Bengal Tiger
One of the popular reasons for a tourist to visit the Indian wilderness is in the hope of sighting the Bengal Tiger. The most frequent conversation starter amongst tourists who visit an Indian Wildlife Sanctuary is – “Have you seen a Bengal Tiger before ?”, and we have been asked that question many a times. This time round too it was no different when we were on a Jeep Safari into the Bandipur national park. One of the tourist’s who was with us in the same vehicle posed the question to us and our conversation started.Little did we know that this would be a one of a kind Tiger sighting. We were into the last 30 minutes of the Safari and were approaching an intersection of roads in the forest. When we reached the intersection, we spotted a Tiger scent marking a tree by the side of the road. The Tiger seemed absolutely unfazed by our presence. It finished marking its territory and turned around and started walking lazily along the Jeep tracks.

We followed it with caution, clicking a few pictures now and then, pretty confident that at some point the Tiger would stop in its tracks and turn around and look at us before disappearing into the thick Lantena. However, little did we know that we had come across a Bengal Tiger that would actually never look back at us.

All along during its stroll, as you would have seen in the photographs below, this Tiger had one ear fixed on our Jeep. But it just continued walking, finished marking another tree before proceeding into the Lantana, without giving us even a glance! We were left feeling disappointed that this magnificent animal did not give us a stare that we were waiting for – a Tiger behavior that we will never forget in the times to come.

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