Relationship status 2020

I was recently wasting my life on a social networking site when I came upon a picture of an old friend of mine, smiling as he was being kissed by a beautiful female. This guy had gotten married a couple of years back and though I hadn’t attended the wedding, I still remembered the status updates and the photographs. His wife, who I remembered as an ordinary looking bride, had taken his last name after the marriage. The attractive woman tagged in this picture had a totally different last name.  He looked happy, my friend, as any married man should in such close proximity to a woman who was not his wife.

My first thought on seeing this picture was divorce, which is now being made in heaven for convenience sake. Skipping the traditional period of mourning and soul-searching, the current fashion is to get back on the saddle as soon as possible…find marital bliss again and, more importantly, share it with the ex- and everyone else on the planet. So I figured this guy was putting up romantic pictures with the new and beautiful one true love to make the old one burn. As is the case with most of my friends on social networking sites, I wasn’t really friends with this guy. I forgot about the picture as soon as I had scrolled down to the next attention-seeking update.

A few days later I was again escaping the brutish realities of my life online and I found another romantic picture of this hero. There was a new female lead in this picture and she had her arms wrapped tightly around my friend. Suddenly this guy began to look like the love child of Brad Pitt and Hrithik Roshan. The funny thing is he isn’t really good looking. He isn’t hideous either, but two different women in a week? For the average Indian engineer, that should merit a lifetime achievement award. What had suddenly happened to my friend? Had he changed professions and become a Bollywood star? An international cricketing sensation? James Bond? I didn’t remember seeing him on television or in the newspapers. What was going on and why wasn’t I in on it?

I decided to call him up and solve the mystery of his new-found sex appeal. But there’s a problem. I hadn’t talked to this guy in about six years and so I couldn’t just call him out of the blue and say, ‘Hi! Remember me? How are you? I’m good too…so how are you getting it on with so many women?’

I needed a plan. Something subtle and also sneaky…I needed a stratagem.

‘Hi! Remember me? How are you? I’m good too…so listen, we’re planning a get-together…you know, a high school reunion…all the old boys are coming. It’ll be fun seeing the gang…yeah, that’s true, we didn’t really talk much back then. I guess this is our second chance…so listen, this is going to be a family reunion…wife and kids and pets and all that…so you and your wife will make it? Yeah? And your wife? She can, too? I see. How is she doing, your wife? No, I don’t know her…no I couldn’t make it to the wedding…but I saw the pictures you put up back then…haven’t seen any pictures of your wife recently though…She’s okay? So you guys are doing okay? I see. Oh, I’d seen a picture you put up a few days back…with a woman…was that your wife? No? Work colleague? I see. You two must be really close…and about a week ago, there was a picture with a different female? Drinking buddies! How nice. Your wife doesn’t mind all these pictures of you with other women? I see. She liked the picture. Ah…even your colleague’s husband liked the picture…how wonderful…and your wife also puts up such pictures with her male friends…very modern…hmm…reunion? Oh right, that…we haven’t exactly fixed the date and time yet…I’ll let you know. Me? No, no wife yet…no girlfriend either. Yes, soon…one or the other…or maybe both.’

How wonderfully open this brave new world of relationships has become. I remember as a child watching a Malayalam film in which the actor and actress, who were playing a married couple, spent a few awkward minutes hugging passionately. I asked my mother how they could do that when they were both married to different people in real life. She said, ‘They are movie stars. Its part of their job to do that and their families also support them.’

Today we are all movie stars. We upload our movies on the internet and our followers like them and comment on them. Sometimes we have to do intimate scenes, but it’s a part of the job. In a bid to promote our movie careers, our spouses support and encourage us. Thanks to the social networking revolution, our demand for personal attention has attained astronomical proportions. It is now impossible for any one person to satisfy that craving, no matter how loving they are or how much time and energy they spend on us. But the social network provides the fix to the addiction that it has created…an inexhaustible supply of anonymous admirers from all corners of the galaxy. We support each other in this universal movie production, alternately playing the role of celebrity and fan…liking and being liked in turn to infinity. We are our own Gods.

