Chasing tiger dreams

Nitin, Neeraj, Shiv and I used to run off to Sariska whenever we could. To not incur costs we would live in the dorm which was furnace like hot, with no water in the loo, once even pitched a tent in the Tiger Den garden only to be driven out by mosquitoes, ate only daal and chapatis and once even fought with the waiter over the number of chapatis that we had eaten just to save precious few bucks.
Young naturalists chasing a dream of catching a glimpse of the elusive tiger. Led by Pratap Singh (the drunken old forest guide) and the Jeep driver (who was most happy with the bakshish of a bottle of Rum) we spent quite a few hours in the Sariska forest. The closest we came to a sighting was coming across a pugmark left by a tiger a few hours before, once a carcass of a Sambar left behind by a tiger and a few false alarms.
We often heard stories of Tiger poaching and speculated that there were no tigers in Sariska. But we kept on coming back. The first time we went there was when we were in Class IX and the last time was when all of us had started working. Sariska would always come up in all our conversations which have become fewer as years and distances have increased. We would recount our Sariska adventures and talk about going back one day.
And now it’s official. There are no tigers in Sariska. A few forest officers fired over incorrect tiger census reports.
I feel disappointed and cheated. The dream has come to an end.