old Calcutta, Bob and, well, you name them, Bob Wright's probably got an anecdote about them.

But are Wright's stories true? Did the King of Bhutan really do that? And Princess Diana? Surely not. It probably doesn't matter. The joy is in Wright's vivid telling and the magnificent venue he's occupied for the past several years for his yarn-spinning, Kanha National Park.

This magnificent national park, one of India's few remaining wildernesses, also provided the inspiration for a truly legendary story- teller, Rudyard Kipling, great chronicler of 19th century British India, to conceive the delightful tales of The Jungle Book.

They're all here; Rikki Tikki Tavi the mongoose; Baloo the friendly bea; Shere Khan, the majestic tiger who killed the parents of Kipling's hero, Mowgli. It is not clear if Kipling actually visited Kanha or the camp that bears his name, and a pragmatic Bob Wright is uncharacteristically coy about it. Certainly, all the book's characters seem to frolic in the jungles and grasslands of Kanha's 2,000 sq km of protected area, one of India's largest national parks.

Kanha is regarded by naturalists as one of the world's best locations outside Africa for viewing wildlife in its natural habitat, and probably the best for seeing tigers in the wild.

And Kipling Camp itself is not a bad place to start the safari. About as close to the park as the law provides, its unfenced boundaries form part of Kanha's buffer zone. Tigers - a 2002 census tallied 114 in the park - wander regularly through Kipling's grounds, along with leopards, jungle cats, wolves and gaur, also known as Indian bison.

Indeed, it's a magical moment to be enjoying an al fresco lunch with Wright and his young, mostly English, staff on a cloudless day only to hear him break off an anecdote of merry old India because a family of delicate chitals (spotted deer) or barasinghas (swamp deer) grazing metres away has attracted his eye. Or a squadron of langur monkeys has descended on the kitchen, hoping to sample some of Kipling's curries. And nearby, visiting jackals are sniffing.

Part of Kipling's - and Kanha's - appeal is its glorious remoteness. Situated almost precisely at the geographical heart of the sub-continent in the state of Madhya Pradesh, it is 24 to 30 hours by rail from Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta. And that's only to the regional railhead at Jabalpur, from where it is three or four more hours on very ordinary roads by pre-arranged four- wheel-drive to Kipling. Travellers can fly from India's bigger cities to Nagpur in eastern Maharashtra state, but add another two hours to the 4WD trek to Kipling.

This remoteness is underlined there. Naturally, there's no mobile phone cover and you can pretty much forget the internet. There is a phone but it was down for three of the four days I was there, which I'm told is normal. While Kipling is well-catered for, with provisions brought from Jabalpur's markets with each arrival, visitors are advised to bring their own creature comforts and personal items.

But somehow it doesn't matter once in camp. The accommodation - 18 double cabins - is basic but very clean, probably much as it was in the days of the Raj, or perhaps at the house of an eccentric great-aunt. Camp life revolves around a central area, covered but without walls, which is Kipling's dining room/living room/ lounge/library. With Wright's young staff of well-bred enthusiastic teenagers on their gap year before heading up to Oxford and Cambridge, the camp effects a house party atmosphere presided over by Wright and his tall stories.

There's a vaguely military whiff about Kipling, not surprising, given Major Wright's stint in Normandy and in the Sudan Rifles and the fact that British India attracted nicely squared-away officer types. A typical Kipling day involves "bed-tea" - a diehard British Indian military tradition - before dawn at 5am. Then it's out of bed and in the back of one of Kipling's safari trucks by 5.30 and to Kanha's gates for the 6am opening as dawn breaks over the park. This is prime time for tiger-tracking, as the great beasts go hunting the deer for breakfast. With luck (visitors are rarely disappointed), a tiger or two will be spotted, along with leopards, hyenas and myriad deer and birds along Kanha's networks of rudimentary tracks.

Naturalists complain Kanha is being overrun but during a morning's sortie through the park, it's likely you'll see any more than a dozen people. At about nine Kipling provides a picnic breakfast at a safe area in the park and then it's a few more hours in the wilderness before a much-anticipated lunch back at camp. Afternoons offer a choice of more animal-spotting in Kanha or a ride aboard Tara, Kipling's resident elephant, the 2km down to the waterholes of the Banjar River for her daily walk and bath. A howdah is provided.

It's all very appealing and one could easily while away a week - or a lifetime - in Kipling. Be sure to pack your Rudyard.

Eric Ellis is south-east Asian correspondent of Fortune Magazine