I SAW A TIGER !!

In an Indian Monsoon Forest, summers are the best time to go sight seeing for tigers, because that's the time they are forced to come out to the larger water spots like lakes to quench their thirsts. During the rainy and winter seasons the multiple small pockets of water that form in the deep forests are enough for these cats to survive - and so they do not need to come out in the open to the lakes.

In the summer of 2003, I finally got lucky to spot a tiger in the wild - rather a tigress with two cubs in tow. They were seen chilling out in one of the many road-side shallow wells or 'water holes' that have been constructed at many places in the forest. These holes are periodically filled with water during the summers for the animals...

Yes ! I did take a quick picture people ! - To see the tigress picture I shot with my Fuji digitalcam - Click here. You can clearly see her head while she sits in the water hole.

In the whole excitement , our driver tried to bend forward for a better look and unfortunately set off a loud van honk in the process - which resulted in our tigress springing off into the jungle with her cubs...:-( But it was one of the most valuable minutes of my lifetime !

My First Tadoba Visit...

My first visit dates back to the time when I was about 8-9 years old. We were a big group of 20 people and had hired a big shuttle ('Matador') for the trip. My brains shivered with excitement and fear of the unknown - This was the first time I was gonna watch wild animals free in the open jungles. My childhood mind was so colored by the man-eating tiger stories from the movies that me and my little cousins had managed to smuggle a few hand-made toy bows and arrows into the shuttle ..just in case, we had to rescue people from maneaters. ( ha ha..I miss those pristine childhood thought processes..)

We started off from my Grandfather's house at Chandrapur late in the afternoon. The journey through the forest-villages was breathtaking even to a kid....watching mud-houses with grass-like roofs, simple people toiling in the fields and naked kids running around in circles...

The greenery gradually got greener and more dense as we reached the tiger reserve forest in about an hours time. After an official permission was taken from the officials at the gate, we set off on our journey into the forests. My heart now beat a little faster as everyone in the shuttle grew silent , gazing out into the thick green woods with eyes full of anticipation.

The driver slowed down the vehicle and joined us in shooting glances in all directions to look for the slightest movements amongst those thick overgrown grass shafts, the tall trees and the vines. In thick greenery, it's too easy to imagine animals at the slightest shift of a leaf - and that only makes the suspense more fun !

And we saw the first animal - a bison ! Click here to on a picture from Tadoba, taken by my friend Siddhartha, to know what a Bison (Wild Buffalo) looks like..



[More coming up soon...]

Why is Tadoba called "Tadoba" ?

The local forest guide told me a cool story. The forest gets its name from the local God, "Taru". The legend is that the village chief "Taru" was killed in a great fight with a tiger. He is worshipped by all the local villagers as the deity of "Tadoba".

The guide took us to the tadoba lake where we saw the stone idols representing Tadoba god. I loved the setting - the idols are placed below a large tree on the banks of the large tadoba lake. The guide warned us of the crocodiles in the lake - the fear-factor made the whole thing even more exciting !!