I’m not taking Rohit, that's for sure. I have had enough bad luck spotting a tiger and I don’t need another unlucky charm. Over the years – 25 years – I’ve done stories in wildlife parks all over the country. I’ve walked behind a lion and lioness in the middle of the night, until the big cats got pissed off with our photographer using the flash and roared at us – those were the days you could do such things. I’ve woken up to a pack of wild dogs chasing prey. I’ve had wild elephants cross in front of our car. Had a leopard stalk our own 4x4. Got the fright of my life when a bison snorted through the bushes an inch away from my window. I’ve had adventures aplenty but never seen a tiger. Not once. Secretly I’m happy Aatish and Lenny have been unlucky because now I can legitimately disappear for a few days in search of the tiger.

I retrace Lenny’s route over the excellent Samruddhi Mahamarg (boring, but excellent – this is the most stress-free 590km you will do anywhere in India), then bypass Nagpur and a further 250km to Kanha in Chhattisgarh. Google Maps will show you two routes, I suggest you take the longer one that passes the gates of Pench – immediately after the dual carriageway snakes and winds its way through forests and then you turn off onto a state highway which then narrows down into a single-car -width road that’s spectacularly beautiful. It’s a road trip that is highly recommended.

At Kanha we stay at the Taj Banjaar Tola near the Mukki gate – one of the finest wildlife resorts in the world. Nestled by the banks of the Banjaar river, our room overlooks the river and on the other side of the bank is the core area of the sanctuary. The food, particularly the local cuisine is fabulous, the rooms lavish and best of all is the ever attentive staff.

Shikhar Mohan is our naturalist who takes us on our first safari – a lawyer by training he quit after six months in the Supreme court and came down to Kanha to indulge in his passion for wildlife. It’s been five years and he has no intention of ever going back, except to use his bazooka of a lens at the BIC on track days during the off-season. A proper enthusiast then and it makes all the difference. Kanha is an evergreen forest with majestic Sal trees and the views are out of a fairytale, I can’t help but think how spectacular the Exter would look in such a setting, how great it would be to drive over the trails, but only registered park vehicles are allowed inside.

Kanha is home to the Barasingha, this is its only home in India, and that’s the first spot we make, the deer grazing by the banks of a small lake. Shikhar points out birds, Sambhar, herds of spotted deer, and then I notice a barking deer in the bushes not even

10 metres from our vehicle. So far so good. And then he hears warning calls. Other naturalists have also heard the call and a whole bunch of vehicles head towards it and there she is in all her glory. A tigress with her two cubs! Shikhar tells us that the tigress, named DJ after where she was first spotted, is the reigning queen of Kanha, and she looks majestic lazing about on the grasslands. Her cubs seem to be oblivious of our presence, playing with each other, at times harassing her, and they are in no hurry to go anywhere. I don’t have a 500mm lens with me, don’t even have a camera – didn’t want to jinx it – but the tigers aren’t that far away and my iPhone does a decent job of bagging pictures and reels.

We spend half an hour here, gawking at these beautiful creatures and then Shikhar takes us to the other side of the forest to see if we can spot another tiger but that’s it for tigers on our first safari. The next afternoon we head back into the forest and this time we spot DJ walking on the jeep track. We actually drive behind the tigress, so close that we can smell her! Today DJ is busy. She’s on the prowl, stalking her prey, and her cubs aren’t close. Shikhar tells us that a tiger makes a kill only once in nine or ten tries; a hunt takes a lot of effort and most often the older tigers pass away as they’re unable to hunt. It’s the way of the jungle and the park officials do not intervene with the ecosystem. Fifteen minutes later DJ smells something and dives into the forest, going about her business, and my iPhone is again stuffed with evidence of my second tiger spotting. As soon as we get into network Rohit’s WhatsApp will be flooded – he isn’t going to hear the end of it! – but for now we relax, soak in the beauty of the forest, and marvel at the conservation efforts of Project Tiger that have ensured the majestic animal has not only survived but thrived. India knows how to grow its population very well indeed.

Read the Part 1 of the Hyundai Exter: Great India Drive here!

Tata Safari Storme – Pench Wildlife Sanctuary

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