Tiger
Peter Goetz

It was like this. We went to Ranthambhore National Park on my instigation. It was the first stop in Rajasthan, our planned touring area. Ranthanbhore is the most famous of the tiger-inhabiting national parks in India and supposedly - according to the guidebooks - one of the likeliest in which to see tigers.

The park is the former hunting grounds of the Maharaja of Jaipur. There still is a Maharaja but since he no longer has taxing power over his subjects (he lost that with the unification of India in 1947) he lost the bank account, so to speak, and now just has his palaces, which is no small deal.

The grounds were made a national park about 30 years ago. It’s a big piece of land comprised of a valley between two mountain ranges. Used to have about 10 farming/grazing villages in it but they were relocated when it was turned into a park. There’s still remnants of villages and royal life in the form of ancient looking stone buildings and temples and ramparts about the place. Very very dry land, it being in the desert. Only rain that falls is during the summer monsoon season which has failed in Rajasthan the last several years. Still, there’s several dammed lakes and ponds from the old days and water is to be had. None flowing. The maharaja even had the lakes stocked with crocodiles which are still there. We saw 2 humongous ones on the shores there. The park has about 35 tigers, all the land and the tigers’ need for territorial size can accommodate.

It’s not a strolling park - for obvious reasons - and the way to see the place is by taking jeep safaris through it . Our package, for whatever reason, had 3 built in. Good! More chance to see things. The guide was a naturalist, a college educated Indian guy, very knowledgeable with great social skills and willing to tell stories about the place. He’d been there 18 years. We couldn’t remember his name, Indianized and not common but it contained the word Ash so he suggested we call him that.

First tour was a 3 hour trip starting mid afternoon. We saw lots of antelope and deer and monkeys, all of them, really, everywhere. Since the deer and antelope eat the leaves off the very dry trees (they’re all having a hard time supposedly from the dry conditions) many trees have no leaves or much branch work below 15 feet off the ground. So you can see through the forest clearly. No tiger sightings. We went home.

Second trip in was an early morning one the next day. Very cold before the sun had a chance to warm things up. Upon entering the park, we shortly saw a dead deer by the side of the road, attacked from the rear and partially eaten. Ash seemed to know it was the work of a leopard, which also inhabit the park. They are never seen since they are exclusively nocturnal. Tigers used to be also but since they know they’re safe in the park now, not hunted these 30 years, they’ve come to amble about when they want. Ash seemed to think he caught a quick sight of a tiger duo chasing something on a distant hillside but neither I nor anyone else in the jeep saw it. More antelope, deer and lots of monkeys. We returned home.

Third try was that afternoon. Some of our group packed it in, having had enough of it all. Those of us intrepid remainders continued. I asked to see the crocodiles which we did. Stopped by the lake for a short stop. Ash said he witnessed once what is supposedly the only documented occurrence of a tiger killing a crocodile. Tiger was with her 2 cubs and the cubs went down to the lake for a drink and got lunged at by a croc. The mother tiger, enraged, attacked the croc and started to bite it, continually for 30 minutes before killing it. Didn’t eat it as it apparently she instinctively knew it would be dangerous which it would be. Non compatible bacteria?

We drove around, saw more monkeys, more deer, more antelope, more ramparts, more ruined temples. The afternoon was wearing on. The rule is everyone out of the park by 5:30. It was clear Ash really wanted a sighting. We pulled off the dirt road, turned off the engine. No one talked. There was immense quiet. Off in the distance, there was an animal sound. I wouldn’t have identified it as anything special, maybe a bird, maybe anything. But Ash did. He said it was a sambar deer calling a warning out - a tiger was in the area! We waited and the sound got closer. And this was the amazing part: there was a palpable drama rising, you could feel it. The whole forest was tracking the presence of this focused danger. Ash whispered out a couple times, ‘there’s 2 of them’ and ‘they’re coming closer.’ Only a single barking sound which, once it had been identified for me, was clear and unmistakable. Sounded several times, a single tone, minutes apart, closer. And this was the thing: this sense of drama, of something about to happen. Everything alert. Atmospherics changing.

Ash signaled to the driver to start up and we drove on, over a small rise in the road and there she was, loping down her way, a tiger, not the least bit concerned of our presence. From the back, a beige color, perfectly blending with the colors of the dusty road, the dry trees, everything there. The drama had capped and there it was! She didn’t pick up speed, didn’t look back at us, just strolled a bit (they are said to like walking the roads, being lazy creatures, due to easy transit opportunity) and then walked up a ridge into some trees.

We followed along and could just make out some glance of her walking along. A herd of deer stood by the road, grazing, alert - not to us, but to her. Hyper-alert, ready to flee. One let out a loud, brief warning bark. The cat continued, uninterested in these deer or us, and circled back, 200 feet ahead of us, crossing the road in front of us. That’s the view you see in this photo. Scott got it with his zoom. Cat walking along, no rush, knowing her territory.