Face to Face with a Tiger in Kanha Forest

Kanha National Park, which is amongst the well known tiger reserves worldwide, is located among the Banjar and Halon valleys of Mandla and Balaghat districts of the state of Madhya Pradesh. It is one of the highly Tiger populated reserves in the country. 

To improve the quality of education among the children living in the buffer zone in Kanha Forest, Aide et Action (NGO) initiated “Schooling and Learning Improvement Programme” in December 2014. Divya Bharathi Banjara (19) is one of the project staff who joined Aide et Action initially as an Education volunteer in Saraitola primary school and later became a library coordinator.

She was involved in providing academic support to the volunteers and visit homes of children regularly to enroll them back to schools. She held community and youth meetings to motivate them to learn the importance of education.  

She lives in Saraitola village and takes care of volunteer responsibility of 12-13 villages, out of which, three villages are adjacent to core area of forest where wild life animals roam freely in buffer zone which is the project area. Wolves and foxes are commonly seen in this area. Though the moment of Tigers is not cited regularly, but they do visit once in a while. 

One fine day, Divya was going for a field visit in her village to capacitate volunteers and as well children club meeting and finally ended up having face-to-face with Tiger. “I was returning from Primary School Arandi on a bicycle on that day around 1 pm. It was mid-afternoon during summer without any movement of people and came across a Tiger which was 25 meters away”, she says.  

Trembling with fear and with no time for shouting or asking for help, she started paddling cycle very fast to save herself and was perspiring badly. “It was a narrow escape and felt that it was the last day of my life. There was a thin line between my life and death”, she says.

She narrated the uneventful experience to her parents. “They were very initially scared but my father counseled on dealing with Tigers and advised to choose the longer road”. He motivated me to overcome the fear and encouraged to continue my job as usual.

Though she feels unsafe carrying out activities by visiting schools in the remotest areas close to the core area, she is determined to move ahead. Her parents insist her to continue education at least up to graduation level to compete the fast pacing era. She wants to help her parents economically and educate younger brothers.

Divya was interested in becoming a MBBS doctor, but her economical circumstances did not allow pursuing her goal. She ended up pursuing Bachelor of Sciences in Biology in distance mode. “I have chosen science because it interests me a lot and want to learn about new inventions and discoveries”, she says.

Talking about her stint as a library coordinator with the project, she says, “The deplorable educational condition of the students in this region motivates me to work with the organization as Library coordinator. I feel delighted working with the children. I have not got many degrees and certificates but whatever I have done in my education should be utilized through my work”.

“I dream about heading a good project on a responsible designation after five years of my journey and envision seeing my project area school children doing better in each walks of life and get sustainable education”, ends Divya with a gleam of confidence in her eyes.