An Entrancing Encounter

It was our second core safari in Moharli. It was 2 in the noon and it was melting hot. We started off the safari with spotting a White-eye Honey Buzzard that was nesting, a pair of Mottled Wood Owls and Sambar deer. Our guide decided to first check Tiger Mowgli’s territory since we had spotted him earlier that day. We reached the lake where we had sighted him before. There were so many jeeps crowded on the trail.

As we neared the jeeps, we saw Mowgli sitting under a dense tree in the water. If you were to just look at the lake surface from afar, you wouldn’t notice this big guy sitting there. But with a closer look, you’d notice how he was just chilling in the cool water under the harsh afternoon sun and lapping at the water occasionally. We noticed how a deer herd and a few Indian gaurs too were drinking water in the same lake, barely a few feet away from Mowgli. This goes on to show that tigers aren’t necessarily always going to hunt. They hunt only when they’re hungry. It was a lovely sight, to watch them all be in the same surrounding, co-existing peacefully. After a while, a safari bus came on the trail, blocking the view of the jeeps behind. The people on the jeeps started making a lot of noise, asking the bus driver to move and let them see the tiger too. This noise disturbed Mowgli. He slowly got up, his orange fur glistening with water, and with slow and heavy footsteps went behind a thick cluster of bamboo trees. He was completely out of sight. All jeeps left there disappointed.

Earlier that day too when we had seen Mowgli, it was barely for about 5 minutes. This time it was just the same. I was hoping to get a good eye full of him. There was just something about him that made me feel drawn to him. Maybe it was how majestic he looked and how dominant he seemed, or maybe it was the fact that he was the first ever tiger I saw in the wild.

We continued our safari and reached a place where apparently a tigress and her two cubs had been sighted. The guide on a jeep that had seen them cross the road told us that the tigress was somewhere on the other side of the water stream, and her two male cubs went in two opposite directions- one went into the grasslands on our right and the other was sleeping by the stream on our left side. We waited for 5 minutes hoping one of them would come out of hiding. We looked around in all directions to see if there was any movement. All we could see and hear was a Sambar deer making calls. There were lapwings tittering around making all other noises inaudible.

As if on cue, a tiger walked out of the clearing. It was Tigress Bijlee’s adopted male cub, Mama. Bijlee is Choti Tara's daughter. It's said that he is actually Choti Tara's son from another litter but was misplaced, and was being nurtured under his sister, Bijlee's care. Bijlee's biological son, born around the same time as Mama, was named Bhanja. Together the duo is called Mama-Bhanja.

Mama was huge, not as much as Mowgli though. He walked slowly and at his own pace. He was coming at our jeep head-on. He wasn’t in the least bothered by the jeeps around him. He walked down the road and stopped abruptly. Oh, there was no space for him to continue walking. All the jeeps had blocked the width of the path completely. He got down the trail and walked on the grassy land, parallel to the trail.

He looked around, and I happened to make eye contact with him. Adrenaline rush. That’s what I felt. It felt as though time was moving slow. It was love at first sight for me. His eyes were so captivating. He walked further behind our jeep and disappeared between a few other jeeps. Since we’d gotten him on camera, we decided to go further down the trail to try and see if his mom or brother would come out too. We waited there for another 10 minutes, but were disappointed. So we went back to where Mama was. He was walking under the trees off the trail near a chowk, 4 roads intersected there. We too reached the chowk, the last jeep in the queue, and just watched his movements.

He was trying to cross the road and get to his share of his mom’s territory. But again, all the jeeps were blocking his path. Suddenly he turned towards our jeep, and walked towards us. He slowly got back on the trail, and walked from behind our jeep. I felt a rush of joy upon seeing him up so close. His orange fur looked bright under the sun, his bare yellow teeth, his big paws leaving prints behind him. His aura was such that I couldn’t bear to look at anything but him. Even as our jeep drove a little further to make way for him, I stared at him continuously, as though hypnotized by him.

He walked a little more and then stopped at a tree, first smelling it and then marking it. He again walked by our jeep, and crossed the road right in front of us. He slowly walked into the dense trees and disappeared from our sight. Wow. That was such an amazing experience! Having a tiger walk past you, barely a few feet away, is a dream come true. After all, Tadoba is known for its tiger sightings on the road.