Photowalk at the Purbachal Reserve Forest

On 27 June, Saturday, I was suddenly woken up by a call. With sleepy feelings I got the phone. ” Hasnat, we will be at the designated place at 7 AM, are you ready”? I watched the clock, it was 6.45 AM. I said, “yes, I’ll be there”. On the phone was Yahya vai(A generalized greeting for a brother) who arranged a Photowalk into a reserve forest. There are not that many pictures of it online for free.

Like a spring I bounced back from my bed, with just a little fine tuning of my room, I dashed to the bath and then grabbed my bag pack. After some thought I gave up taking a book in the bag pack, It may become a burden later, I thought.

I was a minute or two late, but I get credit for having only 3 hours of sleep and then coming for an event, right?

“You seem sleepy, vai.” beside me was Ishtiak, who was also a member of our little Photo walk group. “Yeah, but I’ll be alright. How are you doing”? I asked him. As we all came from different academic backgrounds, we only have the chance to meet when there’s any Wiki event.

In the meantime Yahya vai was testing whether the camera was alright. After passing some distance, we picked up our last and youngest member. He seemed alright, too excited, I was getting the vibe that he can’t wait to go to the event with us.

It was quite a journey, finally we reached the destination, Purbachal Reserve Forest zone. We started working without any talk. Every moment of the morning is important because after some time, the sun will be directly above us. And in the monsoon season, the moisture becomes like it will drag every last bit of water out of our body.

We became like kids who got a new toy in their hands, laughing and taking pictures. When we see a bird, we shhhh each other to become quiet, as predators become extremely quiet but keep going towards the prey, we keep getting closer to the bird to get a good photo.

After almost two hours, we halted, we needed supply. Also we all skipped our breakfast for the photo walk, so we got back to the locality.

After having breakfast, it was almost 9.20. The sun has almost become an oven, and we are inside it. But we didn’t care. We got back to the forest after getting some supplies. The most important supply is water, I must say.

All morning we were at the periphery of the forest, now it’s time to go deep inside the forest. Like the serenity you get after coming back from a traffic jam to your quiet home, going in the forest was like this. It felt like we became detached from the cruel harsh world we see everyday.

The chirping of birds, the buzzes of insects, the scavenging of birds on dry leaves, the sudden fright of monitor lizard and mongoose, the cold breeze with the sound like a shal tree is communicating with each other and a sudden calm, like everything halted-all these felt so unreal, as we are used to see the panic and busy city. Although we were mesmerized, we didn’t forget our duty, we took photo of everything we could.

Someone asked a question why are we still capturing a species which already exists in the Commons, Yahya vai answered the question. In short, biodiversity happens because one places climate, demography, topology affect plants, So the same species may have different structures and who knows, maybe we’ll find a new variety? I can relate as recently I’ve been studying cytogenetics and about mutation.

So we kept going, already we got bitten by a thousand mosquitoes and Yahya vai found a wildcat type animal, but it fled the moment he saw it. I discovered a little moth that looked exactly like a small leaf. It was most likely a planthopper. I also found a very vigorous Earthworm, a tiny frog, some dragonflies, a predator insect feasting on another insect.

Everything went smoothly till we felt something was wrong, we were short on water. But we are deep in the forest, where will we get water? We found yet another issue that is bigger than our problem. Some bad people have been sneaking into this reserved forest and tossing their things here and there. You are in a forest, taking everything from him, and in return you are giving him plastics? Well it was not at an alarming level, just a few.

Whatever we got back. In this brief amount of time, I was fixated on taking pictures of wildlife and plants. Araf and Ishtiak were taking pictures of ourselves and nature as well. Yahya vai also took pictures of our surroundings mostly.

After eating and resting for sometimes, it felt like we have lost all our strength. It was expected, none of us are professional hikers. But we have a huge part left to cover, so we started again. The heat was unbearable, so we moved faster to get deep into the forest, there the sun has to become gentle in fear of trees. As expected, the heat lessened a bit. After going on for a few minutes we stumbled upon a lake like water reservoir.

Oh the beauty! I was sure if someone lives here in their childhood, they will become a poet for sure. The herons are cautiously looking here and there, floating insects, dragonflies moving here and there, kingfisher loitering around for fish, Black Drongos moving across the lake, also some other birds like Eagle, Kite etc that I don’t know. Even the flower of water hyacinth feels like it came from another world.

We clicked many times in this paradise-like area and went deeper. Along the way, Ishtiak got hurt, he wanted to brush it off, but we tried some wild creepers that have medicinal value.

It was almost the time of Sun setting, only two hours or so remaining, so we reluctantly came back to our determined zero point, from there we took a breather and came back to our usual life.

We also talked to a resident farmer of that area about many things and promoted our work. He was happy after I took a picture of him and showed it to him.

Looking back to the day, I feel the urge to just go back there and rest at that Eden-like place. Overall we have taken nearly 1000 pictures. Maybe all can’t be included in the commons. But every one of them will carry the story we made in the vast tapestry of Nature.

Some tips to those who will go to a Photo walk like this in the future: Bring clothes that cover your limbs and wear lighter clothes, Insect repellent ointment or something would be better, also make sure to have enough supply. Also always go with a team, soloing may bring trouble and make you insecure.

I was determined to click pictures even if I faced a tiger that day. Though there was not a tiger, there was fear of unknown creatures that may harm us. For this courage we get full points.

Next time maybe we’ll go to another exciting place, new experiences will be added to my experience stack, and my image will carry the story I see.