TIGER ON FOOT! WELL, ALMOST

We have been very very lucky as far as sighting tigers is concerned. The first trip we take into any jungle, we know that we will be face to face with royalty any moment – so far this record has been unbroken; we have always seen a tiger/tigress in the very first trip to any jungle. Also, normally this is a close encounter. The tiger is just a meter or two from our jeep and is in no hurry to dart away. We can watch it ambling along or standing there wagging its tail or sitting down and licking its paws or in various other poses that it can strike.

But seeing a tiger from inside a jeep is one thing and seeing it standing in front of you while you are walking in the jungle is quite another. The tigers, so say the guides, take the whole jeep as one single organism. That is exactly why you are told not to move in a manner that a limb or head pokes out of the jeep. And since the jeep is quite big, the tiger rarely attacks it. So, no danger even if the tiger is just a meter or so away from you and happens to look into your eye while your nostrils pick up its rank smell.

But what if you are on foot, walking in deep jungle and the tiger comes in front of you? Well that is totally different, unnerving, has an element of danger and, therefore, thrilling. Rules in the National Parks in India (at least in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan) forbid you from walking. So this situation is almost impossible. But there is a place inside the core area of a National Park in Madhya Pradesh where you can walk for miles and miles without bending the rule and where the tigers come everyday. This National Park is Bandhavgarh and the following is an account of what happened when we were last there in the month of March.

In this park, atop a hill is a fort. Just about half way to the fort is a statue of Vishnu reclining on his snake-bed or, what in Sanskrit or Hindi is called the Shesh Shayya. The statue is just besides the wall of the hill and natural streams coming down from the hill make a pond of fresh water just in front of this statue. The place is cool and beautiful. This is also the point up to which the jeeps can travel. From here on you have to climb on foot if you want to visit the fort. Once you reach the summit, you can walk on flat ground and take a stroll besides the numerous huge manmade ponds and a natural lake. Opposite the lake is the temple which is raised slightly above the ground and you have to climb a few stairs before you reach it. The temple has a priest who lives in the temple and is witness to goings and comings of tigers everyday. The tigers walk up to the temple quite often and at times swim in the lake and lie in its cool water at length.

Strewn all over are ruins of ancient structures. Trees, grass, shrubs grow both outside and inside these ruins. The guide takes you up to the ruins, waits outside, makes sure that no tiger is lurking inside and then takes you in. This he does with every single structure. He is not making it up to make it more thrilling for you. Once inside, you can see tiger droppings which have gone all silvery with age. Tiger droppings contain a lot of calcium and thus, as time passes, the white of calcium shows on the surface and gives it an almost silvery hue. All over the flat ground are pug marks recent and old, body marks where the tigers had lain down, claw marks on the trees showing their efforts at marking territory, bones of sambhar, deer, wild boars, and other animals that became food long back. A pug mark is so fresh that you know that a tiger has just preceded you. Your blood curdles just at the thought that you may be walking just behind a tiger or, worse, a tiger may be walking behind you. You look back.

That day, as we started to climb, it was 11 in the morning and it was still cool despite it being summer. The climb is not steep except at a few places. Still you sweat and breath heavily because the path steadily rises up. There are alternate places of sunshine and shade. You can stop and rest in the shade and look around. The scenery is breathtaking. Along the route are hairpin bends. These bends are potential thrill spots for the man who thinks – what if there is a tiger lurking just along the bend? It is not an empty thought either. From our previous visits to the fort we know that there are tigers here and they love to be here. Just along one such bend is an entire skull of a Sambhar that probably found the tiger lurking as it was going up or down. Or probably it was killed elsewhere and the tiger brought it to this place to eat in peace.

