tha oreaThe Tiger's Realm

Text and Photographs by Anjali & Jaisal Singh and Priyanka Gandhi VadraRanthambhore has inspired a whole generation of tiger defenders down the years. This latest addition to the

archive is a stunning visual and textual articulation of one of the world's best known tiger habitatsby Panthera tigris' next line of defence.

AUTHORS' NOTEThe idea of this book was born out of a love for Ranthambhore, an extraordinary wilderness, and for the tiger that rules

it. We have been captivated by this charismatic and powerful 'Lord of Life', from the moment we were introduced to it,many years ago. That profound attraction has endured. Doing whatever we possibly can to protect tigers and their habitat,has become a passion we share.

Ranthambhore is the finest place in the world to observe and photograph these magnificent and powerful big cats. Thedry-deciduous and semi-arid flora, the breathtaking natural topography, the ruins of Rajput and Mughal pleasure palaces,cenotaphs and medieval gateways that are scattered around the reserve, make this forest stand apart. The areaencompassing the tiger reserve and national park gets its name from one of India's largest and most impressive fortresses,which stands proud in the heart of the jungle. Dating back to the 8th century A.D., it has been coveted by many kings andemperors. Sultan Alauddin Khilji of Delhi conquered it following an epic siege from a Rajput prince, Rana Hamir Deo in1301. A couple of centuries later, the Great Mughal, Jalaluddin Akbar personally led his army to capture Ranthambhore in1569. Akbar's grandson, Prince Khurram - better known as the Emperor Shah Jahan - demanded this impregnable junglefortress be given to him for the safekeeping of his family and harem, if his father forced him to lead the KandaharCampaign. When the Mughal empire crumbled, Ranthambhore became a part of the princely state of Jaipur and thesurrounding jungles a shooting reserve of the royal family. In 1972 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi introduced the IndianWildlife Protection Act in Parliament, banning the killing of wild animals. Soon thereafter, she spearheaded the creation ofProject Tiger and Ranthambhore was among the first areas to be chosen as a tiger reserve. By the early 1980s it had beentransformed into a pristine tiger kingdom.

Today, people from all over the world flock to Ranthambhore to soak in its vibrant natural beauty, its glorious history,its diverse wildlife, and of course, to see tigers in their element.

To celebrate Ranthambhore, we decided to publish a selection of our pictures, sifted from a vastarchive that we have built up over the years. These pictures are our favourites and all but onespread, taken in 1985, are recent. We have spent a considerable amount of time with many of thetigers and other creatures found among these pages, and have grown to know them well.

It is our sincere hope that this natural treasure of ours lives on and continues to inspirefuture generations to appreciate, respect and fiercely preserve this invaluable legacy.

Q&Awith laisal SinghSanctuary: What was the genesis of this book?JS: We all wanted to celebrate Ranthambhore and share the fantastic experiences we have been privileged to have had there, over the years. We hopethis book will inspire many people to do their part in helping to preserve India's rich and diverse natural heritage.

Sanctuary: Do you think tourism will ever actually become a conservation tool?JS: We have a brilliant opportunity in India to use tourism as a conservation tool os they have very successfully in Africa. Wildlife tourism in India isin its infancy, centred araund only a handful of our many hundred sanctuaries. Forest Departments ccross India need to work together with responsibletourism operators and embrace them rather than viewing them as 'the enemy'. If done properly, like it has been done in fragile ecosystemsin Kenya- itcould well become a primary tool.

Sanctuary: This book is probably out of the reach of most people, do you plan to use the Internet to reach a wider audience?JS: We are not considering an 'e-book' at the moment.

Sanctuary: You grew up in Ranthambhore under the tutelage of Fateh Singh Rathore, Yalmik Thapar and Tejbir Singh. What do yau see as yourown role in securing its future?JS: We all do whatever we possibly can to secure the future of our natural heritage, but I would like to do a lot more. The huge divide between theGovernment/Forest Department and us who are on the 'outside' prevents us from doing more. Most of us on the outside are constantly accused ofhaving vested interests.The government needs to realise that the vested interest is actually a mutual interest - to ensure the protection of our naturalheritage. Everyone needs to wark together and bridge this silly divide which is causing unnecessary damage.

