This story is about me and my quest to find the King of the Indian wilderness, across its own kingdom – the Bengal Tiger. The story begins way back in 2014, when I was a fresh graduate with an honors degree in Botany. While I was still struggling to find a seat in the postgraduate courses of Botany, I came across two literary masterpieces, one in Bangla, “Chander Pahar” (lit. The Mountain of the Moon), authored by the critically acclaimed Bengali novelist Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, and the other one in English, “Jim Corbett: A complete Omnibus” mastered by the renowned hunter-turned-conservationist Jim Corbett himself. These books had changed the course of my life forever.

From being a typical middle-class Indian boy dreaming of having a handsome academic degree and becoming a banker or any other white-collar professional sitting in a cozy air-conditioned cubicle, to a wildlife biologist roaming freely across the wilderness of this huge country, discovering the otherwise not-so-common spectrum of the nature, that has blessed this country with mega-diversity of wildlife. But for a special mention, the book of Jim Corbett had now converted me into a monk who will be in search of The Divine, in the form of a striped big cat, the Bengal Tiger.

Sunset over Pirkhali Forest Block in Sundarbans Tiger Reserve | Photograph by Pavel Ghosh

A journey to witness the “king of the jungle”

My quest for Tigers began in 2018, when I was selected for a six-month internship at two renowned tiger conservation units (TCUs) of Assam, namely, Kaziranga National Park and Manas National Park. Kaziranga National Park was arguably having the highest tiger density in India at that point of time, but luck was not in my side, as my trimonthly stay in each of the two TCUs, was coupled with a furious spell of monsoon rains, resulting in partial inundation of the forests, and absolute zero chances to sight a tiger. Shortly after the completion of internship, I had got the opportunity to work in Buxa Tiger Reserve in West Bengal. Buxa provided me one of the best chances in my life to have a stay in an anti-poaching camp inside the grasslands, but the known resident tiger population is near to zero with occasional visits of Bhutan tigers from the co-terminal Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary of Bhutan.

After completing my short stint in Buxa, I had finally landed in the land of the world’s lone mangrove tiger population, the enigmatic Sunderbans Tiger Reserve, in the latter half of 2019. For the next two years, Sunderbans had become my homeland. Working in the shallow creeks and tidal channels and occasionally on the mudflats of the tiger-infested islands, all I was praying before the Goddess Bonobibi, the guardian deity of the mystical tidal land, was a sighting of Dakshinrai, or more commonly Boromama – the names with which the local fellow will refer to the Bengal tigers, whom they will pay homage every time they are visiting the forested islands, both out of fear and respect. But despite all efforts, I was short on luck again.

Beki River entering from Bhutan into India at Mothanguri, Manas Tiger Reserve | Photograph by Pavel Ghosh

Where are all the tigers?

Repeated failures to locate a tiger in all of the four TCUs, was now really convincing me to think, “Are tigers really present in India”? Circumstances were literally convincing me otherwise. In 2022, I joined Wildlife Trust of India and was posted in the fifth tiger reserve of my life – Valmiki Tiger Reserve in Bihar. Being an optimist at heart, I had my hopes back. Time passed by but 10 months of joining, my stint continued. I could not locate a single tiger, although locating fresh pugmarks was quite common. In October 2022, a two-week long effort was put before by the Forest Department to capture a conflict tiger, and translocate it to Rajgir Zoo Safari. It was finally concluded with the Bengal tiger being shot down under orders of the Chief Wildlife Warden, as it had already killed nine people by that time. My dreams to see a tiger in the wild was marred.

Post these operations, I had got the opportunity to work across Pilibhit and Dudhwa Tiger Reserves in UP. The high tiger-sighting percentage of Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, made my hopes linger on. This was a landscape that is popular for human-tiger conflict situations.

The forests of Valmiki Tiger Reserve

One fine April evening, while I was returning from Ganauli towards Valmikinagar, through the patchy fringe forests of Chamainwa, a vehicle approached us from the opposite side, and warned us that he had encountered a Baghua, i.e., a tiger. I was convinced that the person has seen a leopard and had mistakenly considered as a Bengal tiger, as this particular patch has no tiger sighting history for a significant period of time. Moving ahead in a complete carefree mood, our motorbike had a taken a turn and behold!

There was a tiger in front of our vehicle, slipping away fast into the wilderness. The creature seemed to be coated with gold, as the bike headlight was creating a lustrous impression of the fur coat, and the black stripes highlighted the royalty of the beast. While it was just an 8-10 second of sighting, I was mesmerized to a level that completely unknown to me, tears of joy were rolling down from my eyes.  I felt out of the world and didn’t even think of clicking a picture. After it had moved in, to the other side of the jungle, I had the feeling to have met with a ‘Divine Being’, and as a gesture of respect, I bowed down the ground.

By the looks of it, I understood that the tiger had recently separated from its mother and maybe it was moving to a safer patch of the forest. The nearby patches of Madanpur Forest Block, were burning due to forest fires.  As per the protocols, I had reported the tiger to the local forester and had it documented in the Animal Sighting Register at the beat office.

A Bengal Tiger in Pilibhit Tiger Reserve | Photograph by Madhumay Mallik

Needless to say, that day will be remembered till the day I remain alive. The moment at 11^th April, 2023, 6:01 pm will always stay fondly saved in my memories. I shall remember the day when I was freed from curse of not being able to sight a tiger in a natural habitat. For the likes of us, who work on protecting tigers and their habitat, days like this are powerful enough to get us going.

Tigers are a magical presence when it comes to Indian wildlife. It is sad that they are targeted by poachers for their body parts and that the demand for such contraband still remains high. I feel proud to be a part of WTI’s team that has been working on protecting India’s natural heritage through various wildlife crime prevention and conflict mitigation projects. Situated in the highly porous Indo-Nepal border, Valmiki was once highly threatened by poaching and insurgencies. It was WTI that brought back the only tiger reserve in the state back to its natural glory. I guess that all these years of hard work by WTI and I get my first tiger sighting in a reserve where I least expected it to be!