It’s a bird’s paradise. There are so many of them, 530 varieties at last count. But as they do not have great stories around them, most prefer to visit the Corbett National Park to have their first dekko of a tiger in its natural habitat. And as the tigers here are very reclusive, don’t subscribe to the idea of paisa pheko tamasha dekho; most visitors return home heart-broken unable to have had a glimpse of the four-footed striped animal. I have a soft corner for the two-legged flying creatures, but that doesn’t mean I belong to the tiger-haters’ club. I adore tigers for their massive bodies, their awesome strength and the majestic way they carry themselves. Like many others it makes me feel bad when I read about them being poached for their skins.

It’s one thing seeing them on a telly and a totally different experience coming face-toface with a T-I-G-E-R! On the second day of our visit, I heard the fortunate ones shouting: ‘Sher…dekho...sher’. At that instant, an excerpt from M Krishnan’s book Nature’s Spokesman came to my mind: ‘One morning, as I sat in the dark, I heard a distant musical sound, a vibrant and somewhat nasal longdrawn twang, like a taut length of steel wire sharply plucked. It was repeated several times, and then followed by the unmistakable ‘aaoonh!’ of a tiger.’