Mark and Leonie, my friends from New Jersey were visiting India in May. The trip to Tadoba was the first on their agenda. Meticulous planning was done for this trip. My daughter Aarti and son-in-law Surbhit, joined us from Delhi.
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| Its 6 am! Mark and Leonie in the 4X4, Aarti and Surbhit chatting, while waiting for the gates to open. |
May 17th morning, was our second safari. It started with the sighting of a Tiger cub, just 15 minutes into our morning Safari. Though, the cub was at quite a distance, for the other four members in the group it was their first tiger sighting in the wild. An absolute WOW moment!! The first time I saw a tiger in the wild, was after many safari’s and a wait of a few years! Since then, I have had many tiger sightings in the wild. However, any number of tiger sightings in the wild can never be enough. So yes, it was a wow moment for me too!
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| Within 20 minutes of our safari, first sighting of the Tiger Cub! A WOW moment for us all! |
After the first sighting of the cub, we drove around the Jamuni Chowk area for sometime. Suddenly our guide told the driver to make a turn. Wow, in the bamboo grove, there she was sitting majestically, like Cleopatra. Our second sighting for the morning, this time the tigress. Her mate, the tiger was around nearby, a little deeper in the thicket. I managed to get a few shots of ‘her majesty’, trying my best to focus through all the bamboo clutter.
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| Peeking at us through the bamboo, as we watched and photographed her. |
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| My utter surprise as she got up and walked towards us! |
A friend of mine, Sumeet, had once told me, “Sheila you must ‘make the picture in your mind’ and then it will happen”. So taking his cue, I spoke to this beautiful predator in my mind and said, ‘come on baby, walk towards us’. All the while trying to focus and take as many shots as possible, bamboo clutter and all. In addition, was also making mental pictures of her ‘walking majestically towards us’.
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| She turns away from our vehicle and walks away ....... |
Ours was the third jeep parked from where she was seated. Imagine my utter surprise,
when within a few minutes of my mental message, I find her suddenly getting up, and walking straight towards our jeep. She came on to the road, practically touching distance from our jeep and stopped. She looked at us closely, inquisitively, snarled a bit. May be that was her smile! It was definitely a scary at the same time thrilling moment. After a few minutes, which seemed a long time, she turned and walked away. (The pic at the left, is a full frame image, at 100mm).
She crossed over to the other side from behind the car that was parked just behind our jeep.
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............. crossing behind the vehicle, that was parked just behind ours.
My daughter Aarti said “Ma, I was looking at her through my binoculars, and suddenly she was in my face!” Leonie said “I was so fascinated with her, I was just admiring her.” Mark and Surbhit were excited and speechless!! Me, I was totally dumbstruck! To have the tigress walk up to us and say 'hello'. We all shared one thing in common - we were floating in the clouds. These were unforgettable spellbinding moments, frozen in time.
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All my strategy of visualizing my picture in my mind came to naught. She was just out of my frame. Thankfully, I did manage to get a picture of her as she moved away, and while crossing behind the car, that was parked right behind ours. A nice capture as a reminder of how close she came to us.
Our ‘tigress queen’ was not yet done with her show for us. She walked over to the other side, and posed for us again.
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| The Tigress continues to pose for us. |
She seemed to be in no hurry to go, giving the tiger a hard time by refusing to go join him. The tiger came towards her, looked at her pleadingly, crossed her and went into the bushes.
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| She watches while he crosses her and goes into the bushes. |
After a while, our ladyfair, got up and came and sat in the shade of the trees, in front of our jeep. Totally relaxed, looking up, looking around, enjoying the show she was giving us all.
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| She looks up .... |
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| ...... she looks around! |
All this time, the tiger was waiting for her patiently. Finally she decided it was time to go, and joined the tiger in the bamboo thicket. They seemed to have some discussions in there.
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| She joins the tiger in the bamboo thicket, some discussion goes on and they come out |
The next thing we saw, both of them emerging from the thicket, run across the road, and walk deeper into bushes.
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| The tigress walks away ... |
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| ... and the Tiger follows |
Needless to say these moments captured in our minds eye, will remain etched there for a long, long time.
