By Amit Mohan and Shipra Mohan
The bond started developing way back when we had shifted to Lansdowne in December 2017 – here we were trying to figure out how we both wish to move forward in life post quitting our corporate jobs and city life …
Lansdowne then was a little less known hill-station as compared to now. Amit had gone to pursue Taj Safari Naturalist Programme at their Banjaar Tola property in Kanha National Park and that was the time I stayed all alone in Lansdowne. Having shifted from cities where it’s all bright and lit-up and so much of sound and movements, and here it was all Nature – forest and birds all around and then our Resident Male Leopard …
With Amit coming back post the programme we started our division- Guided Trips with Amit and Shipra, and started conducting our Wildlife trips in Kalagarh Tiger Reserve. This was the time when our passion and our love for Forest and Wildlife was getting stronger and bigger. Since then there was no looking back … And exactly at that same time we started our almost everyday night drives just to get a glimpse of our Resident Male Leopard… The first time we saw him was during Covid – during those times it was no movement as per Government directives and it ensured that he moved freely and enjoyed the wild. We saw him sitting on a huge rock just below our Lansdowne Trip Travel Café and the silent love for one another developed. After that we saw him umpteen number of times – in fact after our work we felt as if he was waiting for us and there we went out almost every day looking for him. Once I told Amit, “let’s go I think he is waiting for us”, and the moment we reached St Mary’s Church near our Café there he was standing right next to the parapet. One vehicle was before us and he ducked behind the parapet as if to avoid it and the moment we reached he showed up – eye contact happened for a few seconds and he went into the thick bushes.
Like this our encounters kept happening and suddenly he was nowhere to be seen … We looked and looked but no luck. It was 5 p.m. one winter evening while we were on our walk with Sultan when we got a call from Deepak saying, “Sir just saw our Leopard. It crossed as usual from Taylor’s Bungalow over to the Forest behind St Mary’s Church. Amit and I felt so relieved, so happy and so elated that we rushed back to the spot knowing fully well he would have crossed but with a hope may be we get a small glimpse of him. By the time we reached he was gone but the happiness was that he was still in his territory…
And like this we kept on creating beautiful and soulful moments with him sometime sighting him in the forest trail just behind the Café, sometimes at the St Mary’s Church, sometimes on Thandi Sadak.
With years of being with one another there developed an unsaid affection between us – it was almost 10-15 days when we didn’t meet him. That day I told Amit today I have a gut feel we will meet him and we went for a drive but after looking for him for almost an hour we didn’t feel any presence, and I told him – when he meets us he meets us regularly and when he doesn’t wants to meet he is nowhere to be seen. Just at that point Amit looked up on a trail going up to our home and there he was as if waiting for us to see him. He was climbing up the forest trail, he stopped, paused, looked at us with full eyes as if asking me are you happy now before he vanished into the forest.
Almost two years ago, when we saw him last he was limping and his health was not looking good – we could sense that something has changed, something is wrong.
And till this time we haven’t met him. Maybe he is no more – in fact it’s a high possibility as he was the dominating male.
A daring male, beautiful, warm, responsible, curious, full of energy is how we wish to remember him always. In our Lansdowne journey he has played a major role and he will always be part of our journey.
Saying goodbye to him was tough then and while writing and remembering him it is tougher now.
May you be happy wherever you are! Amit and I never gave him any name as that would have been a misnomer for the personality he was — miss you and love you forever …
(Amit and Shipra are Founders of Lansdowne Trip Travel Café, Shahtoot Kothi.)