So if your wife doesn’t meet your need for attention, don’t worry. The married woman at work will satisfy your hunger, because she needs you to satisfy hers. I look forward to the day I go online and find this update: X slept with Y. Mrs. X and Mr. Y liked this. 

Today, now.

I was sitting in the office of the medical superintendent (MS) of the hospital, studying his face as he read my letter of resignation. After what seemed an extraordinarily long time to spend on a short communication, he dropped the letter on his table and then carefully removed his spectacles. He looked at me and smiled. I smiled back. 

‘How long have you been working here?’ he asked.

‘Six months, sir.’

He nodded his head slowly and then frowned.

‘You just joined and already you want to leave?’

‘Yes sir.’ I was being short with my replies in the hope that the MS would accept the letter without much drama and let me leave.  

‘Why do you want to leave?’

The fact is I had already communicated my grievances at the workplace to the MS a couple of weeks before. At the time he wasn’t impressed and told me that I shouldn’t expect any change in the situation.

‘Sir, I’m not satisfied with my job. So there really isn’t any point in my continuing to work here.’

‘But you knew exactly what this job was about when you took it. How can you leave in just six months? Even if you are unhappy, that’s okay…no one is fully satisfied with their job. You can still keep working here…at least for an year. After all, we are happy with your work.’

These words uttered by the MS took me back a decade to the start of my medical career. I had never particularly wanted to be a doctor out of any great passion. In fact, at the end of high school, I had no idea what I wanted to be. A combination of my general confusion about all things related to my future and some passionate prodding from my parents in that particular direction is what landed me in medical college. After my first year, I returned home for vacations and met an old acquaintance. He happened to be in the same confused situation that I was in, except that his parents had guided him towards engineering. After a few beers, we decided that we were both unhappy with the present course of our lives. He had even told his parents about it, something which I had never done. His parents had told him to keep working hard even if he was unhappy, and that they were proud of him.

The years passed by slowly and painfully, one exam at a time. The acutely confused state that I had been in gave way to an acceptance of the immutable and a dull unhappiness. In the vacation before my final year of MBBS, I once again met that old acquaintance. He had just finished his four year engineering course and landed a job in Mumbai. I congratulated him on his professional success. He told me he was still unhappy. He planned to work for some time as an engineer so that he could support himself until he found out what he really wanted to do with the rest of his life. When he found his true calling he would come home and tell his parents that he was changing his profession.

After much struggle through my final year, I officially became a doctor. I wasn’t particularly happy or sad about it but my parents were ecstatic. They imagined that I would now put on a white coat and fly off to all corners of the world to save lives. Night duties, working Sundays, specialisation and super-specialisation, white hair, 90-hour work weeks…little did we all know then what a fresh MBBS doctor had to look forward to.

I asked about my old acquaintance and that’s when my mother gave me the sad news. It had happened during my final exams and that was why she hadn’t told me then. He had been in a fatal bike accident in Mumbai. He had reserved a 2AC ticket to return home the next day but he missed that train.

Five years later, sitting in the MS’ office, I imagined that scene again. The LTT-Ernakulam Duronto express…the scenic beauty of the Konkan rail…I imagined him standing at the open door of his AC coach looking outwards and forward. There are 91 tunnels on the way, and I imagine him passing through them all and emerging in the light on the other side. Wind in his face…he is smiling. He has found his true calling in life and he’s coming home.

He never made that journey. None of us even got to find out what his true passion was. He had accepted his unhappiness and assumed that one day in the uncertain future things would change. We all make this assumption…as if God has signed a legally binding contract with each of us that he will let us live to see the day our dreams come true. We live complacently making all kinds of compromises based on this assumption. At the beginning of this new year, I remember my old acquaintance and think upon those days of long ago…

The MS put his glasses on again. He slid the resignation letter back towards me.

‘I think you’re confused,’ he said smiling. ‘You should reconsider this.’

