T24 is in his elements, lolling lazily in Pandu Deh, a small pond. Open-topped Maruti Gypsys and Canter vans crowd around the male tiger at Ranthambore National Park in south-eastern Rajasthan. He turns his head away.
The tourists click furiously on expensive SLR cameras, cellphones, and tablet PCs.
“You there, in the checked shirt. Duck your head! You’re in my frame.”
The visitors jostle for a better angle. Questions and instructions fly.
“Did you get it?”
“Take the picture! Take it! He’s looking here! He’s looking here!”
“Quiet! Quiet!” someone orders.
Men, women and children clamber onto the thin frame of the vehicles.
The tiger moves away.
The engines roar, gears crunch and bumpers clang as the drivers manoeuvre to get the tourists a better view of the big cat, barely a dozen feet away. Irritated, T24 gets out of the water, lifts his tail and sprays a stream of urine on a tree — a scent to tell other tigers that they are straying into his territory.
The noisy convoy follows him along the forest track to another waterhole. More excitement. More shouting and jostling. More photographing.
One cannot but be caught up in the moment. A tiger sighting is a rare moment to be savoured, a memory to be cherished.
But is it?
Just minutes earlier, we had the good fortune to see the other members of T24’s family — Noor, his mate, and Sultan, a nearly full-grown cub — walking down a hillock covered with dry grass. As the tigers walked side by side, a dozen vehicles stood across from them.
Noor and her cub paused under a barren dhok tree for a few seconds. Probably used to visitors, she took the lead, but the cub hung back. Both of them cut through our line of vehicles less than 25 ft away and disappeared into the forest.
Not often do wildlife enthusiasts see three tigers on a single safari.
Ranthambore is home to a wide variety of plants and animals. Peacocks strut about, their long feathers almost sweeping the ground. A lonely hare scurries into its burrow. Crocodiles feed greedily in the lake, their wide jaws snapping at fish. A solitary serpent eagle perches on a high tree. No one bothers about them. Spotting a tiger is everything here.
Another day, another ride. Vehicles line a road on the edge of the forest area. A tiger has been sighted entering a deep nullah running beside the road. The drivers and guides encourage sightseers to get down from their vehicle.
The tourists have flown in from all over the country. A man walks briskly ahead, trying to spot the striped cat. He flings an empty water bottle into the bushes. A young boy, mother in tow, tosses an empty bag of chips. Someone crumples a chocolate wrapper and throws it into a thorny bush.
Huge boards at the park entrance warn us: Do not get down from the vehicles. Do not litter. Remember, this is the tiger’s home and you are intruding into its territory.
“How come you allow people to get off? You don’t tell people not to litter?” somebody in our group asks the driver.
He shrugs.
“What can we do, saab?” says another man. “How can we stop tourists from doing what they want?”
The Ranthambore reserve in Sawai Madhopur District was once the hunting ground of the Jaipur royalty. Today, it is meant to be a place for the tiger, the aristocrat of the jungle, to live in peace.
Picture by the author