Tiger country

The sticky sub-continental heat, the whistling sound of Sal tree leaves, the iconic mating calls of a peacock , the sight of langur monkeys feeding on treetops and the chital deer brushing the forest floor below ; my senses told me that I was in the tiger country now .

One part of me was mesmerized by these spectacles that the southern plains of my country is famous for, while the other part was hard at work finding out if this was a dream or a nightmare. Dream, because I always wanted to come to Chitwan National Park (150 KM to the south-west of Kathmandu) to track tigers, and nightmare because here the tiger resided at the top of the food chain and I was nothing more than a walking talking clumsy piece of meat. This was unsettling to say the least.

With me were few people who had experienced head on their shoulders. Our team included an expert tiger tracker who had been tracking tigers for 19 years, a park ranger, and few regular park visitors. I, on the other hand, was on my maiden voyage to the tiger country and was more of a hindrance than a help. We started our journey, on foot, from Sauraha, a small buffer village on northern edge of the park, at around 10 A.M.. Our plan was to track a big male tiger that called the northern tip of the park, home. The rangers named the big cat “Arnold”, after Arnold Schwarzenegger, because of its massive forelimbs.

Home territory of a big male Bengal tiger can get as big as 100 km square, so finding one here was like finding a needle in a haystack, even if this needle weighed as much as 4 grown men. We had our work cut out for us, and the only thing on our side was that it was late May, the prime tiger mating season, so there ought to be mating calls which could lead us to tigers. But this meant spooking two mating tigers, which was pretty unnerving to think. Two hours on, we entered the core prefecture of the park and the first thing that I noticed was the abundance of life forms. The place was teaming with wildlife; I saw chital and swamp deer, monkeys, peacocks, wild boars, a rhino, and maybe a leopard. The sight a rhino and an uncertain glimpse of a leopard again brought back the uneasiness. We crossed dense vegetation and clearings one after another for the good part of 4 hours, but didn't see a tiger. All we saw were few pug marks. The end was a bit anticlimactic. But the thrill of tracking the king of beasts and the feeling that I still have something to return for, compensated it all.