‘No sir,’ I said standing up. ‘I’m not confused. I don’t need to reconsider this.’

I still don’t know what is going to make me happy in life but I know that I should not accept anything less. Maybe I will search all my life for passion and not find it. But that doesn’t mean I can delay. The day to make our dreams come true is today; now is the time to pursue happiness. The alternative is a dull unhappiness and the dead man’s walk towards the flickering light at the end of the tunnel.

In Khajuraho

The overnight bus from Jabalpur to Khajuraho is non-AC sleeper class. What they don’t tell you is that there are no working fans or lights in the bus either. I bought two adjacent sleeper seats for myself, which means I can enjoy the relative luxury of not having to share with a complete stranger a bed that is barely wide or long enough for me alone. When I say bed, I actually mean a hard flat surface. The sleeper seats are fitted above the chair seats, and I am the only passenger who is not sharing a bed. The bus waits at the station till all the seats are filled and then takes on people who are willing to travel standing for a reduced fare. This is of course strictly illegal as per road safety laws and like most illegal activities in India it is practiced openly and goes entirely unpunished. The aisle is packed with people until there is no room left to stand and it is 9:30 pm when the bus finally leaves Jabalpur.

As I lie down with my legs stretched across 2 sleeper seats and watch the standing crowd watching me, I feel a bit like a French monarch on the night before the beheading. Best to close the curtain… woefully inadequate…doesn’t effectively segregate me from the common people. So this is what flying first class must feel like…privileged in plain sight.

The bus is my least favourite form of travel in India. Nothing to do with lack of fans or ACs…it is a simple matter of safety: every day in this country the newspapers report at least one major accident involving overnight travel in a public bus. Statistically speaking, it would have been safer for me to spend the next ten hours shark-diving or mountain climbing. The only reason using public transport at night in India is not an extreme adventure sport is that you’re not burning calories. If you do burn calories it is only because of the lack of ventilation, the constant tossing around in a vehicle without adequate suspension or shock absorbers on a road full of potholes, and the thought of sudden death, and not because of any physical exertion. Perhaps an overnight bus journey on Indian roads is the most extreme and adventurous sleep one can have anywhere in the world.

My only source of relief comes from the knowledge that the roads connecting Jabalpur to Khajuraho are in such a bad state of repair that achieving the high speed required for a fatal road traffic accident is nearly impossible. In India it happens many times that two or more negatives come together to make a positive. However the possibility of multiple long bone fractures, cervical spine trauma, and head injury cannot be ruled out.

Having said all this about the disadvantages of the public bus as a form of transport in India, I must, in its defence, say that the bus is often the last and only refuge of budget travellers who don’t plan their trips till the last minute. And there’s nothing quite like catching an overnight state transport bus on a whim. When I got on this bus I was fully aware of the risks and I got on anyway. This is my cost-benefit analysis: On the one hand, if you stay at home, you can eliminate the possibility of dying in a tragic road traffic accident…but then you may not be doing much living if you just stay at home all the time. If you step out on unfamiliar paths, there is always the possibility that you will die in some freak accident…but you can be sure that you would have been living a full life right up to the moment of your death. So I choose living in the unfamiliar to dying in the familiar. Even still, as my tin can on wheels shakes its way violently towards Khajuraho, I can’t shake the feeling that it would be an ironic tragi-comedy if I were to die in the middle of a journey that was supposed to be a grand expression of my freedom.

Reached Khajuraho at 7 am after a ten hour long realignment of my spine…checked into a budget hotel near the bus station…long hot water shower…breakfast of omelette, buttered toast and black coffee…ready for another adventure. I headed out on foot to the western group of temples. Ticket counter…rented an English audio guide machine…walked into the temple complex. It was 10 am on a sunny Friday morning.

Stood in front of the welcome station…pressed the play button on the audio guide machine (which was a cross between a calculator and a mobile phone). The Khajuraho temples were built a thousand years ago and nobody really knows why their walls are adorned with highly graphic stone sculptures of men and women engaged in erotic couplings and orgies. The entire temple complex seems to have been unapologetically devoted to the pursuit of pleasure. It is the union of sexuality and religion, the purest worship of physical satisfaction.

