Face-to-Face with an Indian Tiger
I woke up at 3 a.m. I hate early mornings and this was, by my standards, still late night.
The sole aim of the day was – to see a tiger in the wild. Not pacing in its cage, but in its natural habitat.
I had some great company too. A cousin and his friends – one of whom is an accountant on weekdays and a dedicated wildlife photographer on weekends.
We drove down from Nagpur to Tadoba National Park – a wildlife sanctuary – one of the rare places in India where tiger sightings are quite common.
We reached the gates at 6 a.m. and got into a forest Jeep with a ranger. The first thing that strikes you about a forest is the sudden fall in temperature. It cools down and somehow the unbearable heat of central India in the summer seems much more bearable, almost enjoyable.
Second, a forest can be so quiet. City folk would love this kind of solitude – broken sometimes only by the calls of a bird or an animal at a distance.
About an hour later, we were still driving, but still no tiger. I began to think to myself how I am unlucky with buses, taxis and trains (I always seem to miss them) – and maybe tigers too.
It’s funny when you keep staring at the brown grass hoping to see a tiger, you actually begin to imagine that you can see one in the distance. When I shared this thought with my fellow tiger enthusiasts, they teased me a bit but were also sympathetic.
We saw a herd of deer go past us. And then a peacock. I spotted monkeys and even some rare species of birds. But still no tiger. My transportation luck was rubbing off on this visit.
Indraneel Dani, the photographer amongst us knows the forest like the back of his hand, has visited these forests since he was 8-years-old and has been photographing tigers at this sanctuary for the past six years.
He told us all to look for signs. When a tiger is close, other animals begin to tell you that its there. The deer start to disperse, the birds begin to make threatening noises and the monkeys announce its arrival.
I saw this unfolding in front of me, held my breath, yet the tiger eluded us. Bad luck.
Summers are a good time to visit sanctuaries like this one because tigers often come out to the ponds to drink water. We continued our drive down the demarcated road (you’re not allowed to stop the car or get off at any point).
A few minutes later, we saw a couple of Jeeps parked on the road – silently watching something. We drove to the spot, Indraneel’s instincts proved right – there was a family of tigers. A “dominant male” inside a water hole with its entire family – a female and four other smaller tigers.
Tiger in Tadoba National Park, India. (Photo: Indraneel Dani)
Indraneel was photographing the tigers and we all watched in awe. Most other animals seem to shy away when they see human beings – not these big guys. It seemed to look at us nonchalantly, unaffected by our presence.
Maybe tigers are programmed not to fear any other animals and that’s why they don’t scamper away when you see them.
We continued to watch the tiger and its family for several minutes. The forest rangers gently reminded us to drive away and so we did. But it is a sight that will never leave me – the image of five tigers at a water hole. Lucky for Indraneel, he’s back there again this weekend.
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