Tiger-Spotting at Corbett Park by Philip Sen

There is a reverence involved in the art of spotting a tiger in the wild; a reverence, should I say, mixed with a little fear. I'm tracking one now, a large male by the looks of it. You can tell this by the breadth and shape of its footprints; even to my untrained eye the trail is clearly visible in the soft sand by the riverbed. Our guide speaks to us in hushed tones. The anticipation is palpable. We are within sniffing distance for sure.

But all of a sudden the tracks veer off into the undergrowth where the jeep cannot follow. No sightings today, it seems. There's still time yet, though: it’s just seven am and with the veil of mist lifting from the forest around us its inhabitants are slowly beginning to stir.

This is tiger country. India’s recently-formed Uttaranchal province borders Nepal to its east and Tibet to the north, and the place I’m in, Corbett Park is legendary. The reason for this fame is down to one man, his guns and most importantly, his notebook.

In 1944, Jim Corbett published his first volume of jungle stories, Maneaters of Kumaon, a collection of real-life adventures charting his exploits in these parts exterminating rogue tigers. Little known these days outside India, the great white hunter enjoys a mystical reputation here and his books are still in print sixty years on.

Yet despite this ferocious aura, Corbett was a surprisingly modern figure. Something of an evangelist, he pioneered the ideas of conservation at a time when shooting wildlife with a camera rather than a rifle was thought of as quite preposterous.

Corbett was in fact a rare embodiment of the positive side of colonialism. Born and raised in India, he spoke Hindi and several local dialects like a native. He knew the people and environment of the Kumaon region with an intimacy that few could equal. One has only to dip inside his works to confirm his affection for his adopted country; take for example the preface to My India, “humbly dedicated to my friends, the poor of India”