Originally written in Marathi translated in English
This experience was originally written in Marathi when I was in 5th standard(16 January to 17 January 2021). Now I am in 10th standard in JNV Amravati (Maharashtra). This English translation is a small effort to bring my experience to a wider audience. The translation has been done verbatim, with the help of ChatGPT, edited by me—with care taken to retain the original flow and meaning.
Aarav raut
You can find the original Marathi version at the following link
One day suddenly my father asked me if I wanted to go trekking. I said yes. Then my father told me where we had to go. We were not going trekking there, we were going to see a fort called Narnala Fort. This information was told to me by my father. My mother was also going to come with us. We were going on 16th January and were going to return on 17th January. Then we started preparing. The day before leaving, I went with my mother to fix the chain of the bag. After fixing the chain, we took a lot of food items for the journey. Since we were to go in the afternoon, my father scheduled the tuition in the morning. After tuition, I took a bath and got dressed. My mother had bought two new pairs of socks for me to wear there. I got fully ready and sat waiting for the vehicle, but the vehicle got a bit delayed. It was supposed to come at 2 p.m., but for some reason, they were slightly late. Then we boarded the vehicle. On the way, we saw many colleges. After some time, we reached near a farmhouse. Another vehicle also arrived there.
At that place, I got into the second vehicle. The vehicle I got into was very big. That vehicle was brought by Sushil uncle. Sushil uncle and four other people were sitting in that vehicle. I got introduced to them. One was Prajwal dada, others were Radhika tai, Nandini tai and Sai tai. First I sat in the front seat but later had to sit at the back because Radhika tai wanted to play music. After some time, I took out an item from my snack bag — it was Britannia cake pieces. After eating those, I took out another packet. It had a wafer roll and melted chocolate inside it. When I ate that, it felt so good that I can’t describe it. I didn’t eat everything in the vehicle, only these two packets I had eaten. I had nothing to do, so I slept. After waking up, I sat quietly for a while. After some time, we reached a roadside Dhaba. Mom and Dad, who were in another vehicle, also arrived. There I ate one kachori and drank a cup of tea. Then we left from there. While I was looking outside, I saw a board that said “Daryapur border ends.” After a long time, both vehicles stopped at one place. It was evening by then. We stayed there for some time. There were mountains all around. Then we sat in the vehicle. When the vehicle started, we reached the destination within a minute. The people my parents were traveling with were Kumail dada and Muffaddal dada. Kumail dada took out everyone’s luggage from the car’s trunk. After some time, we went inside the premises.
That place was Narnala Wildlife Sanctuary, Shahnoor Complex (Dist. Akola, Maharashtra). I suddenly got scared at the entrance gate because I saw a hyena (lakadbagga) in a cage, but later I found out it was a statue. Muffaddal dada and Prajwal dada went ahead and collected the room key. Room booking had already been done by Sushil uncle. Then we went ahead. When I looked back at a tree, I got very scared because I saw a leopard on the tree. But like before, it was a statue as well.
We were surprised while going ahead because the rooms were far from the entrance gate. On that path, there were stairs, then a bridge, then again some stairs, and a little ahead were the rooms. We were looking for our room. First, we saw a room named ‘Dhanesh’ but it was locked. So we thought it must be our room. To clarify the doubt, we tried our key in that room’s lock and it opened. That room had bunk beds, exactly like in Navodaya schools, which I had seen once in a video. I liked those beds very much. We put everyone’s bags on one bed. I chose my bed to sleep on. I thought there was only one bathroom there, but there were two. One was in a corner and a bed was placed in front of it, so I couldn’t see it. Both bathrooms were nice and clean. Then we went to the canteen. There I ate Happy Happy biscuits. I didn’t know tea would be served there, and when I found out, only one biscuit was left, which I ate with tea. After tea, I had an ice cream.
Then we went for a walk nearby. Everyone was talking about ghosts and their stories, so I threw a leaf at Muffaddal dada, but he didn’t get scared. Suddenly I saw a leopard in a corner but it was also a statue. I sat on that leopard. Then we went to the room to get our dinner boxes and went to the canteen. It was around 8 in the evening. We had dinner in the canteen. After dinner, I distributed halwa to everyone. Then we returned to the room and kept the boxes there. At that time, Sushil uncle and Muffaddal dada went to sleep because they were tired from driving, but the rest of us went outside for a walk. We took photos. The rooms (tents) where we took photos looked like huts, with animal names written on them.
After some time, we sat at a place and were thinking about what game to play. I suggested we could play the “Knock Knock Chocolates” game. When I said this, everyone was confused about what game it was, so I explained it: in this game, the player whose turn it is to catch others – chaser , gives a topic like fruit name, color name, and the others choose what they will become from the given category. Others would have to form a line and the chaser would ask others one by one by knocking them. The chaser would ask them – are you (item name, for eg in category of fruits) mango. If no, the chaser would walk ahead or if yes, the chaser has to chase and catch the guy. The person who got catched up will become the chaser of the next game. If that guy takes the name of another fruit or color the chaser has to chase and catch the guy whose name the previous guy has taken. But nobody liked this game. After thinking for some time, we decided to play the “Tikkar” game. Everybody was so pleased to play Tikkar, so Radhika tai and I set up the game by drawing up the squares on the ground. For the game we had to get a small piece of tile so we made one tile smaller by breaking it in pieces.