There are half a dozen temples in the western group, which is the most well-preserved and famous group of Khajuraho temples. Slowly walking in a circle around the first one…admiring the sculptures on the outer walls. Called the Lakshmana temple, this KamaSutra-in-stone gave me a brief introduction to the various wonderful possibilities of sex if only we were to truly free ourselves.

The erotic scenes depicted on the temple walls are very different from the command and conquer missions that we embark on in nightclubs and bars in big cities on Saturday nights. The sculptors have managed to freeze these lovers in the heat of a sublime dance where each participant loses their self in the other. It is creation by destruction. The men and women intertwined in a thousand lusty positions are not chasing after their own orgasms. They are coming together again and again, stone grinding against stone, to achieve a higher spiritual plane. The Khajuraho figurines are operating under the philosophy that the way to the soul is through sex.

A nude woman turns away from you and curls her back so that the line of her spine made prominent directs your eye to curve down to her thigh; another woman looks at you with eyebrows arched into a question mark while carrying in her left hand the full weight of her right breast; a man and a woman are locked in a technically complicated embrace that looks part of some gymnastic routine while being supported by nude female assistants…these images in stone speak not to the crotch but to the mind. Even a thousand years ago, the sculptors and artists who worked on these temples in Khajuraho knew the essential truth that it is the mind that is the primary sex organ in man. This is no cheap titillation, no hip thrusts to Bollywood tunes…this is high erotic art on temple walls…spirituality carved out of sandstone…cold hard statues of the eternal flesh moulded into the throes of passion…there is an intoxication in the air in Khajuraho.

At the Kendariya Mahadeva temple I found myself in the midst of a group of British tourists. There were three couples, all young and high-spirited. One couple was sitting on a cool dark stone slab in the centre of the shaded inner sanctum of the temple. The white woman was resting her head on the shoulder of her male companion and both of them stared silently at the erotic statues. I felt an acute loneliness in their presence. After they left, I sat at the same spot for some time brooding.One of the caretakers of the temple was sent by God to interrupt my foul mood.

‘Have you seen all the temples sir?’ asked the young man in the bluish-grey uniform worn by the temple staff.

‘I’ve seen three of them. I’m just resting for a bit and then I’ll move on to the others.’

‘What do you think of them? I hope you don’t mind my asking this. From all parts of India and from all the countries of the world people come to this little town just to see these temples. They come and walk around here for a few hours and take pictures and then they go back to their homes. There is something I want to ask all of them. I’ve been working here for four years now. Every day I sit for eight hours in one of the temples. Every month my posting is rotated from one temple to the other. There is no corner of these temples that I have not seen. There is no sculpture in this complex that I can’t see in my mind when I close my eyes. But something has always bothered me: Whoever made these temples, why did they put such erotic sculptures on these walls? I have heard many answers from different people over the years. I want to know your opinion. I hope you don’t mind my asking.’

One of the benefits of being a solitary explorer is that the locals always find you approachable. The solitary explorer is always open to unexplored possibilities. He craves new experiences, new conversations, and new ways of looking at this old life. Since the caretaker had asked me a question that I had been asking myself as I was walking around the temples, I decided that the two of us should get together and try and solve this mystery once and for all.

‘According to the historians and the archaeologists, there could be a number of answers. The physicality of the sculptures could be a metaphor for attaining godliness. Just as a lot of the romantic Persian poets sang to God as to a lover, these erotic couplings could be a form of spiritual worship. Another theory, my personal favourite, is that when these temples were built, this area could have been ruled by hedonists who believed that the pursuit of pleasure was the greatest spiritual good. The people of this place at that time may have lived in a culture of free love dedicated to the exploration of all possible sexual permutations and deviations. These statues may be their legacy, a representation of the rites and daily practices of the people of Khajuraho a thousand years ago.’

