As my brothers and I headed towards Corbett — the road fringed on both sides with scrubby forest — the air, like a fine wine, just got better and better, until we arrived at our camp, and tumbled from the jeep, giggly and intoxicated. After the unrelenting beige flatness of the plains, the gently billowing curves of the land are as refreshing for the eyes as cucumber pads, and the heavens feel — as indeed they are — that much closer.

We tramped through the darkness, guided by the bobbing miner’s lamps on our guides’ headbands towards Camp Forktail Creek — set a short walk through the forest away from the road. The moon’s sliver crescent slowly dissolved high above us, and the birds started their dawn chorus as we cradled our hot tea mugs in our hands, and inhaled.

After a delicious breakfast, we were handed stout walking sticks and set out with our wonderful guide, Conan, into the forest. One of the little-known delights of Corbett is not the park itself, where only two modes of transport are allowed — four-wheeled (jeep) or four-legged (elephant) — but the surrounding area where two-legged creatures can walk, unencumbered. The ‘buffer zone’, to give it its official title, sounds like the rural version of a parking lot: the grey, uninteresting stuff that surrounds the Main Attraction. This is very far from the truth, and many people, eager to hit the hot spot of the park itself miss the many and varied pleasures of the surrounding area, for nature knows no boundaries and the birds, animals and plants of Corbett criss-cross with ease the hard human edges that separate the National Park from the rest. And here, like I say, you can walk.

Dotted with villages, and patterned with paths made by feet, hoof and paw, there’s something magical about walking in the forest… feeling the crunch of twigs beneath your shoes, the scent of wild mint and curry leaves, suddenly noticing that the trees are loosely linked by skeins of spider’s silk, gilded silver by the early sunlight. The forest canopy arches overhead and one instinctively talks in a whisper as you would entering a cathedral. And there is no better way of birdwatching, especially if you have an expert guide with you, as we did, who can spot a tree-creeper hunting out ants on the bark of a tree, or home in on the distant ‘toc-toc-toc’ of a woodpecker at work, or make out the intricate tear-shaped nest of a weaverbird hung like a bauble on a Christmas tree. A sudden flurry of red-breasted minivets set the tree asparkle just to complete the festivities.

The forest can be read, like a book, for those who know the signs. We stopped by a fallen tree, its trunk listing at 45 degrees up into the air. The soft corky bark was deeply etched with scratch-marks, evidence of a tiger doing what all cats do: only usually on the table legs at home. "Too high up for a leopard," points out our guide, and we marvel at the mental image of the sheer size of the cat that could reach up — well above our heads — to sharpen its deadly claws.

Pugmarks, of course, are the classic tell-tale signs of tiger activity. But there are also signs of wild boar, where the undergrowth and soft ground has been churned up by their snuffling snouts, as well as deer-droppings and hoof-prints where cheetal, sambar and tiny muntjac or barking deer have left their mark.

As we city illiterates strove to decipher the jungle book, I was reminded of the man who made this part of the country his own, who inspired the creation of a National Park here, and after whom it was named: Jim Corbett. There are many who can ‘read’ the forest — after all, interpreting its signs and wonders is a matter of life, livelihood, and even death, for those who live in and around it — but there are few who can write about it with such elegance, such ease and tell such gripping tales. Corbett’s stories are most often about the tracking and killing of dangerous man-eaters — both leopards and tigers — but to read them is to begin to understand an entire ecosystem. They are a lesson in the mores of its inhabitants, an initiation into the subtle ever-changing interlinkage of man and beast which we, in this modern, urban age, all too often forget.

But reading the forest, unlike reading a book, requires all the senses. Our guide suddenly dropped to his knees and picked up a handful of earth. Rubbing it in his palm he then lifted it to his nose, like a connoisseur checking the fragrance of the first crop of Darjeeling. "Basmati," he pronounced, smiling broadly. And we take turns smelling the tiger-sprayed earth. It does, indeed, smell of freshly cooked rice.

A throaty bark sounded from somewhere deep inside the forest. Then another. "Sambar — alarm," whispered Conan, "Definitely a tiger about. Cheetal alarm when a twig snaps — real wimps — but a sambar’s big. They’ll usually only alarm when it’s serious. Come on."

My brothers and I exchanged glances, and gripped our walking sticks a bit tighter. They seemed so sturdy when we first set out, but here, in tiger country, with nothing between us and one of the world’s great predators, they suddenly seem to have shrunk to matchsticks.

We followed the receding call as far as we could until it faded, faltered, and finally stopped. We didn’t see the tiger that morning — and torn between disappointment and relief, headed back to the camp. Later that day, my brothers headed off with our hosts for a short jeep ride. Promise me you won’t see a tiger, I pleaded. "No chance," they reassured me. "We’re going up to the hill, and tigers never show up there, and anyway it’s afternoon, so no chance." Of course, they not only saw a magnificent tigress from the road, they even tracked her for a while down a dry riverbed. Sometimes the law of the jungle bears a striking similarity to Sod’s Law: it’ll thwart all your expectations, deliver your zip when you’re most prepared and then conjure up a small miracle when you’re least expecting it.

The next day we ventured into the park itself: the morning spent roaming around in an open-top jeep, and the afternoon swaying along atop a 40-year-old elephant called Asha. No more tigers that day, but a herd of elephants seen at close quarters, being watched warily by a handsome sambar, and spotting a bewildering variety of birds was more than enough to satiate our appetite for the wild.

A flash of electric blue signalled a kingfisher diving for its lunch on the far side of the river. Pied wagtails bobbed hopefully from rock to rock, scanning the water’s edge for tasty tidbits. As the early bats winged their way out for the evening, somewhere, undisturbed, away from human intrusion, Corbett’s beloved tigers would be licking their chops after the day’s kill and settling down to sleep. Knowing they are there — those last few precious, wild and wonderful creatures — made our small lives richer, more meaningful, more unimaginably strange just as knowing that they may not be, for many years more, diminishes us all.

About Corbett NP
Nestling in the foothills of the mighty Himalaya, Corbett Tiger Reserve lies mainly in the hilly districts of Nainital, Almora and Pauri Garhwal. At present the Tiger Reserve covers an area of 1318.54 sq km and includes within it the Corbett National Park (520.82 sq km), Sonanadi Wildlife Sanctuary (301.18 sq km) and Kalagarh Reserve Forest (496.54 sq km). During the 19th century, much of the indigenous sal forests in this area were cleared and teak planted to provide timber for the burgeoning railway system in India.

This rich hunting ground was first protected by Major Ramsey who, in 1858, banned farming and cattle grazing in the lower Patlidun Valley, which today forms a large portion of the Corbett Tiger Reserve. This protection was extended and strengthened in 1879 when the Forest Department declared it a Reserve Forest. Several attempts were made during the early 20th century to make this into a Game Sanctuary, which finally happened in 1936 when Governor Malcolm Hailey created India’s first (and the world’s third) National Park.

Hailey National Park, as it was then known, covered 325 sq km, and Major James E Corbett was one of the key consultants in deciding its boundaries. His key role in both creating the park and contributing to the preservation of its unique wildlife was formalised when the park was renamed in his honour in 1957, two years after his death.

In 1973, Corbett was the first sanctuary to come under Project Tiger. The terrain is hilly, ranging from 600-1,100m above sea level, consisting of mixed deciduous forests of sal and sheesham trees and the ubiquitous lantana bush, and open, grassy pastures known as chaurs. The chaurs make up around one-tenth of the core area and make ideal grazing land for the park’s large population of wild elephants. The park is home to around 580 bird species, 50 mammals and at least 25 reptile species, including the Indian python, cobra and krait.