Behind the Picture: Reckoning

I had two days in Ranthambore. Three game drives. That was it.

Tigers are elusive in a way most African wildlife isn't. You can spend weeks in a tiger reserve and never see one. So when I landed in India this February with two days on the ground at Ranthambore, I knew the math wasn't on my side.

Ranthambore runs a lottery for which zone of the park you get assigned each drive, and the boundaries are strict. Your fate is essentially decided before you climb into the jeep. To make it harder, the guides aren't allowed to use radios. They rely on alarm calls from birds and monkeys, footprints in the dirt; the old methods.

In a way that makes the hunt all the more exciting.

The first drive came and went. Nothing. I tried to settle into what we did see, which was genuinely beautiful. We sat by a lake for a while watching water birds. A whole herd of spotted deer came down to drink. Peaceful. But hearing the others come back talking about the sightings their zones had gotten, it was hard not to feel like I'd already lost.

The afternoon drive started slowly, the way afternoon drives usually do. The heat keeps everything quiet until things start to cool down. But then, not even thirty minutes in, we heard it.

Alarm calls. Off to the races.

And then, there he was. Walking down the road. Threading lazily through the jockeying jeeps like he didn't notice them.

We stayed with him for about half an hour as he moved along his territory.

The real story of this picture, though, isn't the tiger. It's my driver.

Ranthambore doesn't allow off-roading, and when an animal is on the move with twenty jeeps vying for a clear angle, positioning becomes its own art form. He and my guide cut us through it, again and again, to put me where I needed to be.

At one point, I was leaning out the back of the jeep with my camera. I looked up for a second and realized the tiger was walking right at me. Close.

If I had lost my footing or shifted wrong, he would have been right there. I didn't have time to think about it; I just kept shooting.

But when he stepped into this shaft of light through the jungle trees, I knew that was the frame.

When he finally disappeared around a corner, and the excitement broke, I felt the tears well up. It was a moment I had dreamed of, and it turned out to be as beautiful as I had wished for.

I've never been able to explain why big cats hit me the way they do. Something about the independence, the way they move, the intelligence in how they hold their own space. Tigers especially. He was the most beautiful animal I have ever seen.

More soon,
Christina

Reckoning is available as a fine art print.