Before this trip I wrote that, between the two of us, my Hindi is slightly the better one. In central India that has become a job. Every time a guide or the driver mentions a number, I translate it for Adarsh. 

“Baees”
“That’s 22. No, he didn’t call us ‘boys’”

“Chaudah jeeps.”
“That’s 14.” 

For a lot of South Indians, Madhuri Dixit taught us only till 13.

Tadoba to Pench is about 270 km through Nagpur, where we had been told to stop at Ramji Shyamji Pohewale, which serves poha the Nagpur way, under a spicy chana gravy called tarri. It was our second breakfast of the morning and it earned the detour. We reached Pench about 1,440 km into the trip, with just enough time for lunch before the first safari.

Some context first. Pench is one forest run as two tiger reserves, because the border between Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra passes through it. The MP side covers about 1,180 sq km across Seoni and Chhindwara districts. The Maharashtra side adds about 741 sq km in Nagpur district. The Pench river gives the forest its name, and the Totladoh reservoir sits on it. Each state has its own forest department, gates, permits and booking website. The animals cross the line without any of that.

The first safari was in Telia, a buffer zone on the MP side about 4 km from the Turia gate. It is one of the newer buffers. We missed a tigress and her four cubs by just a few minutes, which adds its own excitement or disappointment based on your desperation levels. The rest of the drive was uneventful, which is the forest’s default setting and the part that never reaches anyone’s reel.

The next day ran from 5:20 am to 7:30 pm, because we had booked two zones in two states. Morning was Rukhad, another MP buffer, up in the hills. It is moister than the rest of Pench, with bamboo, jamun and arjun along running streams, and it forms part of the corridor tigers use between Pench and Kanha.

Rukhad gave us two leopards. Leopards are elusive on principle and these two were no different, but we got a proper look at both before they went back to it.

Evening was Sillari, the main gate on the Maharashtra side and our only core zone at Pench. Maharashtra’s share of the forest is the smaller one and counted more than 41 tigers in 2023, but I would send people here for the landscape before the tigers. The forest is teak and dense bamboo with plenty of water. In a single drive we went from open grassland to hill ranges to a bamboo forest that was pitch dark inside even in broad daylight, and then into a stretch they call the black forest. It felt like multiple parks sharing one gate.

The birds came first, as they do when I am in the jeep: a small pratincole, and a European roller, a passage migrant that starts turning up around now on its way to Africa and apparently started appearing here from this season onwards. Deer, gaur, langur and jackal made up the (common) mammals list.

Then a leopard walked down the track straight at us. Leopards don’t usually do this. A tiger walks head-on because the road is his, while a leopard tends to take one look at a jeep and leave. This one kept coming, the way the tiger had in Tadoba. I have now had two cats walk directly at me in one week, and I am trying not to read anything into it.

The tiger took more work. We picked up pugmarks and followed them for some distance before T67 turned up at the end of them, briefly. It was a glimpse and no more. After that much reading of footprints, it still felt like meeting the author.

Five safaris in, I have enough field data to attempt a definition.

Safari faith (noun)

The belief that gets an adult out of bed at 4:30 am, on holiday, to sit in an open jeep and look at bushes. Come back and repeat “Forest green is something else.”

Some common phrases you hear during safaris:

• “It was right here a few minutes ago.” It is always a few minutes. Nobody has ever missed a tiger by three hours.
• “Alarm call.” A langur has cleared its throat. Six jeeps stop the engines and wait. 5 minutes of silence. For our luck, mostly. 
• “Fresh pugmark.” Legend has it that forest departments used to fake these just to create excitement even when they didn’t have any cats then.
• “Look where I’m pointing.” You look. There is forest. There has been forest for nine minutes. “See that left branch from the main trunk? 2 o’clock from there.” Another 5 minutes pass. “Yes, yes, I see it.” You don’t see it. You just want to confirm you are not blind.

Once you are back, you set the alarm for 4:30 AM again. “Today, will be the ultimate.”
Andy Dufresne famously said “Remember, Red, hope is a good thing.” in Shawshank Redemption.
I am convinced he was a birder. 

Next stop. Panna.
(The malayali in me wants to add something after that last word, but will refrain.)