Simlipal National Park

Listen first. Somewhere ahead, water is falling. Closer in, dry sal leaves crackle underfoot, and a bird you cannot see repeats the same three notes. The air smells of damp earth and woodsmoke from a village beyond the trees. The light comes down in narrow shafts through a high, layered canopy. This is Simlipal, in the hill country of Mayurbhanj district in northern Odisha. It is one of the largest continuous forests in eastern India. Take a breath. You are standing inside it.

The name comes from a tree. Simul is the local word for the red silk cotton tree. In late winter, before its leaves return, it bursts into large crimson flowers on bare branches. Later, its pods split and release soft white fibre that drifts on the wind like snow. Look along the ridges, and you may see one standing out from the green. The whole forest carries its name.

Simlipal is not a single valley. It is a plateau of rolling hills, ridges and deep gorges, rising from the surrounding plains like an island. Several rivers begin up here and run outward in different directions. The Budhabalang is one of them, and it waters the farmland around Baripada, the district town. So when people in the lowlands drink, wash or irrigate their rice, part of that water started its journey in these hills.

The forest itself is mostly sal. Sal is a tall, straight hardwood with broad leaves, and it dominates much of central and eastern India. Here it mixes with moist, semi-evergreen pockets in the sheltered valleys, and with open grassland on the higher plateaus. Botanists have recorded a large number of flowering plants in Simlipal, including many orchids. Look up at the trunks and branches. Some of those small green clumps are orchids, rooted on bark rather than soil.

Now for the animal that made this place famous. Simlipal was one of the first tiger reserves in India, created when Project Tiger began in 1973. That national programme set aside protected forests to save a big cat that was disappearing fast. Tigers still live here today, along with leopards, Asian elephants, gaur, which are wild cattle, sambar deer and the small, barking deer called muntjac. You are unlikely to see a tiger. But every tiger in these hills depends on the quiet you keep.

Here is the first surprise. Simlipal is home to tigers that look almost black. Their stripes are so broad and so close together that they merge into dark bands, leaving little orange showing. Scientists call this pseudo-melanism, meaning a false black colour. In the wild, these tigers have been recorded only in Simlipal. Researchers believe the trait spread because this population is small and isolated, so a rare gene became common. It is a living sign of how cut off this forest has become.

The second surprise involves one tigress in particular. In the 1970s, the reserve's field director, Saroj Raj Choudhury, raised an orphaned tiger cub at his home. She was named Khairi, after one of the rivers in the park. Khairi grew up around people and became known across India through newspapers and photographs. Her story made many people think about tigers in a new way, as individuals rather than threats. Today the name is still remembered in the district.

Water shapes the visitor's experience more than anything else. Simlipal has two well-known waterfalls. Joranda Falls drops in a long, narrow ribbon into a gorge. Barehipani Falls is larger and falls in stages down a high cliff, and it is counted among the tallest waterfalls in India. After the rains, both are loud and full. In the dry months, they thin out, and you can see the bare rock face behind the water.

People did not arrive here after the forest. They have always been part of it. Communities such as the Santhal, Ho, Munda, Bhumija and Kolha live in villages inside and around the reserve. Some groups, including the Kharia and Mankidia, have long gathered honey, resin, leaves and roots from the forest. The Mankidia are known for making rope from forest fibre. Many families still collect sal leaves, stitch them into plates, and sell them in local markets.

That relationship is not simple. Protecting tigers often means moving people or limiting what they can collect. Over the decades, some villages have been relocated out of the core zone, the most protected inner area of the reserve. Supporters say this gives wildlife space. Critics say it breaks long ties between families and their land. If you meet a guide from a nearby village, ask what the forest means to their family. The answer will tell you more than any sign.

Simlipal also faces fire. In the hot, dry weeks before the monsoon, fallen leaves pile up on the forest floor. Fires, some set to clear ground for collecting flowers or for hunting, can spread quickly across the hillsides. In some recent years, these fires became large enough to make national news. If you see blackened trunks at the base of the trees, that is the mark of an old burn. Most sal trees survive it, and new shoots return with the rains.

Another story sits near the Jashipur side of the park, at a place called Ramtirtha. Here, the forest department has bred mugger crocodiles, a broad-snouted freshwater species found across South Asia. Young crocodiles are raised in pools and later released into the rivers. Children usually love this stop, because the animals are easy to see from the edge. It is a reminder that conservation in Simlipal covers more than the big cats.

Before you leave, stand still for one more minute. Notice how the sound changes between the open grassland and the shade under the sal. Notice the red earth on the track, and the dust on your shoes. If there is a village at the forest edge, you may smell rice cooking or leaf plates drying in the sun. The tigers, the elephants and the waterfalls are all out there. But this ordinary moment, quiet and green, is Simlipal too.