This learning is from an unusual source. It is a from a beast…….a beautiful beast.

My passion for wildlife photography, especially the tigers, takes me to several jungles of India. This time it was to a jungle named Tadoba in Central India.

On one of the safaris in an open Jeep, we spotted a tiger right in front of us on the narrow road walking straight towards us. It was a moment of joy for me as I got some very good pictures of it.

The driver backed the Jeep as the tiger kept walking towards us. This sequence of events went on for 10 minutes, until  we reached a situation where we could not back up anymore due to the pile up of other vehicles behind us.

I was unaware of the traffic pile up behind me & was clicking away to glory, when suddenly I found that in the view finder of my camera that only the tiger’s face was visible. Thinking that my zoom lens needed adjustment I looked away from my view finder to see the tiger face to face.

It was just touching distance away from me. I could hear it breathe as well my heart beat which was beating at the rate of knots.

The  eye to eye contact was for a few seconds but left a life lasting memory. Seeing the road being completely blocked, the tiger went away inside the bushes, off the road and vanished.

If the tiger wanted it could have taken all the 5 people in the open jeep but it did not.

Was it not hungry?

Was it afraid of an object ( Jeep) bigger than itself?

Or was it just demonstrating that discretion is the better part of valour?

One would never know, but it has been several weeks since this incident, I feel that  the tiger was exercising its discretion. I had heard and read about discretion, but experienced it for the first time.

This incident is more a Lesson in Life rather than Management.