Living and working in Jungle and desert

Most people know about forest and desert only from their geography text books,but only a few would have seen them (except those who live there ). Both of these environments are very harsh and difficult to live and work in . Going for fun and pleasure like for hunting or safari etc. is another thing as their routes and areas are well defined and people are escorted by those people who are accustomed and familiar of those areas.Only a very few are privileged who have not only seen them but lived and worked there. I am one of those privileged one. The Forest: The thick and deep forests of Doon Valley and Nainital valley are not easily accessible to common men.It was 1963-64 GM Part # UP13 of ONGC which was working in Nainital, Pilibhit area.In that forest area, our first main camp was in Khatima- a well populated town but adjacent to the forest.The Banbasa area of the forest is very thick. Inside the forest, sunlight can hardly be seen, it is all dark surrounded by tall trees and creepers on them.No routes or roads except a few identification marks of survey of India. If you are lost, you are lost, nobody to guide you to come out. The forest is full of wild animals- tigers, leopards, wild cats, dogs, boars, elephants, bears and several others and variety of birds flying around.The forest is noisy when it is windy or perfect silent at other times.Our second partial camp was in Banbasa very near to Sharda canal/dam ( the canal was mostly constructed under the execution of my grandfather, Shri Bihari Lal Gupta during British regime ). The main population of this locality was of THARU tribe ( very beautiful and handsome people with free life style ). Our camp was just at the edge of the forest and our most of the work was inside the thick forest.The wild animals I mentioned earlier on were seen almost on daily basis. They used to visit our camp though our camp was well protected by guards and continuous burning fire and lights to keep them away. This was real and fantastic unique experience impossible to get even for the people who live in that neighbourhood. Living and working was very tough but I enjoyed it and I remember it so fondly.We encountered all kinds of problems, loosing our directions, breakdown of our vehicles, trapped in the Forest in late hours.Every day was full with fear and uncertainty and of course with new experience.But, I am sure that you can not get this kind of experience at any cost. Doon Valley Forest:( 1965-66): Forest starts right from Mohand where we had our first camp just at the edge of the forest and a valley of hilly flowing river.Second camp was in Biharigarh on the other side of the valley. The forests had a few huts here and there where some tribes ( muslim banjaras ) were living in small groups.Who were they? , how were they living there? , their life styles etc. I tried to know about them but that would be too much to describe here. I may write about it seperately somewhere else.From both the camps , we were doing our work for ELECTRICAL Exploration for ONGC.This was even harder work what I did in Banbasa area.The work was done in the isolated valleys in the thick forests during the nights only.It was a tougher job in the rough hilly valleys and stony river lets and also with the fear of wild animals though we were protected with lights and fire etc.This was a different kind of unique experience not only living but working in the forest areas. THAR Desert: Difficult to imagine the natural environment of a desert and especially of our famous desert of THAR in Rajasthan.One could know the geography of the desert from the standard text books but not the real conditions which are harsh, unimaginable and monotonous etc.Indian Railways operates up to Jaisalmer only - a tourist point- a big city established by the kings of that time ; has all facilities for the tourists ( a must place to visit ); from Jaisalmer to Ramgarh is a tar road; a bus operates on that route , not sure about the frequency, perhaps once in a week or so; Ramgarh is the last village with a population of few hundreds.From Ramgarh to Longenwala via Gamnewala is a sand-tar road constructed by military now. At the time, we were working there, there was nothing after Ramgarh except high sand dunes mostly naked without even a bush.Area after Ramgarh is real desert only with shifting high sand dunes, no bush, no tree or any kind of vegetation. In this area you travel just in wilderness.These places known as Gamnewala, Longenwala, Ghotaru and Shahgarh etc. are known as halting places for the nomades as these places have the water wells.Ghotaru even does not have a well but a flat gravel spread without much sand. This was the place about 200 miles from Jaisalmer, deep in the desert and very near to the Pakistan border.We used to change our mud tread tires to sand tread tires in Ramgarh so that our high power vehicles could track the sand dunes. ( one simply can not travel in this area with ordinary and normal vehicles .This area is simply impossible to access for the civilians and most people even living in Rajasthan can not think of visiting this area. No tracks, no directions, no identifications, even the sand dunes are sifting ones, to day, they were here to morrow, they would be somewhere else.It is due to our drivers who knew every inch of this area, we could travel inside the desert.Inside, there is no living being, a fly, mosquito etc. but variety of scorpions including the flying ones every where.;pin drop silence as nothing to make sound or noise.The sand in this area does not move but runs during the day time when the temperatures during 11am to 4pm. are very high and simply not tolerable and in the night freezing. I lived and worked in that area for about five months.A very unique experience of living and working with a few people living in the camp. our camp was very near to Pakistan border , therefore, most of the labourers were from the nearby areas of Pakistan.Our camp guard/watchman, Karima, invited me several times to his village in Pakistan.Karima was very honest and sincere person to the core. Seismic work was done mostly in the night . The work was really very tough.It was possible only due to good team work and hard working local people.The limited source of water was only from Longenwala well which was about 50 miles from our camp.Living in an isolated, rough place with limited facilities in the hostile environment is an experience in itself. However,I never felt bad about it rather enjoyed being in the typical and unique situation. It is hard to visualize or conceptualise the situation or environmental conditions of that place. Just imagine as how one could manage day to day affairs of living- bread and butter for breakfast,something for lunch or dinner, without any market nearby ( nearest for limited things was Jaisalmer about 200 miles- one full day for going there only ). We had powerful generators, therefore we enjoyed certain luxury of having light, referigirator and air conditioned office and wireless system for communication even in the far remote area of the desert.But what about those poor people born, brought up and living in that place?.They were deprived from those technological advances and advantages.These technological advances and advantages are again for those privileged people again living in posh urban areas.