As I tried to answer the caretaker’s question, I couldn’t help but wonder how very different this spot where I was sitting would have been back then. What had these statues seen at the time of their birth and in their childhood? Today in India when a woman is sexually assaulted (and several are raped every day and it always makes the front page news and the prime time news spots), there are always a few political leaders who are quick to blame the women for going against the Indian culture and tempting men by wearing short skirts or visiting night clubs or by keeping too many male friends. At the same time, almost every Bollywood blockbuster film features at least one item song where a bikini-clad Indian starlet belly-dances to porno music and raunchy lyrics and this is considered as acceptable family viewing. There is something deeply twisted in the sexual mores of modern India, and it is almost impossible to imagine that there was a time in the ancient past when in a tiny corner of this country the ancestors of people like us used to celebrate their sexuality so passionately and proudly. Who were those people of Khajuraho circa 1000 AD? Where did they come from and where did they go? Why were their value systems and practices not carried down through the centuries to the present day? Why is it that the only surviving connection between our reality and theirs are these stone sculptures? If we were to strictly contextualize the existence of these ancient erotic statues in our hypocritical sexually repressed modern India, they are as inexplicable and mysterious as Stonehenge and the Bermuda Triangle. I wondered if I should tell the caretaker that aliens from a more advanced civilization may have been the original sculptors of the Khajuraho statues.

After a long and sweaty four hour walking tour through the whole complex accompanied by my excellent and knowledgeable English language audio guide machine, I settled into a nearby café for a chilled beer. Solitary exploration of the Khajuraho temple sculptures is guaranteed to give anyone an unquenchable thirst for human bonding. As I felt the cool golden liquid flow down my throat I thought of the lovers that had come and gone in my life. I re-lived the greatest moments of sexual satisfaction that I had known, and I realized that it wasn’t the awkward one night stands with drunk women but the tender caresses of steady lovers that I went back to in my mind again and again. The physical relations that had some meaning beyond the next orgasm, the slowly rising pulse of a woman whose skin is as familiar to you as your own, the foreplay and the after-play…these memories etched in the walls of my mind came back across the years to give me company.

Blue-eyed tigers

I was sitting in the 2AC coach of the Indore-Jabalpur express, waiting for the train to start moving. The plan was to travel 700 kilometres to the Bandhavgarh National Park, known to have the highest density of wild Bengal tigers anywhere in the world.

As we leave Indore I contemplate on the meaning of this journey. The tiger has meant many things to many people…to William Blake it was a fearful fire in the night, a creature whose majesty could only be rivalled by that of its creator…to Borges, a symbol of the futility of art attempting to capture reality, the ultimate failure of imagined words that seek to define and confine a living roaming beast that refuses to be caught…to Mowgli it was a killer but to Calvin and Christopher Robin Milne the tiger was far more kind. For me at this stage in my life, the tiger was hope and struggle, victory and celebration. I wanted to see the fire burning in its eyes because I knew the same fire was burning in me. I wanted to see the sinews twisting as it walked, because it is my freedom walk as well.

From Jabalpur it is a four hour drive to Bandhavgarh National Park, the favourite hunting grounds of the erstwhile kings of Rewa. Exhilarating hill drive…long winding roads and hairpin curves…for most of the way, the road is barely wide enough for one car to fit between the hill and the steep fall to the valley…and yet it transports heavy vehicles in both directions. As we move away from Jabalpur, the dry landscape is replaced by lush greenery. It’s noon time and the rays of a friendly sun give me warmth and company. After 150 km on the road and more than one blind right-angle turn into an oncoming bus we reach Umaria district. The road disintegrates into a quickly thrown together and levelled bunch of rocks and the cruising speed decreases from 80 kilometres per hour to 40. Will the car’s suspension sustain under this unrelenting and savage attack? Will the door next to me fall off?

