Mornings are slow in the village, slow and beautiful , so standing under the old banyan tree by the side of the old mud road time seemed to stand still. It took jostling of the eager tourists and boats to shake off this dreamy ebb of time . The organisers scrambled for getting the permit , we disembarked and plunged into the crowd. This was the tourist office of Sajnekhali and a small nature park that it maintains. The complex seemed to be tucked on one corner of the island and the rest of it was forest , sunderbans forest for real complete with swamps, mangrove trees and the promise of wild life fenced away . There were crocodile ponds and an observation tower to peep into the eerie wonderland on the other side of the fence , the keepers said tigers could be spotted from there . This was the pattern which other stops on our way around , maintained by forest department , will follow an observation post in a cordoned off portion of the island.
With a lot of anticipation we finally started at around 11 that morning . The most significant thing that i felt was the anticipation , everyone on the boat prayed to spot a tiger in the wild , all eyes were trained at nearest banks through dense mangrove forests , a little adventurer was waking up in each one of us and i could jolly well feel it . The landscape around was impressive and getting more dramatic as the fleet of slow moving motorboats ventured deeper and deeper into the forest . The rivers branched , joined and rebranched a thousand times forming the criss -cross through the islands which were tidal , so when the waters swelled up most of what formed the island will be under water . The mangrove forest that grew there adapted to this condition and hence we have these huge trees standing right out of the river water . The rivers were generally very wide at its widest in "Panch - mukhi" where five big rivers meet , its a circular water world of several kilometers in radius , its like sea out there and from the middle of it one cant even see any bank , its just the water horizon or at best a haze on even a very bright day . Then there were creeks - small passages of water in between islands and their forest lined banks . 
It was picture of solitude , absolute calmness. A vast river so wide that the other bank is veiled in mist , then you have slushy banks and a dense green line of forest starting from there. I imagined the silence that there will be standing there all alone , only gentle splashes of water or the mysterious sounds of forest to punctuate it. The vast emptiness of the water and the seeming undending forest articulated the anticipation of what secrets the forests hide or the depths of this river of which the King , the royal bengal tiger could only be one sparkle , one thread in the myth that this place spins each moment every moment. This was the solitude of a giant and i stood in awe . I imagined such silence and i longed to share it . 
On my way back to reality the poker face of the boatman was my first stop , it was another day at office for Hari da as he sat stoically at the handle. A few notches below that spiritual deck was the more prosaic upper deck on which there was what seemed to be sudden frenzy people running, screaming, pointing to something excitedly in the forest . Camera lenses were trained and snaps were racing time .I too drew my camera and jumped right in the middle of the mayhem. Mom grabbed my hand pointed me to the direction and shouted me instructions like navy admiral straight ahead , ya to the right a little left ........ a flock of grazing deer have been spotted and the thrill of spotting animal in the wild albeit lowly deer was thick in the air. The holiday spirit was at its highest . This set the tone for the day and we sighted a big monitor lizard , some more herds of deer and wild boar. By 3 that afternoon we were on the observation tower of Netidhopani, the last stop of the day's sojourn. This place has the highest probability of tiger sightings the sighting record board showed that there has been 5 sightings in 3 days from 18th through 21st December which is indeed pretty high for a single place . Our folks were desperate it was now or never for the tiger sighting , a little ahead in front of the tower beyond the fences was a fresh water pond which was dug to draw animals to drink from it facilitate sightings on 3 sides of it there were straight wide patches of clearing extending about a kilometre into the forest, there ruins of a temple near the pond beyond the fence (this defies logic as why this is inaccessible the temple must of great historical significance as a temple ruin in middle of what now is a dense forest indicates that this place was not a forest always but evidently that is not well known part of history ) that is linked to a local mythology. Patience was ebbing away with light of the day , shadows of frustration getting longer, a silence was imposed and enforced in that gaggle of tourist for full 3 minutes and rumours were born , somebody in the crowd claimed of having spotted a tiger's tail in the patch of forest near ruins. Finally the gong was beaten time's up , pack up guys , let's go the final calls were made and everybody left with a little nagging discontement , only if .....
Light was fading away and by the time we reached Panch-mukhi it was an unbroken smear of slate grey on all sides except the west which had a stroke of red on it. It got more and more surreal as grey became black , skies lit up with the stars and dabs of yellowish electric light marked humanity in the horizon and we glided through those waters under star-light . Its no small miracle of how the boatmen steered the boat to the exact destination in pitch dark night without any modern aid its almost a mystical connection with the elements.
We returned the next day , it was a different route this time and had more villages and towns on the banks of the river this time and it was quite a different experience to observe how the lives in these remote, isolated places go on . River and boats are so much part of it and this is a different India turning at a different pace but turning nonetheless . One of the boat's 3 membered crew was this boy Gour Mondol and like all boys of his age he liked to dream and he shared one of his dreams with us , he wanted to make his boat better and big . He could not tell exactly how big it is gonna be because in his world big was not really big and he knew it is going to be bigger than that.
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