In that, my father was the furthest, but in one chance, Prajwal dada went so far ahead that he completed one round. I was feeling quite jealous, so sometimes when he threw the Tikkar, I would throw a marble in between or make the squares smaller by remaking the borders. I was stuck on one square for a long time because either the Tikkar wouldn’t land on it, or I’d fall while picking it up. But finally, I moved two squares ahead.
While Sushil uncle and Muffaddal dada were asleep, Kumail dada also slept. He woke up first, not in the morning but at night, went to the canteen, brought tea in a thermos, and served everyone. It must have been around 10 – 10:30 p.m. Those who were not playing were taught how to play Tikkar. After the Tikkar game ended, we had a match of standing on one leg. The rule of the game was simple, the one who stands on one leg most will win. Even I couldn’t last more than half a minute in that match, but Radhika tai and Prajwal dada stood on one leg for half an hour. We were all having fun watching them. I was amazed at how they could stand on one leg for that long. It was a tough competition. We were waiting to see who would put their foot down first. Finally, Prajwal dada won. By now it was 11 – 11:30 p.m. People from other rooms were also chatting outside.
Then we went to the dormitory. There we laid mattresses in the middle and sat on them. Someone had brought a game called UNO. It is a very renowned card game. I played it, but I didn’t understand it, because I was playing that game for the first time. But still I was playing. I only understood two rules of UNO: one could place the same color card or same number card. Without knowing much, I won the UNO game, and dad came second. I didn’t like that game because the winner has to leave the game. Since it took so long after I won, dad and I played cards. I played two types of card games with mom and dad — one was “Satti Lavani” and I don’t know the name of the other but which was based on luck so generally I used to call it as the game of luck. In the game, equal cards are distributed, and each person has to put a card one by one on the surface. If someone places the same number card as the previous, that person gets all the cards underneath. Dad said that this is the simplest card game he had ever played.
When we returned inside the dormitory, Sushil uncle and Muffaddal dada had woken up and gone outside. While we were playing cards, someone brought a cake because it was Muffaddal dada’s birthday. Just then, he came in and got a surprise, and we ate cake.
After that, everyone went outside, but mom, dad and I stayed in the room. Dad and mom were sleepy, so they stayed, and I stayed for the same. By now it was 12:30 – 1 a.m. Before sleeping on my selected bed, I played a card game with mom. After playing, I ate a “5 Star” chocolate and layed on the bed. Through the window, I saw everyone sitting outside. I asked them if I could come, but they didn’t reply. Still, I went. They were telling ghost stories and watching videos. Soon we came back inside. I exchanged my bed. Everyone was sharing their own stories. Sushil uncle was telling his dangerous experiences at the fort . I tried hard to sleep, but I couldn’t until their stories were over. I was scared, so I slept next to mom.
In the morning at 4:30 a.m., mom woke me up and took me to the bathroom to wash my face. I immediately wore my shoes and packed my bag. After wearing my shoes, I went to the canteen with everyone. Everyone except me had tea there. The guides were saying that we should go on the safari right away, but we thought that animals wouldn’t be visible in the dark. So we decided to leave “with the first rays of the sun.” After some time, we went outside. I sat in the very first jeep.
In that jeep there were Kumail dada, Radhika tai, Prajwal dada, and Muffaddal dada. As we passed the jungle gate and went ahead, I started feeling scared. I felt like a tiger could appear at any moment. It was a bit dark at that time. I had never seen such a vehicle before. That jeep was completely open. There was nothing covering it from above because we were supposed to be able to see everything outside. Only the driver’s seat was lower than ours and was fully enclosed. I wondered why that was the case? I felt a little cold there because the jeep was fully open, so I kept my bag in front of me. On the way, the guide told us that there is a 10-kilometer buffer zone, which means fewer animals would be visible there. As the sun was rising, we stopped the jeep at one place to take a picture of the sunrise. The sun looked beautiful because there were mountains on both sides and the sun in between. I had never seen such a view anywhere, not even in a photo or video. That scene was memorable for me. We went ahead from there and saw an animal. The guide told us its name. That animal was called a bison (wild bull). We knew that as we went forward, we would pass very close to that bison, because it was very near the road in front of us. There we saw people returning from the other side. After some time, when we reached where the bison was, it had moved a bit further away.
