Maya: my immortal morning memoir

I was into my last (sixth) safari of the trip, my third trip to the Tadoba - Andhari wildlife tiger reserve since December 2014. I had written off the last five safaris of this trip as 'no complaints' because Mother Nature makes no promises. She simply unravels moments in her daily course which when conspicuous to humans can be mundane or miracles. I had judged the experience as a 5/10 on the mundane-2-miracle (M-2-M) scale because it is not every day you get to see a cub 6-months-old drink water from a pond (or mammoth puddle) created at Jamun Zara in Tadoba. Sonam and her other two cubs had disappeared into the forest while this brave heart had lingered around a little longer to satiate his or her thirst. If we were even 5 minutes late to arrive at the spot, we would have missed the cub. That is the nature of wildlife: every minute counts and there is yet no promise. Other than this, I had spotted a ruddy mongoose (a lifer in birds terms) and got a decent photo of giant wood spider.

Last morning, some of the fellow tourists/ wild lifers in the park had gotten a good glimpse of Maya as she crossed closer to the Pandhar pauni chowk over into the grasslands where her cubs lay but given the crowded congestion of more than 20 gypsies in front of me and around, I barely noticed her. There was also some playful activity in the grasslands with her three cubs. What next? A lot of my gypsy peers and even the guides were betting more on Sonam sighting than Maya later during the evening.

However, my heart was invested in Maya. In November 2011, I had seen a picture of her on Facebook where she carried her cub (1-month-old) in her mouth and appeared in broad daylight. I was like, "I want to be that photographer. I want that picture to be mine." During the past trips, I had heard her stories. Guides would often say, "Maya ki maya sab pain hain." She was known as the showstopper of Tadoba. Her wanderlust is of a heightened degree than the other wild cats that roam the jungle and that's why when she wanders around the tracks like the jungle was her own and gypsies a mere nuisance noise in the area.

The morning of November 20, 2015, changed everything.

A gypsy from Kolara gate had pissed her off with haste, so she left the track between Navegoan gate and Pandhar Pauni chowk to get a breather in the nearby bamboo / Sagwan vegetation. About a dozen gypsies made the rounds on that track in the 30-45 minutes she had disappeared. We had seen her pug marks.

Is tiger spotting often a result of chance? We had two options and one decision to make. Should we wander around the jungle behind Sonam or others? Or wait for Maya to arrive and march on the track in her splendor glory? It was about 7:10 am in the morning. We decided to wait. At about 8:00 am in the morning the gypsies began to disappear from where we were waiting and raced down towards the chowk. We were somewhere mid way between Navegoan gate and the chowk. Just two gypsies ahead and us. The silence of the jungle was divine serenity. I kept looking at the end of the chowk because I didn't want any more gypsies to barge in on us on one side, and towards the other for Maya to appear. I would have hated if more gypsies would have screwed that sighting for me. Then around 8:45 ish we heard sambar deer making some loud, distinct calls. These are calls animals (spotted deer, sambar, peacock, barking deer etc.) make to alert others when tiger is on the move. After 7 of these, she emerged.

For about a kilometer, may be less, may be more, she walked behind our gypsy. We drove 500 yards ahead on the road as she got closer so that she always had some place to walk: gallivanting left to right, right to left, watching out movement inside the vegetation, looking sharp at our gypsy, illuminating herself in the golden light, squirting her urine on a tree to mark her territory (yes, I have a not so perfect video of that), and probably just happy that the overpopulated humans hadn't crowded her path in the jungle. If she wanted, she could have traveled from inside the jungle vegetation to wherever she was headed but she is the queen of her heart and whims. "Why the fuck would I abandon a path in my own land?", I could sense her rhythm as she made her way on that track after the gypsy population had declined.

Then two more gypsies appeared in front of us and they didn't move in a bid to take photos. Naturally, no way ahead of her, she moved inside the vegetation again, made an appearance gliding through water at Pandhar pauni 2 (a water bed close by) before we lost her forever on that glorious morning.

She had satiated my heart to content, at least on that day. Twenty minutes or more with her, I will always remember this day. Tigress in golden light, a head on tigress, two items in the 'photographing tigers' checklist were accomplished.

Yes, sometimes tiger spotting is a matter of chance. They may appear out of nowhere and give you a glimpse. However, very often, one simply has to anticipate their behaviour and wait for them to unravel themselves in full glory.

We were grateful to have Bhagwan, our guide from Tadoba, and Santosh, our gypsy driver, who made this sighting a reality which otherwise would have simply gone unnoticed like Mother Nature's million other moments.

Nature is wild, culture has morals. Unfortunately, Maya's cubs from the last litter didn't make it. I was told, they were killed by wild dogs. This year, around May or June, she birthed a litter of three. When asked who the father was, nobody knew. She has mated with all the tigers in the area: Gabbar, Pandu, Namdeo and Katezhari male. Unless a tiger is spotted with her and the cubs, that mystery won't be resolved. She ain't a showstopper for no reason. No, not because she is a whore, but when you watch her, you will know. She has the instinct of a warrior while some glimpses reveal the kindness in her eyes. I now have my favorite tigress in the whole wide world! ;-). 

She captivated my heart. I specifically write this because her great legacy should never go unnoticed. Hazel Grace said, "There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away, but even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever." So, until the time humans survive, we need to tell our future generations about the tigers and their royalty. Like Maya, there are others whose legacy remains to be discovered and no Chinese medicine or tiger coats as attire can ever justify the killing of these legendary species. 

p.s. A special thanks to Beyond Wild, a Travel and photography company, who organizes excellent wildlife tours. This has been my second with them.