If there&rsquos one creature you&rsquore guaranteed to spot at a tiger reserve today, it&rsquos the battle-hardened, testosterone-fuelled, amateur wildlife shutterbug. You&rsquore most likely to come across his ilk in a place like Ranthambore where you can safely rely on camera-toting zealots to render your tiger-search futile by aggressively hijacking every inch of the animal&rsquos proximate surroundings, thus keeping the beast out of sight.
In such circumstances, I inevitably swallow the bitter pill of resignation, for no amount of cajolery and vitriol helps in bargaining for a slice of territory that&rsquos already seized. The best way to redeem a lost cause like this is by tapping into the power of social media, where these same &lsquophotographers&rsquo gather to glorify their shots and harp on about their roles as self-appointed guardians of the wild. Your news feed is bound to throw up inanely captioned images of the splendorous beast, and you&rsquoll finally know how the creature blocked out of your view looked like.
In Panna National Park, I was thoroughly bemused to spot a similar group of enthusiasts, wielding weighty lenses, huddled up at the entrance to a dry watercourse. Their motives, puzzling at first, smacked of outright lunacy when it was all made clear by another guide&mdashthey were expecting the tiger to saunter out of the desiccated watercourse. Photographing a predator by obstructing its preferred route must have been a new addition to the wildlife manual
It&rsquos not only their antics but also their dress sense that I find baffling. While brightly coloured attire might constitute a forest faux pas, going overboard by cladding yourself in a camouflage kit from head to toe doesn&rsquot leave you any less conspicuous, especially when you&rsquore hurtling along a dust-track in a rickety, fuel-guzzling gypsy.
However, in the best interests of my sanity I&rsquove figured that the choice way of giving the maniacal hordes a slip is by making bogus claims about the tiger&rsquos location and then watching them speed off on a wild goose chase.