Trailing the tigers in India

Still, the lodge, protected by an electrified perimeter fence, can't be beaten for its location in the heart of the park, overlooking the Ramganga river where tigers sometimes come to bathe and drink in summers.

Visitors to Corbett National Park - about 160,000 come every year - usually spend two days at the lodge. Lodge officials arrange elephant and Jeep safaris that set out twice a day - once at dawn and again before dusk when most animals come out to hunt or forage.

Elephant safaris are highly popular and get booked days in advance. We were slow in booking and had to settle for the Jeep.

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Our first day proved to be fruitless. Riding in an open Jeep, we crisscrossed the dirt tracks across the dry brown grasslands and stopped at a spot where a tiger was seen a day before.

But patience proved futile and as dusk began to approach we hurried back to the lodge before the curfew. Big mistake.

M.C. Klaarwater, a young Dutch engineer on his second trip to India, lingered and came across a frolicking tiger, leaping over the grass, its black-tipped tail up in the air. He even had pictures to prove it.

That evening M.C. proved to be the most popular man at the lodge with all residents lining up to see the pictures on his digital camera.

With renewed vigor, despite near freezing temperatures, we set out at dawn the next day to the same spot and parked ourselves. The stillness of dawn was soon broken by jungle sounds.

To us they were just sounds. To our guide, the language was jungle telegraph: a Sambhar deer was alerting its herd and another species, a barking deer, had issued its warning as well.

"It's definitely somewhere here," the guide whispered, urging everybody to keep still and quiet. As the minutes ticked away, The warning calls became more frequent. Soon, the white-and black furred Langur monkeys, perched atop tall Sal trees, joined the chorus with loud "keeee... keeee." They could clearly see the tiger from their vantage point.

Tension mounted as the monkeys' shouts became cacophonous. The tiger was certainly there, but where was it going to emerge from? Suddenly, we all saw a flash of orange and black in the thick shrubs under the trees.

Cameras trained and eyes peeled we tracked the blurred patches of galloping color. The rustling through the dry bushes was loud and clear.

A gasp went up among the assembled audience - many more people had arrived by then in Jeeps including M.C. - as the majestic tiger bounded through the forest, onto the road in front of us, 50 yards away, before disappearing into the foliage again.

A young woman squealed with excitement. Men said "wow" in hushed tones, and immediately began to look at their camera screens to see if the moment was trapped in digital magnificence.

I did too. And realized with great chagrin that I had set the camera on manual and shot on extreme slow shutter speed. The picture turned to be shaky and blurred. M.C., on the other hand, wisely relied on automatic and got a series of terrific images. He was once again a popular guy back the lodge.

Never mind. What I saw that day through my camera's viewfinder will be printed in my memory forever.

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