It was my second trip to Bandhavgarh and this time I was doing 3 safaris, all in the buffer zone. In the first safari, we were alerted that the tigress had made a cattle kill. So we went where the tigress was last seen. The tigress was Tara who had given birth recently and had 2 cubs. We saw fresh pugmarks; we followed them to a point where we started to smell the carcass coming from the bushes. We could also hear growling. We were tempted to wait but as it was getting dark, we had to leave the park. We were told that the tigress had cubs with her. So she hides them in the bushes and is seen very rarely. The morning safari on the second day too went dry with some alarm calls from deers and langurs but no tiger luck. It was our final safari in the afternoon and I hadn’t given up. I still had hopes that we would see the tigress we were looking for.
The safari starts from 3pm and goes till 6pm. Initially, the safari was going dry; but then we came across a cattle herder who said that the tigress had crossed this road a few minutes back. We assumed that she was going back to her cubs. So we tracked her route and came to the same place where we could smell the carcass. We decided to wait there till the end. The sun was going down; we were losing light and there were still no signs of Tara. It was already 5:45 and we just had 15 more minutes before heading back. A look of deject came over my face. I slowly began to lose hope. But suddenly, out of nowhere we could hear high pitch spotted deer alarm calls coming from the bushes. So we went around the bushes and there she was – Tara! Perfectly camouflaged in the bushes, hiding in plain sight. We gave her space, she came out of the bush and sat on the road. I had an adrenaline rush in my body and was awestruck to finally see her. It was a magnificent sight. But within no time, she went inside the bushes and disappeared. But then something unexpected happened. We saw another tiger coming head on towards us. We thought it was Tara again; but no! It was her male cub from her previous litter wandering in her territory. As they say, “The Jungle is Always Full of Surprises”. The male walked towards us and sat behind the tree. I positioned the vehicle in such a way that when the tiger looks at me, I’ll have this Peek-a-Boo frame. The feeling was out of the world from getting to see nothing in 2 and half safaris to having a show stopping 15 minutes end to the trip with two tigers.