10 Sanctuary Asia, August 201 1

Ranthambhore is the finest place in the world to observe and photograph tigers. The dry-deciduous and semi-arid flora,the breathtaking natural topography, the ruins of Rajput and Mughal pleasure palaces, cenotaphs and medieval gatewaysthat are scattered around the reserve, make this forest stand apart.

anctuary Asia, August 20 I I II

An adolescent Sultanpur male cub investigates the source of a distant sound while lying on a track undisturbed by the presence of our jeep.An extensive network of jungle tracks criss-cross the park and is frequently used by tigers and many other animals. Tigers being soft-padded seem to prefer walking on them, leaving their imprints. These pugmarks are used as a primary tracking tool, and provide a fair ideaabout the size of the animal and approximately when it passed by.

The Berda mother cools off in a pool at Aadi-Daanth ka Nullah. The tigress had spent the day devouring a sambar doe she killed early that moming.

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Two young tigresses, Brat and Split fighting to carve out their individual territories. At the time, they were just about twoyears old, and in the process of going it on their own. One evening we followed the entire family down Kamaldhar toNalghati. Their mother veered off to our left, when one of the females, Brat, trotted by our jeep and attacked her sibling,who had moved further down the track. Split responded with a blood curdling roar. Brat lunged at her and wrestled herto the ground. Echoing off both sides of the valley, their roars were deafening as the rest of the jungle fell silent.

anctuary Asia, August 201 113

A caracal walks boldly by our jeep near Doodh Baori. Extremely rare to see, I have seen them just five times over my thirty years in the forest. Ononly two of these occasions have we managed to photograph this shy and elusive cat. The caracal is known to be the quickest and is certainlyamong the most graceful of felines.

Split observes her prey - a herd of unsuspecting chital - in the open maidan between Padam Talab and Jhalra. On this occasion she allowed theherd of chital to pass by.

14 ancruary Asia, August 20 II

Ranthambhore is home to another big cat - the leopard. After a busy and satisfying week in the jungle, I was catching upon much needed rest at the camp one morning. Around nine o'clock Yusuf came running to my tent and woke me withthe news that a tiger had 'treed' a leopard right below the ramparts of the fort. I instantly jumped out of bed and rushedoff to find this beautiful leopardess high up on a tree. She waited patiently for the tiger to move away before climbing downand darting into the thick jungle surrounding the old fort walls.

ancrwuy Asia, August 20 II15

This family's day out was rather ill-timed! We were following Split up the main road that leads to the fort when this motleycollection of five came cruising down the road on their motorcycle. Startled out of their wits at seeing a tiger walkingstraight towards them, they screeched to a halt, abandoned their bike and bolted back towards the fort. The tigresswatched nonchalantly! Ranthambhore's tigers are accustomed to seeing people in jeeps, whom they do not view as theirnatural prey, a threat or disturbance - but motorcycles and more so, people running on foot, can prompt a tiger to chargein self-defence. This was a lucky crew on both counts!

16Sanctuary Asia, August 2011

It was in the winter of 1979 that I first cameto Ranthambhore. Aged just eight weeks orso, I do not remember anything of that visit,but am told that I did see my first tiger.

My parents, Malvika and Tejbir, first visitedin 1974 while making a documentary on thebird and jungle life of Rajasthan and had pitchedcamp under the great banyan tree at JogiMahal. This is when they met, and befriended,Fateh Singh Rathore, then Warden ofRanthambhore. It was under his managementthat the park would become the world's premiertiger reserve. But back in the mid-1970s, tigersightings were extremely rare even at night,and buffalo calves were often used as bait tolure tigers in order to see them. Many villagesexisted in the forest area, making the animalswary and shy of human presence.

The villages in the national park area werefinally moved 01)n5y 1977-78 with greatpersuasion, skill and determination by FatehSingh and resettled on more fertile agriculturalland outside the reserve, with access toelectricity, schooling, health care and markets,among other modern-day facilities. This was aseminal moment for Ranthambhore. With thevillages relocated, tigers started to walk theirterritories during the day and by night,overturning conventional wisdom about theirnocturnal behaviour. Even the presence ofjeeps did not disturb them, and they would oftenuse the vehicles to hide behind and ambushtheir prey. By the early 1980s the big cats hadreally come into their own, and the foreststarted to flourish.

