Before I climbed up into the jeep, the man in charge of our small party stepped forward, shook my hand and introduced himself as a ‘professional naturalist’. ‘Bloody hell,’ I said, thoroughly impressed. I’d expected a guide or a park ranger, not a full-blown naturalist.
I was the last to board the open-sided jeep and introduced myself to my fellow passengers. Beside me was a couple from south London, Jerry and Kelly, and behind us a middle-class Indian family: a shy man, his voluble wife and between them a portly son about 12 years old. They were up from Mumbai for a few days tiger-spotting and bird-watching.
At the entrance to the national park we filled in forms waiving our right to compensation should we be mauled to death by a tiger, while importunate hat-sellers shoved baseball caps and floppy bush hats under our noses. The naturalist disappeared into an office then returned to his place in the front seat, and as he settled himself he shot me a venomous glare.
Ranthambore national park is where Russell Brand celebrated his marriage to Kate Perry. He bought her a tiger as a wedding gift, according to the newspapers, but it is staying in the park, the money going towards conservation work. There were 25 tigers in Ranthambore until recently, but one was poisoned a fortnight ago by villagers tired of losing their cattle, and a further nine can’t be accounted for, the naturalist confided later. If we didn’t see a tiger in the course of our visit we must be philosophical about it, he advised. More often than not, a party of visitors such as ours leaves without having seen a tiger. But fingers crossed, this afternoon we will be as lucky as these people, he said, pointing to Jerry and Kelly.
Jerry and Kelly happily explained. They had arrived in town the evening before, put up for the night in a hotel, and gone out before breakfast on an early-morning game drive. And within five minutes they had encountered a big male tiger called Star. They were still getting over the shock, said Kelly. Four hundred pictures they’d taken in 20 minutes. Clearly they didn’t want to crow about it, but their natural English reticence couldn’t disguise the fact that they were astonished by their good luck and awestruck by what they had seen. That morning’s experience couldn’t possibly be bettered, said Jerry, but now they felt like high-stakes gamblers riding a lucky streak and so had come out again.
The naturalist ordered a halt under a tree and showed us an owl crouched in the hollow. While the others squinted up into the branches, I got the hard stare again. Noticing that his eyes were glazed and discoloured, I placidly attributed the dirty looks to paranoia caused by a drug habit of some kind. I further speculated that perhaps being out of it on drugs somehow made tigers easier to spot in the undergrowth.
We continued on down the trail and saw a troupe of antelope browsing and a family of wild pigs. We stopped again so that the naturalist could point out a set of tiger prints laid in a furrow of soft black mud, each paw print as big as a man’s hand. And then, on the trail ahead, not 20 yards away, a magnificent tiger was walking unconcernedly towards us. The driver cut the engine and we sat and watched her. ‘Female,’ said the naturalist. ‘Four years old.’
The tiger appeared to be hunting in a very relaxed fashion, freezing every now and then and peering into the undergrowth, then continuing his stroll along the track towards us. The fat boy behind me was whimpering in fear. Jerry and Kelly were taking picture after picture. The tiger came on, apparently not remotely bothered by the appearance of a jeepload of tourists.
The naturalist motioned the driver to start the engine and back the jeep away from the tiger. But before the engine fired into life, the tiger was right alongside the jeep on my side. I could have reached down and stroked her. Finally, the engine came to life and the driver started reversing at speed. And it was at this point that the naturalist finally erupted in fury. ‘Clarke!’ he sneered. ‘Why did you say bloody shit or something when I told you I was a naturalist. You think I am a liar?’ The man was beside himself with rage. Fortunately, Jerry backed me up when I said that my swearing like that on hearing he was a naturalist was an exclamation of respect, not derision. He did calm down eventually, but it took him a while.
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