“Sir, Keep your Chota lens ready, she is likely to come out any minute !” he said to us and sure enough within a few minutes Sharmili , the venerable grand old lady of Bijrani zone in Corbett, appeared through the forest woods, walking at a languid pace and after grooming her claws on a tree bark , started walking on the Jeep Track . Fifteen minutes earlier we had spotted Sharmili after a futile day of zero sightings of any wildlife and shared a space with at least a dozen other jeeps as she was drinking water from a stream. After a few minutes of drinking, she crossed the jeep track and disappeared into the forest.

Happy to have seen a tiger, the other jeeps left the spot. But not our man. He took the jeep a few hundred metres away from the spot and switched off the engine and told us we would wait and sure enough, here she was walking on the track and we were the only vehicle present.

Instead of staying where we were, he drove the jeep forward a few hundred metres and gave space for the Tigress to walk. We had enough room to start taking our images , first at 400 mm progressively reducing the focal length to 100 mm .

At this point he again move the vehicle forward by few hundred metres and parked the Vehicle at a much lower level on the road – a place where we could not see her . ‘Sir, be ready! Tiger Light pe Aayega “ He was guiding us as we waited for the precious seconds before her face alone appeared initially on top of the road and in the next few seconds, Sharmili was standing at eye level to us, surveying the road and us for a few seconds, before deciding to walk towards us again.

At this point, somewhere, I switched to a wide angle 17-40 Lens that gave me a really wide perspective with the tiger being a small part of the frame. But very soon I realised that even at 30 mm she was filling the frame and when I looked up, she was just a few feet away from me .

 

 

I stared into her eyes for a couple of seconds that seemed like eternity. I froze , as I realised my vulnerability and quickly looked away and stopped shooting too.

 

After the briefest pause, she walked beside our jeep on my side and then walked off into the woods. The precious encounter of being alone with a Tiger in the wild that lasted 15 to 20 minutes was made possible only because of the phenomenal driver of our Jeep. Understanding the Tiger’s behaviour, giving it enough space always and making the animal comfortable with our presence is a skill that he has honed to near perfection and that made this possible.

Nasir Hussain is something of a celebrity in Corbett. Driving Safari vehicles for over 17 years now and working with all the best wildlife photographers in the business, he is someone who oozes passion, displays a total commitment to every safari, a deep concern for the animals and environment and a certain manner with a panache that reminded me of Javed Miandad! It was indeed a pleasure to watch him go about his work as he strived to get us the best sightings and the best photography opportunities for every sighting!