From the mid-1970s to the end of theeighties my father and Valmik, my maternaluncle, were spending a lot of time inRanthambhore, filming and documenting tigers,along with Fateh Singh Rathore. I thus had theprivilege of spending my growing up years inthe forest with them, learning the ways of thejungle. From as far back as I can remember,I was tiger obsessed! By the time I was five,I had my very own Nikon eM camera with a105 mm. Nikkor lens and a pair of binoculars.We spent weeks and months at a time inRanthambhore, so much so that I actuallythought Jogi Mahal was our very own home inthe wilderness!

In my childhood I was oblivious of thethreats the tiger faced to its very survival, andits shrinking habitat, though I do remember anincident where Fateh kaka was mercilesslybeaten-up by illegal graziers in the heart of the

ancruary Asia, August 2011

WITH TIGERS IN THE WILDJaisal Singh

park, and left for dead. His driver, Sayeed,fortunately managed to drag him into the jeepand get him to a hospital in the nick of time. Iwas equally unaware of the dangers thatlurked in the forest. One of my earliestrecollections is of sleeping on charpoys in theopen, under the banyan tree. The residentleopard would stroll past us every night to drinkwater from the nearby Padam Talab. Fateh kakaalso trained me to be fearless in the forest atnight, often daring me to walk into the tall grasswhere a tiger had recently been seen. Froman early age I developed a keen sense of smellthat helped me identify the presence of tigersin the vicinity.

An early experience that shaped mythinking about conservation was the effortsmade by the Ranthambhore Foundation.Spearheaded by Valmik in 1988, along withsome like-minded friends, including myparents, its mission was to create aharmonious understanding between man andnature, aiming to preserve Ranthambhorethrough the idea of 'community conservation'.The Ranthambhore Foundation launched aprimary health care initiative encompassingninety-six villages around the park, anafforestation project, a dairy developmentscheme to encourage stall-feeding of cattle toreduce the pressure of grazing in the park, thepromotion of alternative energy, informaleducation and other such activities.Goverdhan (Fateh kaka's son), a qualifieddoctor, was the Foundation's Field Director. Heworked tirelessly and passionately to implementthese initiatives on the ground, and continuesto do so till today.

The 1980s were Ranthambhore's finestyears. With a healthy population of tigers andall the other creatures that live under itsumbrella, it was a wildlifer's paradise. But:sadly, this wasn't to last. Fateh Singh Rathorewas posted out in the late 1980s and anew team was at the helm. In the summer of1992 a poacher was arrested and hisrevelations were shocking. The operation ofvarious poaching 'gangs' in the park hadalmost halved tiger numbers. No one couldpredict whether the park would ever recoverfrom this tragedy. However, with a stroke ofluck it did. A committed forest officer,G.V. Reddy, was posted as the DFO, and itwas under his dynamic functioning that thedecline was halted and tiger numbers sawan increase. Ranthambhore reported overthirty five tigers in the core area at the beginningof the new millennium.

After a year finishing my education inEngland, I visited our farm at the edge ofRanthambhore in the spring of 2000. I spent adelightful month watching tigers and otherwildlife in every corner of the park. Muchenthused, I began to plot how to spend moretime in Ranthambhore. The idea of a tentedcamp thus began to take shape in my head, tofinally culminate in the setting-up of Sher Bagh,the tiger's garden. By October that year,we opened what was perhaps India's firstluxury tented camp - one that would

promote controlled, sustainable tourism, beecologically friendly and yet provide high levelsof comfort, service and above all, a trueRanthambhore experience.

