You need luck to sight a tiger

My mother says that I am a lucky child: I apparently always seem to get what I want. As a child, she would enter my name in lucky draws – the wins were limited to only when I had written my name myself, which was not often as I did not see the point in such lotteries. This did not deter my mother in the slightest.

And so it was.

“We have scored a hat-trick!” KD beamed this morning after our fifth tiger sighting in 1.5 days, having been out on three safaris. KD, his wife, Ritu, her colleague Hem and I are in Ranthambore, a national reserve in Rajasthan in India, known for its sightings of its 55 resident tigers and 70 odd leopards.

Ritu and I high-fived each other, ecstatic at our good fortune.

Our guide, Vipul, was just telling us this morning that we were probably the only people among yesterday’s entourage who had sighted all three tigers, T-73 and T-74 in zone five and T-24 in zone two - the only tiger sightings yesterday.

Our young, lithe driver was the first to have spotted the two young male tigers in zone five yesterday, just a half-hour after entering the reserve at 7am.

“Tiger! Tiger! Tiger!” he chanted in English, as if in a trance. He and Vipul then whooped loudly, calling out to other guides and drivers in the vicinity. No one heard their calls.

We were well equipped: KD and Ritu are ardent bird-watchers and are familiar with the requisite gear. This is my fourth expedition with them.

The tigers sat coolly in the shade, the branches encircling them making it difficult to see them nor capture them on camera clearly. They sat silently, facing us, their stripes allowing them to melt into the background. It was if they were not even there.

It was not long before more jeeps drew up alongside us. We pulled away, deciding to return when the crowds have dispersed and the tigers might be more inclined to drink in the water body separating us from the glorious beasts.

We came back 15 minutes later. The crowds had grown, with cantor-loads of colourfully clad locals in the mix. Quite suddenly, the tigers got up and left. One disappeared into the distance; the other paced slowly, regally, as if trying to decide whether to enter the pool of water before it, his every move punctuated with murmurs from the appreciative human onlookers.

It sat down in a nook of trees in the shade.

The crowd became a clicking, furious frenzy of cameras and zoom lenses, as everyone scrambled for vantage point. I managed to squeeze off four shots on KD’s Canon Powershot S-40. My own Leica D-Lux 5 was of no use at this distance.

In the afternoon, we were just admiring the fortress guarding the entrance to zone two when we pulled up behind a whole line of jeeps, a quivering mess of tripods and cameras angled pointedly at a particular point in the bushes just next to the road. This was just ten minutes into the safari. I half-expected it to be some exotic lizard or bird.

“What is it?” I asked a lanky man who seemed to be the only relaxed person in the vicinity.

“A tiger,” he nodded his head nonchalantly in its direction.

We jostled again for a good view. I could only see patches of orange in the shadows.

Vipul told us, with no hint of irony in his voice, “This is T-24. Killed only three people.”

In the line-up of jeeps ahead of us, angry words were exchanged, as those behind demanded that those ahead move off so that we could all have a chance of photographing the animal.

Our turn came. I could only take one good shot, struggling to keep the tiger in focus with all the foliage around it, slumped as it was against the ground in the sweltering heat, not quite fully visible behind the dense green. Sometimes, it would curl up its long tail. Beautiful creature.

Again, we took off, deciding to return before sunset. We posed more questions about T-24 to Vipul.

“Why did he kill those people?”

“Oh, human mistake. They came too close.”

The heat was overpowering. The clasp of my bra-strap was also killing me from being thrown relentlessly back into our seats as the jeep traversed the rocky roads. I was only too grateful to finally draw up alongside T-24 again, reposed in the same position in the shade underneath the fortress wall.

“Tigers are so lazy,” KD remarked as we craned our necks for a better look.

“They have to conserve their energy for the kill.” Vipul explained, adding that the black-faced langurs overhead in the tree branches, one of my favourite animals, were raising an alarm about the tiger’s presence. They rained fruit and other unidentified objects down on the tiger below.

T-24 suddenly raised his majestic head in its full-whiskered glory, lifted a paw against the falling detritus, looked up briefly, and then continued his slumber. The langurs continued shrieking, making a racket. We stayed as long as we could and finally took our leave, egged on by the jeep-loads of other tourists behind us, eager for their turn.

And so, this morning, KD, Ritu, Hem and I did not even dare entertain the thought of seeing another tiger again. We were back in zone five, apparently one of the most sought-after routes as it is known for its tiger sightings. Just after 8am, we came across a whole line of parked cantors and jeeps, their passengers excitedly pointing at the ridge above. We could not see anything until the animal started moving in the direction whence we came. We took off, to try to follow it. No success.

All of a sudden, we heard a whoop, the unmistakable call from another guide. We sped there.

It was a leopard this time. I could just about spy its spots and long tail before it melted into the forest.

Three cantor-loads of tourists arrived just after us, breaking the silence. Now I am not certain that there is necessarily a hierarchy for animal watchers but it seems to me that those in the jeeps - simply because one has to book them months in advance – are the more serious animal-lovers and more inclined towards following the unwritten jungle decorum, whilst the behavior of many of those in the cantors leaves a lot to be desired.

This lot appears to be no different – they chattered excitedly, oblivious to the noise that they were making. I was furious: I clapped my hands loudly and tried to shush them, to no avail. The leopard, not surprisingly, did not put in an appearance again.

Just as we thought that that was enough drama for the day, Vipul suddenly shouted excitedly, “Tiger! Tiger!”, making wild, gesticulating motions. We careened head-long in our jeep a few metres ahead to where Vipul had seen a tiger crossing the road.

And so we pulled up close next to either T-73 or T-74, a young male tiger in profile. He seemed to be eating something on the ground, tail languid and body stretched. He looked up at us as we arrived. When the third jeep came, he stood up almost in annoyance, and then disappeared around the bend but not before we had clicked a few good pictures. We could hardly believe our luck!"

Am off to Ranthambore again the weekend of 27-29 March. Who knows what adventures this second trip will bring.

Tiger, tiger, burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?