I had no idea how noisy I would be in the forest, even when I walked as quietly as possible. The noise would scare off wildlife. But the leaf litter, piled high on the ground, went scrunch-scrunch as I walked, and when I stepped on a twig, its c-r-a-a-c-k seemed to resound in the hushed forest. I was walking off the beaten track at the Shergarh Tented Camp, in the buffer zone of the Kanha National Park and Tiger Reserve, Madhya Pradesh. Thanks to my sister Sarayu Kamat, we went off the grid last Diwali.

Tiger-watching is not for namby-pambies. We were up at 4.45 AM (eeks!), to reach the park gates by 6.15 AM. At 12 degrees C, it was cold enough to see our breath condense. Our excellent naturalist-guides, Rajan Gurung and Son Singh Ayam, pointed out barasingha (which adorns its antlers with grass to entice girlfriends), chital, hornbills, hoopoes, Alexandrine parakeets, and a pack of jackals feasting on a chital they had killed. Gurung said Kanha was among India's finest tiger success stories: it had 110 tigers and about 25,000 deer.