The Children Of Fanella

Jawai, Rajasthan

WOW It's been a year and a couple of days since I started writing this blog and honestly, it's been better than I'd expected. I've been saving this story for this ocassion mostly cause it's got everything that I like; action, adventure, thrill, on the fly camera fun and pictures that I smile at when I look at them later. These are some of the best pictures of leopards that I've managed to score so far and it's pretty fun to recall what all went into that both by action and also by chance.  

Just a little bit of the right light on a scene added to a dash of locational colour and being there at the right time to catch it properly can make an entire trip worthwhile for me. Just a few minutes of that from like a week of exploration. One solid and awesome sighting with the right conditions makes a trip. I’m an easy customer and that’s all it takes. Every trip has its “Money Shot”. Now, how these situations unfold or turn to become what they do suddenly and unexpectedly make them exceptional experiences that money can never buy and no one else can create for you. It could be that you repositioned the vehicle, or a cloud moved up above or the subject just appeared in that scene that was just missing a protagonist but as soon as that moment comes, you feel your pulse start to quicken and the urgency start to build to pack in as many good shots while those conditions last. When its multiples of these factors all unfolding at once, oh that’s pure, manic, joy and if you managed to squeeze out awesome pictures at the end of all of it, it’s a huge win. I cannot describe with words how good it feels. It’s so good.

My last trip to Jawai was different because I got to have a go at some of the cats in Bisalpur. On the first tip there we saw that it was only the vehicles that belonged to a resort called Sujan who had access to these cats even in areas that weren’t inside Sujans own territory ( Ref : Neelam By Night ). That wasn’t the case anymore in 2024. Now, when you book a trip to see leopards in Jawai, they pretty much guarantee you a sighting. What they don’t guarantee is the proximity to the subject. These hills are naked granite which are all over the landscape and provide just what the leopards need, caves. Issue though is that no one said that the Leopards would be close to where you can get to. So basically you may see a lot but your pictures usually won’t be detailed. Well, every environment has its own challenges for us and there’s no reason for Jawai to not be the same. MP, my guy in Jawai and I had already sent one of his vehicles to the workshop a couple of days before this sighting with our antics while trying to get close to Tara, the Leopardess and a male but we did get back with our pictures albeit with torn clothes and a broken car ( Ref : Return To The Rock Climbers Of Jawai ). Zoos are always the easiest if you want a perfect setting I guess but where’s the adventure in that right?

So, one of the most famous Leopardesses in the Bisalpur area of Jawai is Fanella who lives inside Sujan’s property which being private was off limits to us. We got news though that two of her cubs from the 2024 litter had ventured out to the hills which were out of Sujan’s area and found ourselves there in the late afternoon. They were chillin there with a male who we’d seen with Fanella the morning before from a very long way away. Those pictures weren’t any good cause well, distance. As the afternoon of this sighting progressed, more vehicles started gathering at the site. We were there early thanks to my man MP’s network and were sitting on primo real estate for the afternoon but the pictures were OK at best. We were seeing them in front of a massive rock which the cubs climbed slowly and in no hurry. As they started walking down the other side of that rock, the flurry among the vehicles started cause we began to realize that we’d be getting pretty close to these sub adult Leopards if we could just position right at the bottom of the hill and that, was the crazy turn of events for this sighting.

Gypsies roared, drivers cursed, some rear ended each other, while others blocked paths to try and turn while getting yelled at. My man MP did the crazy. He put on his 4 X 4 and climbed instead. He knows that I can take it and in fact love it and we literally climbed the 75 degree rock and then turned left to reach the bottom moving parallel to our subjects who were walking slowly above us on the incline. The fact that his first car was already in the workshop cause of our antics to get close to our subjects didn’t even make him hesitate a second. We were the first there and while chaos reigned behind us among the other cars, we were already parked right at the sweet spot. The light was different on this side of the rock and there was a little vegetation in the background. I was seeing gold through my viewfinder and had already fired off my first pictures before he pulled up his handbrake and turned his car off. I knew those cubs were giving me images which would be at par or better than what I’d gotten from Tara and her male a couple of days ago and this chance was not to be missed. I was just hoping that I hadn’t mucked up the settings in all of the excitement but there was no time to check. It was short, sweet and so satisfying. As the cubs walked past and the ruckus kept growing with different vehicles trying to catch them close at different levels of the mountain, MP looked at me and asked, “Now?” I said, “Shall we leave?” his reply was, “Wait, lets relax a while and watch the circus for a bit”. So we did. He backed up and found his way slowly to the mountain opposite on 4 x 4 again where we light our cigarettes and watched the “circus” while evaluating my pictures. Quite a show it was too. The cubs went and hid in a secure bush area which vehicles couldn’t get to and I think 50 or so vehicles hovered around at different altitudes of the hills to see them while MP and I both just smiled knowing that we’d beaten em all. He’d gotten me there first and I’d gotten the shots. We’d done it again. This trip would have more than one “Money Shot”.

Such was my sighting of The Children Of Fanella but in naming them that for my album here, I started thinking about who the children of Fanella really are? Not just these yet unnamed cubs for sure cause she’s had other litters. That Leopardess has played such a pivotal role in the whole rise of Jawai in the global wildlife tourism map. Sujan sponsors a whole School in Bisalpur as part of Corporate Responsibility and they hang a board that says it on the School. All the other hotels, resorts, restaurants in the Pali area wouldn’t have existed if Sujan hadn’t set up shop to show Fanella off. The new resorts coming up are like 30 kms away from Jawai. We see all of that economic activity today because it all started with the sighting of the first generation of Leopards there who were named for the first time and Fanella was one of the first. So who really are the children of Fanella?

Food for thought huh?