Leopards, in the wild! On a trip to the Blue City — Jodhpur — Meraj and Johan hear about a leap of leopards who’ve taken up home inside a series of caves on a hillside in the Jawai Hills.
Buoyed by a series of sightings by locals, the duo make haste to the region, a couple of hours’ drive from Jodhpur.
What makes a safari in Jawai Hills unique is that it’s outside the boundaries of the small designated community reserve.
Here, if you spot a leopard then you’ve truly seen it in the wild. What the duo did not foresee, however, was the receding monsoon that gives the leopards ample incentive to stay put, nicely ensconced in their new digs in the Jawai Hills. Stationed at Bera village in the Jawai Hills, Meraj and Johan wait for the showers to ebb.
Eventually, the rain stops and as the water recedes in the Jawai dam’s reservoir and low mountains emerge from the submerged terrain. In this spectacular landscape, the duo drive the trusty Maruti Gypsy up the rock cliffs and wait, patiently for the big cats to emerge from their lairs.
As they sit, they have plenty of time to ponder on the nature of free range, and what it means for animals like Leopards which need vast territories to mark and roam in.
The leopards, confined to caves, become larger than life, emblematic, in a way of how little of our planet human beings are prepared to share with our furry and feathered animal friends.
Do they eventually catch sight of a big cat? Watch the episode.