From sunrise, I had eaten a packet of chips and a little bit of chiwda (spicy mixture) from one box. At one point, the guide told us that the buffer zone had ended and the core zone had begun. After a long time, we all stopped at a resting spot. Both jeeps stopped there. The guide said we could get down. We got down with our bags. Outside the gate of that rest stop, there was a tree planted in a tire filled with mud. That seemed new to me because I had only seen such things in a bamboo garden which is present in Amravati, nowhere else. After going inside, we sat down. Everyone except me ate poha. I saw a man go near a dog, and the dog tried to fold its hands as if greeting the man. I thought maybe that dog greets everyone, so I went to the dog, but it didn’t greet me at all and didn’t show any reaction either. I went back and forth near the dog many times, but it never reacted.
So I called Prajwal dada and said, “You go to the dog.” And when Prajwal dada went near the dog, I was very surprised because the dog greeted him not once, but three times. I called my father. When he came within three meters of the dog, the dog started barking at him. I thought maybe it was because dad was wearing a black sweater and a black cap, and also dad has a dark complexion. So the dog might have seen him as completely black and barked. But every time Prajwal dada went near the dog, the dog greeted him. I thought maybe it was because of Prajwal dada’s hat, so I wore that hat and went in front of the dog, but it didn’t do anything. Even when dad wore the hat and went, there was no change. Prajwal dada gave the dog Parle-G biscuits. Then Prajwal dada, Radhika tai, and I started jumping from one wooden post to another, which were placed in a circle like chairs. The distance between the two posts was too much for me at first. Initially, I couldn’t jump across, but when I realized I could jump over, I had no more trouble going across.
I took some photos using Sushil uncle’s camera. Just then, our guide told us that we would have to leave soon because “calling” had started. I was puzzled — what is “calling”? Later I found out that “calling” means one animal is warning others that a tiger or leopard has arrived. Some distance away from us, one animal was making a “hawk-hawk” sound. That sound was very sharp. Just then, I heard a tiger’s roar. I told them I heard the sound in that direction, so we drove the vehicle in that direction. We went up to that place. But even where we had stopped, there was nothing. After that, I never heard that sound again. Then we went forward and stopped, thinking that the tiger might have gone ahead to hunt, but there was nothing there either. We kept moving forward and stayed alert. I would sometimes stand up in the jeep and sit down when tired. When the jeep passed through lush green forest, I would sit down because I was scared — most animals live in dense forest, and monkeys live in trees. They might jump onto the jeep or someone’s body. But when the path was dry with dry leaves and where sunlight was falling, I would stand up confidently. After some time, we saw a large group of deer in a field. They looked very small to me because they were far away. I was completely focused on looking outside — even when I stood up or sat down due to tiredness, I kept looking. Only when I bumped into something I would realize I was sitting. Suddenly Kumail dada said, “Stop the jeep”, so the driver stopped and reversed slightly. There was an animal with an orange color and some white round spots on its body. It was a deer. I think it stood there for only two seconds, and in that time, Muffaddal dada couldn’t even take a photo. During those two seconds, the deer had turned its face toward us, but then it ran away. Only photos of it running were captured. The guide told us that the deer was called Chousingha, because it had four horns. I hadn’t paid enough attention to its horns, so I didn’t see them properly.
After some time, I started eating the chocolates from my bag. I had 5 or 6 chocolates in my bag. I wanted them to last for a long time, so I licked all the chocolates instead of chewing them. And I ate one chocolate every 5 minutes. After a while, my chocolates were finished. Kumail dada and Radhika tai were touching the leaves of trees that came near the jeep, so I also started touching the leaves. I kept touching leaves for a long time. Everyone told me to sit down, but I said, “Just let me touch five leaves.” Radhika tai said, “Seems like your chocolates are finished?” I said yes, so she gave chocolates to everyone.
On the way, we stopped the jeep on a watery road. Muffaddal dada took photos there. After some time, we returned to the gate from where we had started. Another jeep also arrived behind us. There, I took some photos using Sushil uncle’s camera.
When we entered through the gate, there was a statue of a woman and a man without heads. There, mom, dad, I and Nandini tai took photos.
Then we went to our room. Everyone slept for a while, and I started searching for the playing cards, but I couldn’t find them. At that time, Muffaddal dada had hidden Radhika tai’s glasses, but he returned them later. We packed our bags, locked the room, and went to the canteen. There we had to wait a long time for lunch because the previous group’s meal took too long. After a long wait, we were finally served lunch. The food was very good. After lunch, I had one ice cream. After some time, we went outside and got into the vehicle.
Then we went to Shahanur Dam. We thought we would find a way to go down from there, so we got down from the vehicle and walked ahead. But we couldn’t find a single way to go down. Suddenly, I found a path to go down on one side, but we wanted to go near the water, and I found a road instead. When we went on that road, we could see the entire dam. It was the first time I saw a dam. That dam was at a great height. I came back quickly because I was afraid I might fall.
Then we got into the vehicle and headed back home. I slept a lot in between, so I don’t know what happened during the ride. When I woke up, we had stopped to drink sugarcane juice. After drinking the juice, I changed the vehicle. After that, I slept again in the vehicle. When I woke up, I found out we were very close to home, and just in a few minutes we reached home.
I really liked this trip because I had never seen a forest and a dam in real life before.
(16 January to 17 January 2021)
आरव की डायरी 