We are now in the dense forests of Bandhavgarh. I am constantly imagining that just beyond the next bend, a majestic tiger will be crossing the road in slow motion. Why does the lonely tiger cross the road? To catch the chicken? The tiger, unlike other big cats, prefers to hunt alone. It relies on its own might and cunning to catch its prey. My journey is a celebration of the majesty of the self, and what better creature in all God’s creation exemplifies that than the tiger.

Found a hotel inside the national park…got a nice room…long and refreshing shower… quick nap…and now for an evening walk in Tala village. The tiger safari is scheduled for six in the morning. Since I don’t have a ticket, I’ll apparently have to get up at three to wait in line at the counter. Walking along the one long street that makes up Tala village, I notice a handicrafts store which is set apart from all the others. The whole village caters to tourists who come to the national park to see tigers and so the whole street is lined with handicrafts stores that sell tiger-print t-shirts, key-chains with pug mark themes, tiger-print coffee mugs, safari hats, and tiger-inspired jewellery. This store is different because it is walled and gated. While all the others have salespeople standing outside urging tourists to come in and buy the same stuff that every other store is selling, this particular store seems to be aloof and distant. It is as if the proprietor doesn’t really care to attract people inside. I open the gate and walk in. A middle-aged short-haired fair-skinned portly woman greets me in flawless English. There is a weak scent of stimulant herbs burning somewhere in the background. I immediately notice that this store doesn’t stock up on any of the usual tourist trappings. In fact, I have trouble identifying most of the items on display. The lady invites me to look around and then leaves me alone.

I am examining a long cylindrical wooden apparatus whose function is not apparent to me. The lady comes up behind me and tells me that it ibehind me and tells me that it’nd walks aways a rainmaker and that if I swing it upside down it will make the sound of rains. I do as she says and immediately I get the cool wet feeling of the monsoons on my face. Putting the rainmaker back in its place, I ask her where she gets all this stuff from.

‘I travel. That’s my passion. I’ve been all over the country…not to the big tourist spots…I’m more interested in the small villages. I interact with the local artisans and whenever I find something that intrigues me, I buy it and bring it back here. What you’re seeing is the result of twenty years of travel through rural India.’

‘Very impressive.’

‘Is this your first visit here?’

‘Yes. I’ve never seen a tiger outside a zoo. I wanted to see one roaming free.’

‘You’ve come to the right place. There around 60 to 90 wild tigers here, living in a 450 kilometre area. Which gate are you at?’

‘I haven’t got a ticket yet. I’ll have to get up early in the morning and stand in line for one. Which is the best gate?’

‘The Tala gate is known to have the highest chance of tiger sightings. There are about 20 to 30 tigers there. But over the last few months, more sightings are being reported from the Magadhi gate. Have you heard of the blue-eyed tiger?’

‘No.’

‘Kind of a legend in these parts. It’s the tiger whose face you’ll see on most of the t-shirts sold here. The blue-eyed white tiger is a genetic variant of the normal orange coloured Bengal tiger. Zoos all over the world have tried to breed them but because of the small numbers in captivity there’s a lot of in-breeding and genetic defects. That’s why a lot of governments have banned the breeding of white tigers, including ours. But these forests around us are special because we have naturally occurring blue-eyed tigers here, which you won’t find anywhere else in the world. In fact the first and only wild blue-eyed tiger ever to be captured alive was from here in the 1950s by the last Maharaja of Rewa.’

The lady paused and I realized that all the fine hairs on my arms had become erect. What a fantastic creature it must be, the blue-eyed tiger, king of kings and loneliest among lonely warriors. I felt a deep and urgent need to see this creature and have my life forever altered by the sight.

‘Khitauli is the third gate at the park,’ the lady continued. ‘It’s the least popular gate because it has the lowest density of tigers. But three years ago a tour group spotted a blue-eyed tiger there. People here say that the reason there are very less tigers in Khitauli is because a blue-eyed tiger lives there.’

Back to hotel…dinner time…but first a chilled beer…hoping it’ll put me to sleep quickly. Ten pm…I’m setting the alarm for three…initiating full system shutdown. Midnight…still awake. I remember asking the hotel clerk earlier in the evening if a tiger is guaranteed to be sighted in every safari.

