Will I, will I not? The question hovered in the air as I entered Bandhavgarh National Park, an acclaimed tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh.

I reached the park in the afternoon just in time for the safari. As we started out, I mentioned to our driver, Ramashankar Yadav, that I had not been lucky in spotting a big cat yet. Suddenly there was a glint in his eyes.

I kept my fingers crossed as we entered the park’s Tala range. Yadav drove resolutely for about 45 minutes till he came to a spot in the Mirchani area where he said he had seen the tiger “B2” in the morning. B2! The present king of Bandhavgarh and son of the legendary Charger. What more could I want!

Bamera

The ageing tiger, Yadav said, had killed a cow from a nearby village the previous day and had looked well fed that morning. Having eaten so much, he would sleep in the area during the day and start moving around 4pm when he would go near the kill.

It was 3.50pm. Yadav parked the jeep where he expected B2 to come out! I waited with bated breath. The driver had 24 years of experience but could he possibly know exactly where his majesty would make an appearance and when?

After waiting for some time, Yadav moved the jeep a little back and forth. We saw another tiger’s pugmark. More excitement, but no tiger. It was 4.20pm. The park closed at 5.30 and we would need time to reach the entrance. Just then we saw a forest guard and our hopes hung precariously as Yadav asked him if he had seen B2.

Tiger’s scratches on a tree

Not B2 but he had seen tiger marks on the grass. He seemed to have left after a drink from a nearby pool. Maybe his slumber was disturbed by the noise the villagers were making, the guard replied.

Yadav was sure that B2 had not left the area but was sleeping somewhere in the grass as he would not leave his kill in a hurry. I fervently appealed for a darshan. But my hopes sank as it was past 4.30 and we had to leave.

The first safari was over and we had just one more chance the next morning as we were leaving soon after.

Next morning I was in the jeep by 5.30. The park opens at 6 and we were the first to enter it. Soon we were on a tiger’s trail, its pugmarks fresh on the dirt track. I was told tigers start moving after sundown and love to walk on the dirt track, as it is soft on their paws.

As we followed the tiger’s trail, our excitement rose. What was amazing was Yadav’s enthusiasm. Even after years of following tiger trails morning and evening, he was as enthusiastic as if it was his first.

Every pugmark was an indication that we were on the right trail. This was a young male tiger — you can make that out by the pugmark. Then suddenly there was a dent in the grass on the right from where the tiger had turned towards an area not on our route. My heart plummeted.

Tiger pugmarks

Hope surfaced as we picked up another lead. This ended in a cluster of trees. We were not done yet. We drove around till we found more pugmarks. We were on a female tiger’s trail and the pugmarks took us to Centre Point, where the safaris take a break for tea. “But why is she going to Centre Point? Does she want tea too?” quipped the driver. The tigress had given us the miss too.

After we left Centre Point, we asked other jeep drivers about tiger sightings. One of them said Bhagoda (so called because he runs away at the sight of human beings) had been seen at Rajbehera. Off we went. Yadav placed his jeep near a clearing in the forest so that we could see the tiger crossing it. Again we waited. “By now the tiger should have been here,” Yadav said. He turned the jeep back but stopped for a few minutes to answer the driver of another jeep passing by. Suddenly the forest guard accompanying the jeep whispered, “Dada (as Yadav is fondly called), monkey's call”. Swiftly Yadav moved forward. And there on the right was a fresh dent in the grass. We had just missed Bhagoda. “Yahan se wrong turn le liya! (He took a wrong turn from here!),” he exclaimed.

Now my hopes had hit nadir. The tigers had played hide and seek with me all morning and I could take it no more. By now Yadav was disappointed too that he had not been able to show me a tiger.

It was time to return. On the way, other animals and birds tried to console me. I saw a tree where a tiger had marked its territory by scratching it with its paw.

I coaxed Yadav and the guard to tell me tales of Bandhavgarh tigers. I learnt about the chronology of tigers in the park, their territories and behavioural pattern, about the legendary pair of Charger and Sita who had made the park famous worldwide; the fight between Charger and B2 that crowned the son the king of the jungle and how Bamera was recently seen chasing B2. In fact, a few days after I returned from the park, I read about the death of B2 following a fight with Bamera.

I was told how Charger, who lorded over Bandhavgarh, loved charging at jeeps and elephants but never harmed anyone and how he had been seen playing with his lame male cub, which is unusual for tigers.

Sita, they said, was the gentlest tigress around. In the monsoon of 1996 there was a buzz about a tiger having been poached in the closed park and while initially they feared for Charger, Sita was never seen again. Sita is considered to be the most photographed tigress in the world and had appeared on the cover of National Geographic. Most of the tigers in Bandhavgarh today are the descendants of Charger and Sita.

Yadav also told me a story about how, once, when Mohini (Charger and Sita’s daughter and B2’s mother) was approaching he sensed something was wrong by her gait and reversed his jeep a little. As she came near, she suddenly jumped on a foreign tourist in another jeep. It was evident that she was injured and in pain. The owner of the hotel that jeep belonged to got down from the vehicle he was in and pulled the tigress by her tail. She turned and hit his arm with a paw. The skin slit open and he fell flat on the ground as she stood astride him. This is it, he thought, and prayed to siddhababa (a saint of the forest). Suddenly, the tigress turned and left. The hotelier was back in the forest after a few days.

The stories were endless and I lapped it all up.

It was now 9.45am and in 15 minutes we would be out of the park. Suddenly the guide exclaimed: “Dada, monkey’s call”. Yadav turned the jeep on the double and I caught a quick glimpse of a huge striped body crossing the road right in front of our jeep and then it disappeared in the foliage. It’s Bamera, Yadav and the guide cried in unison.

Deer in Bandhavgarh

Yadav positioned his jeep on a nearby bridge (Chorbara bridge) and instructed us: “Keep your camera ready. He will come out in that clearing, cross the log over the nala, enter the cluster of trees on the other side and come out on the road in front of you”.

Excitement ran high and we waited with bated breath and camera ready. By now every jeep in the park seemed to have converged at the site as the news spread that his majesty was holding durbar. As we waited, his royalty decided to repose under a tree.

It seemed an eternity before Bamera got up. Unhurriedly, the lithe, powerful figure crossed the log, entered the cluster of trees and came out on the road, hardly 12 metres in front of us.

Excited tourists were making too much noise. He turned and looked at us, sending shivers up my spine. Then unperturbed, he walked regally right in the middle of the road as we followed at a respectable distance. I couldn’t believe my luck!

Suddenly, a jeep tried to get close. As unhurriedly as he had been walking, Bamera turned left and entered the forest. Yadav was livid. “Nobody has the right to disturb animals. When I see something like this I feel like quitting. You must write about this injustice to animals,” he told me.

He drove the jeep to where he thought Bamera would come out from but then, now extremely upset, reversed and left the park for the day. I was moved by how much he loved these animals. They were not just his bread and butter but had become his family in the past 24 years.