The Kunoo flows through the forests of Shivpuri and Sheopur Kalan in Gwalior division of MP and gives its name to them. Memories of Kunoo forests haunt me ever since I was posted there as SDO in the late sixties. Sheopur Kalan was then a sub-division of district Morena and is a district now. Looking back, I recall with some thrill how very close these postings bring one to the ground realities of everyday life.

Sheopur Kalan sub-division comprised two tehsils Sheopur and Vijaipur, the towns were sixty - seventy miles apart and the SDO was to take up casework of each there. Much of Vijaipur was forested and so was Sheopur and I used to journey through the forests enjoying their changing moods from a coach of the Gwalior Light Railway, a toy-like train which runs on very narrow rails. A heritage piece, but that is a different story.

SDO had no jeep then and Block jeeps had also been withdrawn by the government in an effort to curb jeep-mentality of government officers which was an object of much adverse criticism those days. Jeeps were seen as distancing them from the people. Since government servants had them they spent so much less time among the people. The withdrawn jeeps were grounded with the SDOs, several of them. Once I took the liberty of taking one ramshackle jeep on my Vijaipur journey.

Onward journey was done straight to Vijaipur by the Chambal Canal service road crossing the river Kunoo alongside the canal aqueduct among wild forests. I broke my return journey a few days later to wander into the forests by the riverside. My reader, peon and driver were with me. We were unarmed and without security.

Walking deeper into the forest we came upon a set of strongly built stone-walled cages for wild tigers. They were open to sky and complete with iron grating and grills. Obviously a reminder of princely times.

The pull-up grills were open. Without giving it another thought we bent down and stepped in. From inside also they were in perfect shape. We spent a little time there admiring their strength, beauty and loneliness and thinking of the missed rendezvous with 'tiger tiger burning bright in the forests of night...' We came away, happy to have seen such an unheard of thing.

Raghunathpur is only a little distance from there and I had heard that Thakur saheb Raghunathpur was taking to tiger hunt on the sly and also entertaining others to it. So we decided to surprise him and take a general look at the place. The thought of afternoon tea also was on our mind. Somehow, he was not there and arrangements for tea could not be made but his retainers entertained us to lovely Coke. The rooms we sat in were obviously meant for guests. So what I had heard was not totally untrue.

We returned by the afternoon sun with lingering memories of the unexpected tiger cages and the equally unexpected Coke. On the drive back we got talking and somebody mentioned that wild beasts could have been sheltering inside the cages. Or the area being dacoit-infested some of them could be sheltering there and we would have surprised them. Or the pull-up grills could have fallen imprisoning us there with no chance of outside help. By the driver's assessment the ramshackle jeep and its worn-out tyres could have given way anywhere.

None of it however happened and we made it safely home by nightfall. All those ideas were a matter of hindsight. Thoughts programmed to give our experience an additional edge. But sometimes when my mind goes back to the risks of that day in the wilds of the Kunoo the only way I can interpret it to myself is that youth and rashness can hardly be parted.