Ghosts of the Chambal

Priya Ranganathan

Dusk was settling over the grey waters of the Chambal. The sky, which had been clear and bright up until thirty minutes ago, was now settling into deeper shades of blue and purple. As my field assistant would say, the hunting hour was fast approaching. He was talking, of course, about the Indian wolf. It was in these ravine systems where I had a rather nerve-wracking encounter with wolves.

It began when our driver deserted us in the ravines. The jeep was cranky and old and refused to traverse the narrow sandy ridges. So he stopped the jeep and told us to go along the transects. My field assistant and I walked for over an hour through a system of confusing ravines, marking GPS points, marking scats, pellets, signs, and pugmarks. We eventually found ourselves on a sandy bank with the Chambal river sprawled out before us. That was when I noticed the pugmarks by the water, right where we were standing. “Wolves,” I said, nudging my field assistant. He came over to look. “We should call the driver,” he said nervously. Wolves do not have a positive reputation with many of the local tribes in this region. Pacing along the riverbank, I looked up at the darkening ravines looming above us and made a decision- to retrace our steps to where we left the jeep. 

My field assistant was less than pleased. Retracing your steps with a nervous field assistant continuously muttering about bad omens in your ear is hard. “Madam, are we lost?” my assistant asked feebly, when I stopped and puzzled. That was when the howls began. My assistant couldn’t help the shriek that left his mouth as the eerie howling of wolves was picked up by two, three, five, six animals, seemingly surrounding the gorge where we stood. My eyes struggled to acclimatize to the shadowy darkness. I heard rustling from above, where the low sandy cliffs nearly met over our heads and tried to slow the thumping of my heart. The howls grew in volume and intensity. 

IMAGE: DHARMENDRA KHANDAL

​My assistant suggested we play loud music and sing along! “The wolves will hear the songs and think we are a large group of people. They will stay away from us.” I was already worried about finding our way back to the jeep, so I gave in. Singing along to racy Hindi songs while running away from wolf hunting grounds was definitely not part of my internship contract. It was when I looked up at the dark sloping ravines above us that I saw their glowing eyes. We were intruders in their habitat, but they were keeping a distance from the cacophony we were causing. After that first glimpse of the wolves, I kept a lookout for more of those elusive canids. After half an hour of wandering blindly through wolf country, we heard faint shouts and saw flashing lights. My teammate and the driver had found us! The howls of the wolves faded away, and as we reunited with our teammates, I looked back at the shadowy ravines from where I had emerged. 

​The wolves had vanished, melting back into the shadows. All that was left were pugmarks and the echoes of howls in the night wind above the Chambal.