...In search of tigers

Today we go in search of tigers. Rathambhore National Park is about four hours’ drive outside Jaipur, along a dirt road that gently jostles you past small villages and remote petrol stations. Most of the route, our car is virtually bumper to bumper with freight lorries that are painted on the outside with multicoloured designs and covered with tinsel. They look more like a circus troop than containers that ferry all kinds of commodities across the country.

We arrive at Rathambhore around 10.30 am, just in time for the end of breakfast at the local hotel, the Angkor Resort. The dull dining room is full of the buzz of khaki clad, middle-aged, heavyweight Europeans, mostly German and Dutch. They are all pink from a morning on safari, and tuck into their breakfast of rubbery toast and powdered egg omlettes. There is something here that takes me back to the soggy camping trips of my childhood.

Eventually, we book in for the afternoon trip, and since the jeeps have already been taken, we buy tickets for a 20-seater canter, for ‘tourist price’ obviously, and not Indian. The canter is an ex-Indian Army vehicle, which should have been reassuring, though judging by the emission fumes when the engine starts our initial conidence may have been misplaced. We get there early to reserve the back seat, and eventually the rest of the vehicle is filled with young Indian men, jostling and elbowing each other, joking and ready to see tigers. A stern woman in a khaki uniform, and blue shawl, stands up at the front, and gives them a stern look. They fall silent.

The ride through the National Park is like riding a juggernaut without a seatbelt. It probably wouldn’t have done its MOT for a while either. We are thrown from our seats into the air. Our teeth chatter with the vibrations. I’m sure it isn’t doing our internal organs much good either. Every so often I am whacked in the face by the prickly branches of a tree we happen to be speeding past. I notice that the passengers in front of me have dried leaves and twigs in their hair too. The vehicle takes us down some narrow dirt tracks. Once, I peer over the side to see the rear wheel less than an inch away from the edge of a yawning chasm that drops several hundred metres. I decide not to do that again.

It’s always a lot of fun on safaris to play the pointing game. This involves pointing in any general direction, and watching the entire bus stand up at once to look at said imaginary object. It also works every time you raise a camera to your face. Today, it seems to be the turn of the guide to play this game as, every so often, she gives the signal for the driver to cut the engine, we roll a few metres down the path, and then wait as various sounds are detected and analysed. One, our guide assures us, is the sound of the deer warning for the presence of the tiger. A light banging is detected. I realise it is one of the guys in front kicking the edge of his seat. Then, the rustle of ferns: the child in the front seat is playing with his crisp packet. This repeats itself several times. We realise that no tigers will be found today. We wonder if any tigers have ever been found. But we have almost three hours left to be jiggled through a empty forest, and so we make the best of it.

One of the young Indian men in front of us has detected the American company. “Obama will come!” he says, assuredly. “And when he comes there will be tigers then! They will bring them in cages if they have to!”

Several times we stop by a meadow full of deer, and the Indian passengers excitedly grab their cameras and snap away. We shrug: deer are, if not an every day occurrence for us, not an endangered species. In fact, the look we are giving them is not far off the look Indians give us when we squeal and point at an elephant or a camel on the road. No tigers for us today, and it is now that we realise: there was enough wildlife for us outside, for free.