Tigers burning bright

As India celebrates 50 years of its Project Tiger conservation scheme, we visit the reserves of Madhya Pradesh to see how its success has impacted a tiger population that once looked in danger of disappearing 

- James Draven

A sambar deer sniffed the air in Madhya Pradesh's Pench National Park. In unison, the surrounding members of its herd, each the colour of rusting iron, stopped grazing from the wind-rippled grasslands. Heads lifted, glistening nostrils flared and all eyes scrutinised the tree line. A languorous grey langur monkey - drunk on fermented mahua fruit and dozing on a fallen branch - opened one eye.

You can often see langurs and sambar together. They have a symbiotic relationship because sambar can detect a predator's scent on the breeze from over a kilometre away; in return, the langurs are sharp-sighted when up in the treetops, and messy eaters too, sloppily dropping half-eaten fruit to the sambar below. Neither makes a conscious effort to help the other, but they are inextricably linked by an ecosystem.

Then the alarm call sounded. An unseen jungle babbler bird, invisible above a thick canopy of leaves, emitted the first signal. Through the bush telegraph the call was taken up by scores of other birds until the hitherto silent forest became a riot of panic and white noise. The sambar deer scattered, and then the langurs - all suddenly sober - zipped improbably up the smooth trunks of teak trees, some with their babies clutched to their chests.

Birds took flight, their maelstrom of beating wings a hailstorm of television interference against the sky. The jungle roared like radio static. Everything was in sudden motion but us; our driver slammed his brake pedal to the floor and our emerald-green Maruti-Suzuki Gypsy 4WD-ubiquitous and identical in India's wildlife reserves-ground to a standstill on the mud-baked track.