1411

So we've seen them in zoos. We've seen them in the occasional circus that had come into town. We've seen them on TV. We've seen them in the movies. And, there are only 1,411 of them left.

The Indian Tiger in the wild is what I am talking about. And while ministers and officials will continue to argue about whether the number is 1,100 or 1,411 or 1,600, the hard fact is that we are speaking of numbers that have just about entered the 4 digit arena.

So, have you seen a tiger in the wild? I have, and it is an experience that will always be etched in my mind.

Look into the eyes of a tiger (remember the 1980's song from Rocky III by Survivor called "Eye of the Tiger"?). Have you noticed that the eye ball is round? Look a little closer at the pupils. Do you see some W shaped lines around it? These are just some of the things that you can notice in the few seconds that you have with a tiger in the wild. Your mind works on overtime ... taking on every minute detail ... and storing it to process it later. And then after that when you sit back and start a slow motion replay of what you saw ... savouring every moment ... trying to extract every small bit of the experience ... that's when all these observations start appearing out of nowhere.

For some strange reason, the experience is not the same in a zoo or a movie or anywhere else. Possibly your body doesn't get that adrenalin rush knowing that he is not physically there in front of you. Or maybe, you know that you can just stand around watching what you want with your hand on the pause button of the remote control. And so no zoo, no movie, no book, no blog, nothing can give you the feeling, the excitement, the high of seeing a tiger in his territory, on his terms.

In early December, we were in the Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh. We head out early in the morning in search of the tiger. The open top Gypsy is a great idea to look around the forest. It is a bad idea early on a cold winter morning. The micro climate to the forest can really drop the temperature by quite a few degrees. Your eyes are pealed on the forest. Every small combination of yellow, black and white that you see through the corner of your eye, causes your head to turn in that direction hoping to see the tiger. But alas, it turns out to be the golden sun playing hide and seek through the leaves of the trees.

At 9 in the morning, we've been in the forest for 3 hours. The early morning cup of Ginger Tea is taking it's toll on my system. The concentration on the tiger is now over and I am counting the seconds before I can reach a rest room! What seemed like many hours later, we reach the camp and I am just about able to get to the rest room. No tea for me tomorrow - that's for sure.

Someone mentions that there are over a hundred tigers in Kanha. Right now it looks more like 100 humans and no tiger. Half an hour later, we leave on our hunt for the elusive tiger again. A short while later the Gypsy comes to a screeching halt (well, you cant actually screech on sand, but then...). I look left, I look right, I look ahead, I look behind all that I can see are trees, more trees and still more trees. I feel I need to get my eyesight checked. And then I look at our driver and naturalist. They are all looking down ... down on the dirt track that we have just come down. I see sand, a few leaves, tyre tread marks and .... yes, I see pug marks. Pug marks going backwards from where we came. Fresh pug marks. Fresh, I'm told since they are still damp. How the driver saw it while driving down the road is a question I don't venture to ask.

What happened next was made me feel that I was on the Kinda Ka roller coaster except that it was heading backwards and I was in a Gypsy without any seat restraints. We followed these pug marks for about a kilometre until they went into the forest. So he was somewhere around here. We waited looking all around, listening to every sound. About 15 minutes later, another Gypsy comes along and tells us that they heard the call of a Barasingha on the other side of the hill. We head there. For the next 45 minutes, we drive, then stop to listen and then drive again. The adrenalin rush that had built up, slowly subsides. Today was just not our day.

And just as I started to take my mind off the tiger, the Gypsy stops. Ahead of us, and coming straight at us, were 3 Gypsies blocking off the entire road. I though to myself - a traffic jam on the dirt tracks of Kanha. And then, yes then, I saw him. There was the tiger that we had been looking for. Walking down the road leading a pack of Gypsies much like a drum-major leads his band. We were spellbound. Not a word came out of my mouth as I watch this magnificent creature walk down the road, his road, in his forest. No zoo and no National Geographic serial can quite capture this experience that totally overpowers you. Don't we want our children and grand children to live this experience of a tiger in the wild? Or do we want to just restrict the experience to a text book, a TV story or a zoo?

He walked up to our Gypsy, looked us in the eye and then turned off into the forest. And it is in that fraction of a second that my mind was able to look into the Eye of the Tiger. I survived, but will the tiger?