I've become recently obsessed with Aircel's new campaign, made in conjunction with the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF). Ads like the one above are plastered all over Hyderabad, as well as the rest of the country. It's all part of the "Save Our Tigers" campaign to save India's Royal Bengal tiger population from extinction. My favorite is a picture of a baby tiger sleeping on a log, which I pass every evening on my way home from work. (See that photo here, which also links to a short awareness film.)
The "Just 1411 Left" tag-line is tragically powerful. Yet the ads, for me, are also bittersweet. The bitter is obvious. But the sweet is this: each time I see one of these ads, I'm reminded of tiger trekking with Tyler almost exactly a year ago... in Jim Corbett reserve 300 km northeast of Delhi.
The trip was, by far, one of the most incredible and amazing experiences here in India. Expectations were certainly set early: at the first day at our lodge (which fully felt like a hunting lodge during the British Raj), we meet another guest named Gautam - who had been on 46 tiger trekking trips and FINALLY saw his first tiger setting that weekend...after a three hour stakeout!!
Our first hike gets us close...we see tiger tracks on the sandy trail we're on (and I wonder whether we really should just be walking! ;)
We're up early on Day 2 for the safari ahead. We see amazing animals: wild elephants ("tuskers"), black-eyed monkeys, and sambar deer. Unfortunately no tigers, but not all that surprising... we're closely following other open jeeps, filled with noisy Indians with their cell phones and music blaring... perhaps not the best strategy for tiger-sighting. ;)
We're up even earlier on Day 3, determined to be one of the only jeeps in the reserve grounds. We go to the area called Bijrani - which feels a bit like an enchanted forest, with lush greenery and the morning fog.
Our guide is Prashant, who has seen 242 tigers in his 9 years as a guide in Corbett -- clearly a bit of an expert in tiger trekking! To successfully track tigers, he teaches us to listen to alarm calls from deer, who sense the predators nearby...
...Unfortunately for us, the deer are quiet as can be. Somewhere around lunchtime, Prashant grows despondent: "Never in my nine years has the jungle been this quiet!"
After lunch, we try a new approach and continue our trek atop Lalita, a 17 year old elephant. We're pretty sure we won't see a tiger after all, so we enjoy the ride, which is absolutely incredible. Trekking through the jungle, atop an elephant... a pretty magical experience.
And then... just as we're on our way back, the most incredible thing happens: we spot a tigress and her three cubs!! The tigress eyes the elephant... the elephant eyes the tiger... we're absolutely captivated and can't believe our luck. While the jeeps need to stay back a ways, the elephant gets way up close -- so close, in fact, that one of the cubs hisses at us. We don't need a second signal to back up a bit. We sit, transfixed and enchanted, for what feels like an hour.
And so we continue to learn again and again: "Anything really is possible in India."
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