Date with Tiger

When I think of Tiger the first place to visit is Tadoba.

It was a very long-standing desire to sight the Tiger. So, my son planned a trip to Tadoba with his friend Kartik. Kartik has transformed his hobby into a business and that is a big thing.

Summer is the best season for tiger sightings. So We both and our son reached Nagpur a day before our tour. It's our native.

We started for Tadoba in the morning. After reaching Gondwana Jungle resort, we welcomed Joshi couple with kokam sharbat. It was a great relief from the scorching heat. The stay and the food was too good.

We booked two safaris. The first one was for core zone forest and another one was for buffer zone forest.

On entering we saw pug marks so our hopes were elevated. He told the pug marks were of "Kuwani Tigress" the ruling queen of Pangdi.

We criss crossed the jungle in search of tiger but tiger was giving a miss. We were searching them for hours but in vain. Instead of big cat we got the sight of Bison, neel gai, owlets and other birds. We came back little bit disappointed.

Next day in morning at 4am we left for Nimdhela gate for safari. Hotel staff packed breakfast for us. This time our guide Nilesh who is also experienced told us that chances of sighting tiger are good enough. The ride started with the news that tiger is uphills. We reach there in no time our wish to date with tiger may be going to fulfill. On reaching uphill we got the glimpse of three tigers in the woods.

We started for Pangdi gate by 2pm and started our safari. The forest is mostly of bamboos. It is not easy to sight tiger in bamboos. Our guide Shalik was experienced.

They were coming out to road side as if they were coming out curtains. The three were in the open we had "Deedar' of big cats. What a sight was that!!! Brilliant colors, killer looks, royal walk. Totally Royal. They were bold enough to come close to gypsies . They were strolling here and there, kuddling each other. One of them came forward and sat in front of us as if he was ready for a photo shoot . I took out my camera started clicking. There was complete silence all around except the sound of shutter of camera. It was a meditative state only tiger and myself. No other thought. We all were delighted on seeing 3 tigers at a time.

After sighting them we went to catch the sight of other fellows.

Our luck was very much with us we sighted Tigress "Bhanuskhindi", the mother of these three individuals we saw uphills.

She crossed the road twice. We were overwhelmed and had no words to express the joy. After that we continued our ride further and spotted two subadults cubs of Tigress named Babli. While searching for Tigers we came across spotted deers, wildboars. Beautiful birds like Indian Pitta, Eagles , Buzzards, Herons , Paradise flycatchers , Indian rollers, kingfisher and peacocks carrying load of full grown feathers waiting for rains to dance.

Of course monkeys, rabbits were there. The forest was with different types of plants we saw" ghost tree". The guide told information about jungle and movement of tigers. Kartik also has knowledge about jungle and birds. This was bonus for us.

We came back very much thrilled and mind in total bliss. All thanks to Kartik who took lots of efforts and made it successful. What can I say "It was a fantastic tour".

~Varsha Sadhu, Tourist