The Grassland Prince…

It is over a week that I've spent at Corbett all by myself, spending every moment amidst the wild, staying in various forest rest houses spread across Corbett Tiger Reserve.

Embarking on eighteen forest drives gave mixed sighting outcomes - seven tigers with few choosing to go beyond a road crossing, which generally doesn't last beyond three to five seconds.

Despite that some crazy moments ensued, some that I'll carry back into my memory lane forever. The night spent at the Sultan Rest House, otherwise never preferred by most, resulting in us looking for lesser or never seen tigers of Corbett. Tracking a female through the ridge, into a wide nullah, knowing fully well that she will not oblige even for a moment; we stayed determined to see her, finally tracking her down into a thicket. Making her uncomfortably shift to deeper thickets required us to undertake some deep tiger tracking, given the mountainous terrain we were tracking her on.

Some other came easy, the grassland lad in this image was one such; who has always chosen to exhibit himself to an audience and in style. This image is although, from an earlier trip; this time around he choose to rest in the open meadows providing some delightful videos.

But, it was not only the tigers that mattered. While sometimes hair-raising and sometimes disappointing, this trip was about the sheer long experience of a solo wildlife exploration, deep in the woods of Corbett - living in the dak bungalows famous for shikar during the Raj, listening to ghost tales & super-natural experiences of caretakers, gazing at the stars, cooking your own simple meal sometimes, laying stretched out at night on the verandah knowing the possibility of a predator lurking around.

Some moments will never come back perhaps even as I continue to visit these places. But, each time is a new experience after all.

21 Feb 2023, Corbett Tiger Reserve, Ramnagar, Uttarakhand