I had always wanted to live inRanthambhore. It gave me an opportunity tospend long periods of time in the park, trackingtigers, filming and photographing them in orderto better understand their behaviour. Amongthe many fantastic encounters, there is onethat especially stands out. I was extremelyfortunate to have been the first to witness anddocument a tigress killing a 15 ft. crocodile.With Priyanka's brother Rahul in my jeep, thisrare spectacle unfolded just a hundred yardsfrom Jogi Mahal, at the edge of Padam Talab,on a cold November evening in 2002. At dusk,a large mugger came out of thewater and tried to appropriate the tigressMachhli's kill, forcing her to charge, and fightwith this menacing adversary. She mortallywounded the mugger by sinking her caninesinto the nape of its neck, leaving it to die in theicy cold night. It is impossible to describe theblood-curdling roars, coupled with the ferocitywith which the tigress wrestled and killed ahuge Indian marsh crocodile. It remains theonly such record to this day in the naturalhistory of the tiger.

For me, this book is a culmination ofmy recent experiences in pursuit of thispassion, accompanied by my wife Anjali,whose love of wildlife and Ranthambhore inparticular, is infinite. ~

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It is forty five degrees Celsius, the sun haspractically cooked us. We've been in the openjeep for at least four hours and still have anotherthree to go. The children have drunk more Spritethan I'd allow them in a week. They're on a sugarhigh, which is manageable by itself but not exactlyunder control when it is coupled with a wildlifehigh. They are also covered in a thick layer offine Ranthambhore dust. All attempts toBedouinise them by wrapping their heads andfaces up in scarves have failed.

I can't say I enjoy anything more than beingconfined to a jeep with them in the park. We'resurrounded by the wildemess I love and there'sabsolutely no possibility of them escaping theirmother's mad affections. Besides, they look atme with unusual awe when the tiger is around.It's almost as if they think I'd fight it off for them -well most of the time. Now and then they havedecidedly dubious expressions on their littlefaces, as if their mother was the least trustworthy,most foolhardy woman in the world and they'dreally much rather sit in someone else's jeep.

Anyhow, here we are, parked along the dirtroad facing a depression into which two tigershave just sauntered. We've watched intently allmoming. They've sniffed one another, cuddled,circled each other, sat many feet apart pretendingdisinterest and now look as if they might justdecide to mate. My daughter has already askedme half a dozen times under her breath, "havethey mated, mama?" and my son has decidedhe has a stomach ache. "Why do we have tosee them mating?" he's muttered, following thequestion up with a pained expression on his face.

Jaisal has informed us all that we are aboutto witness one of the rarest tiger moments ever.Anjall has been shifting elbows adjusting hercamera patiently even though its body must befire hot by now. I am looking forward to this

Long before I knew of Ranthambhore'sexistence, an appreciation of nature, and a childhoodlived in close proximity to the natural world was aoonstant in my I~e. My parents lived on a workingfarm just outside Delhi and we had a home in theHimalayas, in Mashobra. In combination, theselocations and landscapes moulded my mind toenjoy open spaces and admire the world of nature.Time spent in observation steered me to renderthe vision on canvas. At the age of ten, I was sentto a boarding school in the Swiss Alps andsubsequently studied Rne Art for seven years inthe hustle and bustle of London. It was only after Imet Jaisal in 2003 that Ranthambhore enteredmy life, or rather, that I entered the worldof Ranthambhore. Jaisal and his family havehad a strong association with the region goingback to the early 1970s, and the introductionproved contagious.

Painting has always provided me with a senseof release, it is a sanctuary to which I readily retreatfor oomfort and creation. My matemal grandmotheris the artistically inclined member of our family. Shetaught me to see the form of a flower and translate

18

MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALSPriyanka Gandhi Vadra

moment, however undignified and voyeuristic itmay be of me. Fomicating tigers might be of nointerest to the rest of the world, but to a mother oftwo pre-teens it's a gift from God himself. Whatbetter way to skirt questions about the mysteriousmechanics of reproduction than NationalGeographic "live".

The tigress that has been lingering under atree for a while approaches her mate. Just thena forest guard on an inordinately loud motorcyclerolls past oblivious to the scene unfolding belowhim. T-25 (our man the tiger) cocks his head upand looks straight at us. he crouches slightly,then with the swiftness of an arrow cutting thewind he tums his back to us and bolts.

