Sharing our spine chilling excitement

[Debasis Bose]

The air was heavy with the intoxicating indescribable aroma, lovely concoction of a woody fragrance, the scent of flowers and moist sal leaves, the pure, clean smell of a forest older than time itself. As the gentle breeze was blowing, and the day was a typical jungle - cacophony of flame backed woodpeckers, melodious sound of oriole, whistling of common iora, vocal call of barbets with intermittent shrill call of juvenile changeable hawk eagle. All of a sudden, without warning, the peace of the jungle was disturbed by the strident alarm call of a sambar – a loud ‘Dhonnnk, dhonnk, dhonnk’. A momentary silence, then a distant langur on the treetop gave voice too: ‘khoough khakkarr-khakkarr..’ A strange noise floated in from the distance, infrasonic waves travelled through our body and we all were shock frozen for second. It seemed to come up from the depths of the earth itself – a sound like some subterranean giant yawning after deep slumber. We cocked our ears and stood up. There it was again, closer this time, near the base of the hill to our right-front. Clearer too… a long deep note tapering off into a guttural cough… .‘aaaaaaaaooun…aaaaaaaoungh…..aaaaounghhrr’… the unmistakable roar of a tiger looking for a mate or may be challenging any other male in vicinity. The guttural cough continued and then the jungle went completely silent – all sounds had stopped. The jungle inhabitants were deferring to their Lord and Master. Then again came the deep roar ‘aaaaaaaaooun…aaaaaaaoungh…..aaaaounghhrr’ This time the volume of the sound was unbelievable – it seemed to fill all the space around us. Involuntary shivers ran down our spines, and it was not entirely due to the chill that was setting in. The resonant sound came closer and closer, and the tiger could not have been more than ten yards away as he passed by in front of us (my mother, wife and children Diya and Deep). Here is the beautiful male that just crossed us, this was my first tiger snapped with Nikon D 3100, 70-300 mm in Dec 2011, focus was locked on to the leaves a feet or two away behind the beast, f/5, ISO 1600. The experience was awesome which my family and mother still recall to this day.