“How does one conduct one’s life in the open when every move of yours becomes the subject matter of a reality show where there are dozens of prying paparazzi whose only mission is to see you and photograph you? “ This must be the question on every Tiger’s mind when they have to emerge out of the woods into the tracks and be confronted with several jeeps, filled with humans and clicking cameras.  Obviously, some Tigers manage it better than the others and with age and experience, they get used to it so that almost tend to completely ignore the human presence. Paro is one such Tigress in Dhikala the present mascot of Dhikala, who makes a difference to many tourists by coming out in the open and offering sightings much to the delight of many.

On my recent trip, she provided one nice evening sighting alongside the river. I took hundreds of images along with all other clicking cameras.  The thing that struck me was how, completely oblivious to our presence her focus and gaze was totally focussed on across something across the river bank.

We saw her emerge out of the clearing and gave us a  fleeting “oh no, can you please get out of my way ?” look before she realised that was not going to happen.

Therefore, in spite of us she started tracking the object of interest and after assessing her options, she crossed the path between the jeeps and sat on the river bank among the wildflowers, her gaze firmly fixed to the same spot.

Our wonderful driver Nasir immediately backed up the jeep to take us to a place where we could see what it was that she was focussed on and we saw it was a few spotted deer. one was a mother and a fawn who looked vulnerable.  

After a few minutes, Paro came down the bank an crossed the river, get intent fairly clear. The crossing gave us shots of a Tigress in the blue water in the nice golden evening light. 

The time was almost six pm and when she finished crossing and disappeared into the other side, we left the spot to return to the lodge

A few of the Jeeps that pushed the time limit and stayed on reported that Paro had made the kill after crossing the river and that they heard the commotion and the subsequent silence …