‘The tiger shows itself only when it wants to,’ he said. ‘Sometimes a safari comes back disappointed even after doing everything possible to increase the chances of a sighting.’

Sleep for me is like the tiger…comes when it wants to and sometimes it doesn’t come at all in spite of all my efforts to induce it.

Three am…Alarm! Just when I was getting into a deep sleep…snooze…alarm…snooze… 3:30. By the time I reached the ticket counter it was four. Dark outside still…even the streetlamps were off…hadn’t expected to find anyone waiting in line, but there were already ten people ahead of me. I am number 11. First preference for seats in the safari goes to those who pre-book online. That closes 15 days before the date of the safari. Then people with VIP connections who don’t pre-book get seats. Lastly, people like me who neither plan ahead nor know anyone important…if we’re standing in front of the ticket counter when it opens at 5:30, we get whatever seats are leftover. There is no way of knowing, as you wait in line for the sunrise, whether there are actually any seats left for that day’s safari…yawn…this may all be utterly pointless…Puppy in a pet store, wondering if today is my day. Two hours later… counter finally opens…and I get a ticket at Khitauli gate!

So it was that at 7 am on a Wednesday morning, a man who had on a whim travelled 700 kilometres alone by rail and road to see a tiger without a ticket, now passed through the gates of the Bandhavgarh National Park. What magic! As you drive through the jungle path, you will see tall trees and thick shrubs on either side and you imagine that lurking somewhere in a blind spot within your field of vision is a shy tiger and the tiger is watching you smile. As you zoom through the tracks left on the sandy path by jeeps before you, the wind ruffles your hair reminding you again and again that you really are here doing this incredible thing. Every now and then the tiger guide sitting in front with the driver jumps up from his seat and raises his arm. The driver breaks suddenly and the guide looks back at you and points quietly to the ground in front of the jeep. The fresh pug marks in the sand crossing the path after the last jeep had passed by are a thousand tiny monuments to a great and singular event that you had arrived a little too late to witness. When the guide asks for silence to listen in on the alarm calls of monkeys and deer, meant as a general warning of the proximity of tigers and leopards, you wish you could see what they’ve just seen. Whatever I may try and tell you of the great sense of adventure that is inherent in the quest for tigers, there is much that you will miss in the translation. I felt that I had succeeded in freeing myself temporarily from the small problems of my own life, and I had become a part of something ancient and eternal. I wish I could describe the beauty of the tiger crossing the path directly in front of my jeep. I wish I could describe that moment when that tiger stopped and turned its neck to arrest me in those cold blue lights. I wish…just didn’t happen…not a single tiger sighting in the entire three hour safari. Elephants? Sure…several types of deer, jungle fowl, migratory birds, noisy monkeys…and that’s as wild as it got…no tigers, blue-eyed or otherwise. The words printed in bold capitals on a sign board next to the exit of the park say it best, to all those who came this far and failed to spot a tiger in the most densely populated tiger reserve in the world: You may not have seen the tiger, but you can be sure that the tiger has seen you.

I found out at the end of the safari that none of the jeeps that had gone in this morning through any of the gates had fared any better. Most of the passengers in my jeep were seasoned naturalists and had booked for two or three safaris together to increase their chances of a sighting. One particularly passionate Bengali gentleman, with a digital SLR camera hanging around his neck, was already bargaining on the phone for the elephant safari as he got out of the jeep. His wife and daughter looked less than thrilled about the prospect of riding on top of an elephant into the jungle to look for tigers. As far as I was concerned the hunt was over for now and as I lay on the soft welcoming bed of the hotel and flipped TV channels mindlessly I wondered why I hadn’t found what I sought. Had all the tigers decided to sleep in this morning? Had the blue-eyed tiger seen me and decided that I was not worthy of the meeting? The tiger’s chosen isolation and my subsequent disappointment reminded me of a lesson I had many times forgotten- that no man ought to be an island unto himself and deny others the pleasure of a meeting.