Mother Nature's Birthday Gift

Tadoba National Park

It was my first birthday away from my wife and cub, my second day at Tadoba (this year) and I wasn't in the best of moods. The first night, day and the morning safari hadn't really been anything to be happy about. I was missing home and doubting my decision to do this trip solo being in between surgeries and having to use a cane to walk around.

And then, right at the start of the afternoon safari, one of the best tiger sightings of my life (so far) happened.

The pool was picturesque, and out of a book or movie scene set around lovers. Choti Rani came first and called repeatedly and then her cub appeared. He looked grown enough to leave her soon and I could tell that this was probably going to be their last summer together. He was a little skittish but not totally shy around the vehicles. 

He got in with his mother and I wish I could describe with words what even my pictures cannot express. They played, bathed, swam, had a good afternoon, basically. What I can tell you is that, to me, it's a great sighting these days when the adrenalin subsides and I start enjoying the sighting and take select pictures unhurriedly versus the usual rush to get good shots in before a sighting ends. My camera rarely clicked for most of the second half of that hour and a half.

They left the pool, heart rates around the vehicles calmed as well and I having seen these two, started missing my wife and kid even more. But doing Tadoba with the cane in tow and wheelchair transit at airports elevated itself to "worth it". Anything else I saw this trip would be a bonus. . . . . and there were quite a few.