The Hunt!

It was late afternoon. The elusive search for Teliya Female and her cubs had finally come to an end. What came next was simply too good to be true..!

The Teliya Female got her name from the Teliya dam and the lake around which is her habitat.

It had been a while since the last sighting of the Teliya Female and her four cubs. The cubs were over a year old and the mother was not to be seen much with them as they had grown older and stronger and could fend for themselves.

A glimpse of one of the cubs that very morning had brightened our chances for the evening safari. We along with the driver and the naturalist had decided to spend much of the time in the evening around the Teliya dam area.

The safari began around half past two. We kept circling around the Teliya dam area for over an hour looking for signs of movement. Finally,  after all the scrambling around, we simply parked the gypsy close to the water front where the last Cheetal call was heard and decided to wait out the rest of the day. The afternoon sun was still shining bright but the winter haze made the spotting extremely difficult. The metre tall dry grass that grew around the water body and spread all across did not make it any easier for us. Tigers dislike bright sun; they would rather prefer a shady place, like a cosy bamboo thicket, to cool off rather than make themselves visible. All in all, the Sun seemed to make everything and everyone around, hopeless.

We waited at the same spot for the next one hour for the temperature to come down; all the time praying to the Sun God to show us some mercy. We had just another vehicle to keep us company. The whole hour was spent napping, evading flies, cutting the sun out with whatever one could grab and checking our cameras for readiness. We just hoped that cooler temperatures would lure the cats to the water front; a fine idea indeed!

Several Cheetal calls were heard close by, but there was nothing to be excited about.  The forest played many such evil tricks on the in-frequent visitor and this surely was one of those! But then again one never knows; there was still hope, the hope of spotting the elusive tiger.

Suddenly our naturalist who was sitting in the front gave a huge sigh of relief and whispered that magnanimous five letter word…….TIGER!!!  We had been waiting to hear that for a long long time.

There it was, one of the Teliya cubs making his/her way to the water front with only a part of him/her visible in the tall dry grass that lay ahead. The sighting was 100 to 150 metres away on the other side of the bank. The weather seemed to have changed for the better.

It seems life had seeped back out of nowhere. We could sense more movement in the grass far left of where we had spotted the first cub. I tried to focus my camera on the spot in search of the other cubs. Was it really happening! I could see one of the cubs crouching in the dry grass, with only an ear visible. He was surely up to something... something fishy!

I guess it was time, time for the spectacle. The only thing one could see next was the tiger lunging on to the fawn and crashing into the water…..splash! God only knows from where the poor fawn found himself in water. Was it running away from another Teliya sibling? Who knows!

 There was complete silence all round. There were no words to describe or feelings to share. Our hearts were filled with joy and a sense of euphoria pervaded the area. The entire episode was playing out in front of our eyes again and again till we left Tadoba; for that matter, even now. I guess that it was absolutely understandable. Our excitement knew no bounds; after all, we had got to witness a miracle of sorts. It was a ‘once in a life time’ opportunity, so to say.

By this time the news had spread across the reserve and other jeeps had begun to make a bee-line to catch a glimpse of the QUEEN!

We rounded off spotting all the four Teliya cubs. The rest of the time was spent looking at those magnificent tigers go about doing their own.

Let ‘Tadoba’ be synonymous with tiger forever! Let it be a beacon light for the conservation efforts within the country.

Long live the Teliya cubs…Long live the QUEEN…..Long live the KING!