Within seconds, he has vanished. He hasbounded up the depression we have been staringat wide-eyed for the last four hours, leapt acrossthe dirt road above it and disappeared into thehill. No wonder his other name is Zalim! T-17,(our lady, also known as Split) looks about asperplexed as we do or perhaps even more. Shenods almost humanly into the vacant forest andwalks away in the opposite direction. Just in caseanyone imagined that getting the pictures in thisbook was a lark, it took us eight hours of waitingspread across two days just for those two!

STROKES AND STRIPESAnjali Singh

it into an expression of my own. My years studyingfor a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Rne Art atCentral St. Martins were but a logical progressionfrom this. It was here that I also developed aninterest in photography. I began experimenting withline, ink and photography as mediums for my art.Over the last decade I have worked with thesemediums. Wildl~e photography, in both India andAfrica, has formed a part of my new work and intum inspired a series of ink paintings, including'Portraits of Tigers'.

Ranthambhore is one of the finestwildemesses, which provides a window into the I~eof our national animal- the tiger. I have been lucky,and privileged to see these big cats within the Rajputand Mughal ruins that give Ranthambhore itscharacter. Here, nature and its etemal guardianthe tiger have reclaimed the relics of human history.The majestic quality of Ranthambhore's 'iron clad'fort reigning above and tigers holding sway belowis unmatched. For me personally, to experiencethis world has been a time of great joy and it hasformed the basis of fascinating discoveries aboutthe I~eand behaviour of this most charismatic of all

I love the jungle, I always have. There is anunpredictability about it that is just beautiful.You never know where and when you willencounter the life you ought to live - untamedand feral. Everything is defined only by its ownexistence. Animals are what they are -unabashedly themselves.

The jungle of Ranthambhore lives its wildnesswell. Ruins of forgotten majesty lie overrun bythe brush. Once resplendent forts have becomethe abode of wild animals. The lakes aredeceptively placid, hiding ferocious crocodileswithin their silent waters and golden blades ofgrass effortlessly play the evening light into tigershadows. I love this jungle because it is old, olderthan any of us will ever be. Its constance iscalming. I find myself seeking it out as often asmy family will tolerate. My husband Robert hasallowed the wild to grow on him as well. He quiteenjoys our trips to Sher Bagh and enthusiasticallyjoins early moming jungle drives. The children ofcourse, already have a camera they argue over,not to mention photo credits!

I first came here as a thirteen year old. Drivingaround the jungle with my parents in much thesame way my children do with me, I wasenchanted by it. I think it was my father's love fornature that spirited itself into my being. I takephotographs because he taught me to; no otherreason at all really. I photograph what I notice.When Iwas younger Iwanted to hold the moment.Now I have no wish to keep it, I just take thepicture I see.

My camera is my diary of ever-Changingimages. I never thought I'd share its contents inthis manner. It was Anjali's idea, quite casuallyaired on a jungle drive while we stuffed our faceswith aloo masala chips. 'We'll do it for us," shesaid in her typically impish, matter of fact tone. Sowe did, and it's been great fun in the making. ~

cats. Each enoounter is a unique experience thatremains like a short story, oornplete and oontainedin the mind, untouched by anything else.

The most memorable moment for me has to bethe time I saw 'ZaIim' (or less charmingly ooded asT25) on our farm outside the tiger reserve. Itwas nota particularly long sighting as he snarled at thecamera and soon after slunk away into the foliage.Nonetheless, the raw, untamed and unapologeticinstinct of a wild animal, reinforoed by the ferocity ofhis expression shall stay with me forever.

Sher Bagh, our small luxury tented camp at theedge of the park, is a base for us all. It is a homeaway from home and a gem nestling in nature'sthicket. I can never remain away too long. Thearoma of freshly baked bread winding its waythrough the tents, and the scents of Jaisal's cookingunder the open sky on clay ovens, never lose theirforce of charm for me. The campfire is legenda/y,with interesting tales shared between strangersand friends. The camp is a place away from thechaos of city I~e- one that naturally induces a stateof blissful calm while you sprawl on a camp-cotunder a canopy of trees. ~

aneruary Asia. August 2011