Here’s my favourite shot from Bandipur ….

Bandipur has always been one of my favourite areas…and what once used to be “Prakruthi” restaurant has now morphed into the Bandipur property of JLR . Almost every room there has a beautifully painted wildlife mural .

Well, since I can do a bit of “swalpa adjust maadi” with and her UK friend, I am executing a sneak to Bandipur tomorrow.

Alas, this time I am not going just to see what I can see. Usually, that’s what I do. And I come back happy with whatever I saw, but never a glimpse of any stripes…..Then, I was told by someone, when I said that I had never seen a tiger in south India: “You lack focus. You are too happy and contented with what you see, so you will never see a tiger.”

OK, this time, focus, focus, focus. Ever since went to take up a 2-month voluntary assignment as a naturalist there, he has apparently seen nothing but tigers. They are crawling out of the woodwork....he posted to the JLRNTP egroup about sighting 5 of them recently. And whoever has gone there from the NTP this past week....Praveen, Avinash, Amogh...have been also been doing nothing else.

So having once cancelled my train ticket for today, I went back and bought a bus ticket for tomorrow, and I am FOCUSSSSSSING as I go off. Wish me luck everyone. I have a great fear that these other tiger-sighting characters are swifty exhausting the April 2008 Tiger-Sighting Quota before I arrive there, and will do the usual “The tiger was sighted HERE yesterday” or “Look! Tiger Scat!” (That’s a polite and technical way of referring to tiger shit tiger waste-products.) I even had one naturalist who enthused, “OH! It’s FRESH and STEAMING!!!” as if it was a fragrant breakfast dish of idlies that he had found.

I don’t want tiger claw marks, I don’t want pug marks. I don’t want to listen to other people’s tiger-sighting stories. I WANT MY OWN TIGER SIGHTING IN SOUTH INDIA. This means YOU, you tiger hiding in the forests of Bandipur. Come on out you coquette, I want to see if you actually do exist, or are a piece of these other people’s fevered imaginations….

Want to see some of my Bandipur posts?

click on this

told me he hopes I will sight one. That was nice of him. He also told Anush not to go with me as anyone with me would never see a tiger. That is NOT nice of him. I am deciding whether to smile at him or growl at him the next time I see him.... I do love Bandipur, tiger or no tiger. But I would prefer tiger to no tiger... Sigh.