Chasing the Royal Bengal Tiger: A Dawn Safari at Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve

The Tadoba Tiger reserve region has been a good host. The resort Pug Marks sits next to one of the safari gates. This is the second day, the day reserved for the safari. It lived up to the expectation and added the icing on the college reunion event. I have been around the place as I was born in this region. However it has been sometime since I last came here/

The previous evening had been a beautiful blur — songs, laughter, and old stories. But the morning belonged to the forest.

We were up before the sun. By 5:30 a.m., our safari jeeps were waiting at the resort, engines idling in the dark. Five to a jeep, we clambered in, still half-asleep, as the convoy moved toward the gates of the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve.

Tadoba sits about 150 kilometres from Nagpur, deep in eastern Maharashtra. Spread across 625 square kilometres of deciduous forest — teak, bamboo, open grasslands — it was declared a national park in 1955 and remains one of India’s most reliable places to spot a wild tiger. We were about to find out why.

At the entrance, identity cards are checked, and a bottle of water handed out. Then the jeeps move into the forest.

Tadoba Tiger safari begins

The darkness was just beginning to lift as we rolled in along the brown earthen tracks. After driving in a bit the dense canopy pressed close on either side, with narrow paths vanishing into the undergrowth — rangers’ trails, off-limits to visitors. There is a parallel patch of grass burnt along the road. These are the fire lines or firebreak, used to break a raging forest fire.

The cold was sharp and clean. The silence was the kind you feel in your chest: total and alive, broken only by the dying call of a nightjar finishing its night shift, and the sudden screech of a jungle fowl, nothing like the domestic rooster’s crow — this was almost a screech.

Our guide was a young man from the region,. He spoke in that familiar Vidarbha blend of Marathi and Hindi that belongs entirely to Madhya Bharat — rough at the edges, richly local, and completely sincere. He knew the forest well, and he was already steering the driver toward the tiger’s likely haunts.

As daylight seeped in, the bamboo thickets came into view. They wore a strange ashen colour, and the guide explained why: these older plants were dying, their life cycle complete, making way for the bright yellow-green shoots pushing up from the roots below. There was something quietly moving about it — the old receding, the young surging upward, all of it unhurried and inevitable.

The jeep slowed for a gaur — a Indian bison — standing in the bush, massive and unhurried, its curved horns catching the early light. It regarded us with calm authority, decided we were harmless, and returned to its breakfast. Further along, sambar deer grazed in small groups, and a cluster of spotted chital gathered at a distant waterhole, their coats glowing against the dry earth.

The reserve’s central lake appeared like a revelation in the morning mist. Green and bright Jamun trees ( they are the evergreen type) lined up the lake and behind them stood bare trees, their leafless branches crowded with birds conducting what felt like a noisy meeting. A peacock sat high in the canopy, surveying proceedings from above. The world felt very old here, and very much at peace.

Tiger Sighting at Tadoba

Then — the jeep braked. Ahead, a row of other vehicles sat motionless, their occupants pointing in the same direction.

There he was.

A full-grown male tiger, moving through the dry grass with the unhurried confidence of something that has nothing to fear. The word majestic doesn’t quite cover it. His movement was liquid — each step placed with a softness that seemed impossible for an animal of that size. The orange of his coat burned between the pale stalks of grass.

Interestingly, while this orange seems bright to us, it’s a death sentence for a deer. I wrote a deep dive on why tigers aren’t green that explains the science of this ‘invisible’ predator.”

We watched, until he disappeared into the trees.

On the way back to the gates, we thought we had seen everything worth seeing. We were wrong.

A second tiger. This one was in a shallow pool, submerged up to its shoulders. As if sensing the occasion, it waded out just as our jeep pulled up — its full form emerging from the water, deliberate and unhurried. It shook itself, walked to a nearby tree, rose up on its hind legs, and dragged its claws down the bark in long, slow strokes. A predator marking its territory. A reminder that we were guests here.

And the to add to all this great view, we had another sighting, this time a tigress emerging from the bushes a few feet away from us. It walked past us, about a few feet away from the jeep, oblivious of us and turned back into bushes to disappear out of sight. One could not have asked for more. Three sightings , something for a lifetime of memories.

The guide pointed out several other curiosities along the route — including a pale, ghostly tree the locals call the Ghost Tree, a story for another time.( read here : The Ghost Tree)

A morning in a forest like this does something to you. The cold, the quiet, the unhurried rhythms of life and death playing out without any need for an audience — it recalibrates something inside you.

We have taken so much of this world for ourselves. What remains of the wild deserves every effort to survive and thrive. Let us do more for it.

For me this trip has been about the three things that probably matter at this age. Friends, a yearning to be in the silence of nature and of course some history and temples.(Ancient 10th-century temples of Vidarbha.)

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Sudhir Bhattathiripad

Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve is Maharashtra’s oldest and largest national park, world-renowned for its high density of Royal Bengal Tigers. This guide provides the essential details for planning your wildlife adventure.

How to Reach

• By Air: Nagpur’s Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport (approx. 140 km) is the nearest major gateway, well-connected to Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore.
• By Rail: Chandrapur (approx. 45 km) is the closest railway station. Nagpur station is another major hub (approx. 3 hours away) with better national connectivity.
• By Road: The park is easily accessible via the Nagpur-Hyderabad NH 44. Private taxis and state transport buses run regularly from Nagpur and Chandrapur.
• Major Core Gates:
  • Tadoba Moharli Gate (Core Zone)
  • Kolara Gate: Located about 100 km from Nagpur, this is a key entry point for the northern part of the park.
  • Navegaon Gate: A quieter entry point preferred by birdwatchers and those seeking a peaceful experience.
• Safari Timings:
  • Morning: 6:00 AM – 10:00 AM
  • Afternoon: 2:30 PM – 6:30 PM
• Note: Timings shift slightly with the seasons (Winter/Summer). The park is closed to visitors during the monsoon (July to September).

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The Vidarbha Series:

1. The 10th Century ‘Headless’ Temple of Bhatala
2. The Science of the Invisible Predator: Why Tigers Aren’t Green
3. Three Tigers in One Morning: My Tadoba Safari Experience
4. The Ghost Tree of Tadoba: Nature’s Shimmering Mystery