The Eye of the Tiger

Iowa Guru and I ventured out of Jaipur into the open country of Rajasthan. Our four-hour journey by car took us through some small mountains, but mostly we traversed a broad, flat plain. We encountered another range of low mountains marked by low trees and rocky precipices. We had arrived at Ramthambore Park, the home of about 50 Indian tigers, and we were here to visit. 

We took two trips into the park, one late afternoon and one in the morning. We took both trips in a “canter”, an open vehicle which looks like a modified troop carrier. The road, such as it was, was rough and winding, following a stream through the mountains. On the opposite side of the stream, the sunny side, we viewed low dry grasses and low shrub trees that created the look of a savannah. On our side of the stream, the mountain rose steeply beside us, and the vegetation was thick with dense undergrowth interspaced with grassier areas, not unlike what you’d find at Kent Park in Johnson County. 

During our bumpy sojourn, we spied two types of deer,  one was a small while spotted deer (which we mistook for fawns) and a larger deer, the favorite of the tigers. We saw a lot of deer grazing in the shady woods (avoiding the open savannah area). We saw numerous peacocks, the males with their amazing colors. One male began a display, but he quit quickly, perhaps realizing that our group had no females he could woo with his effort. We saw wild pigs, which look very much like the pigs I see in Jaipur and throughout the towns and countryside that we’d just traveled. The pigs have long snouts and long, spiked hair on their backs (a razorback look). The shallow stream revealed one, miniature-looking crocodile. I’d never imagined such a small crocodile. At one point, looking down on us, we discovered a pack of monkeys. Large and docile looking, their white fur and dark faces allowed them to stand out and display the creepy human-likeness that monkeys can have. 

And the tiger? Maybe the eye of the tiger had us, but none us spied one of them. Of course, we’d have loved to see a tiger in the wild. On the other hand, the worse thing, we quickly learned, was the disappointment we create when people ask if we’d seen a tiger. Iowa Guru and I conspired to tell a fib and report a sighting, but we have opted for the truth.
In a country where the wild seems no further away than the next street, it was nevertheless a delight to see a more pristine, wild India, where the tiger (so they say) still roams.