By and by we almost make it up to the summit. As we are walking a comparatively flat and straight path, a foreigner couple is coming from the opposite direction. There is something in their walk that is not quite right. They are slightly more hurried than normal. Yet, you do not see much urgency or fear on their faces. The female has something like a smile on her face and both faces show something almost like satisfaction. Their guide is walking slightly behind them. As we come abreast, the guides stop and talk in whispers. When we start walking again, our guide whispers to us, “There is a tiger ahead!” This news makes electric current flow through our bodies. “These foreigners have just seen it and if we do not make much noise, we too will see it. They saw it lying down just besides the road itself. So, lets move and lets not talk.”

My children are excited. Right from their childhood they have been seeing tigers at close quarters, but from inside the open jeep. Their excitement is misinterpreted by the guide. He stops us. “When you see the tiger, stay where you are. Don’t run. Promise me, you won’t panic.” We tell him that we are not likely to do any such thing. My daughter clutches my hand. But that is not in fear, it is just excitement. My son whispers, “It should not go away by the time we reach.”

We walk on. We are slower now. We watch where we put our foot. There is burnt grass and dried up leaves on the path. The grass on the path and on the sides of the path is periodically burnt. This is done just before the summer arrives to stop jungle fires from spreading. We avoid putting our foot on the dried leaves or on the burnt grass to avoid making any sound. We hope that the tiger cannot hear our hearts thumping in excitement. And while I say there is no fear, I am exaggerating. There is fear, but it has become a part of our excitement. Without fear, there wouldn’t be excitement either.

We turn a bend and are extra careful while we do. The path stretches beyond us straight and flat – there is no tiger to be seen for as far as we can see. The path turns again and in front of us is an ancient structure. This is a square room atop a platform with a flat roof on top of it. The guide says that this was used as a classroom till a few years back. I cannot believe him. The reason is a banyan tree that is growing out of one of its walls with its primary roots going deep into the plinth of the structure and secondary roots falling from its great branches and embedding themselves into the structure and beyond it into the open ground. The tree is huge and has obviously taken some decades to grow to this size and maturity. As we hop on to the plinth, the guide asks us to be careful on two counts. The structure is weak and, more importantly, the tiger can be inside this structure. He says he has witnessed a tiger inside this structure once. Our advance comes to a quick halt. I move around the room doing a full parikrama watching ahead of me and inside the room all the time. There is no tiger here.

And then it happens. There is a sudden alarm call. A macaque is calling some distance away. The macaque alarm call is quite distinct – the closest analogy I can give is a man coughing spasmodically and loudly. In the direction that the call is coming from is a vast open, depressed ground that is completely green with grass. Circumscribing the ground are trees in the distance. Between this ground and us are several rocks big and small. We start climbing these rocks to move toward the ground.

We now know that there is a tiger somewhere nearby. The excitement in us has reached a peak and we do not want to miss the chance to see the striped one. My son moves ahead of me. I am directly behind him. Some distance away is my wife and the one to bring the rear is my daughter. We walk quite some distance but fail to see the tiger. The alarm calls have also subsided and we decide to sink to the ground. We sit for a while. Our guide says we should go see the temple and then somewhere under a tree, eat our lunch.

The temple is at the peak of the hill. It is a wonderful thing. The wind blows here all the time. Our sweaty bodies are chilled immediately. We climb the few stairs it takes to reach the temple and sit there on the platform with our feet stretched. I go into the sanctum and offer prayers to the resident deity. The priest is pleased and anoints my forehead with vermillion. He comes out with me. When I inquire about the tiger he tells me that it has not arrived so far. But he is certain it will as it does everyday. It had called an hour or so before and must have been climbing then.

In front of us is the lake. After some time we climb down from the temple and select a tree for its shade. Before eating the lunch, we go down to the lake to wash our hands, feet and faces. We climb up, eat lunch, rest a while under the shade and then start our descent towards Shesh Shayya and the jeep waiting for us. The time is 1.30 PM.

We have missed seeing the tiger on foot.


In the evening over dinner the guests on a table nearby tell us, “We were at the fort at around 3 PM. While we were sitting outside the temple, two tigers came and entered the lake and swam for almost half an hour before getting out and walking away. We have the whole scene on our video camera.”