The Tiger Calls

It All Starts Here   (Original date of completion: March 2012) It was back in 2000 when I first visited a forest – The Nagarhole National Park - and immediately fell in love with it. The Nagarhole National Park, also known as the Rajiv Gandhi National Park, is located in the Kodagu district of Karnataka. Mysore, the heritage city of Karnataka where once the Wodeyars reigned and which is even now known world over for its celebration of the festival of Dussehra, is just 100 Km from here. Adjacent to this park is the hill station of Coorg, a favourite among wildlife enthusiasts and nature lovers alike. The trip I write of took place during the month of May in 2000. I was just 11 years old and it was during this trip that I realized how much I liked being in the jungle surrounded by the lush green cover, the multitude of sounds from unimaginable sources (not all sounds in the forests are those made by animals), the clean surroundings, the inexplicable feeling of breathing in the pur

First, a bit of context -  In June 2011 the idea first came to me to recollect and capture my wildlife tours on paper, in the hope that someday i would publish a book. This book was to be a collection of short stories, each narrating a noteworthy or remarkable experience i had had in the several years i had been visiting nearby forests. After about an year of sporadic writing, around July 2012 all I had were a foreword and 2 short stories, and a lot less leisure time to continue to write. Fast forward to an evening in May, 2017 when the sky was overcast with dark, thunderous clouds and torrential downpour, preventing us from leaving the office. While we waited for the rains to subside, i was asked by my colleagues to narrate, once more, my recent encounter with 2 tigers, which they had heard a few times by now already. After what must have been an hour of intent listening, they gave me advice that wasn't new to me - I should write. On reflection i thought to myself, i did write