"Right now, what you see is a glorious Corbett. We have never seen anything like it. (Tiger) sightings are becoming more common," Bhartari said in an interview at the Dhikala forest lodge.

It is the largest and most frequented of the 12 lodges, operated by the state forest department, inside the 200-square-mile Corbett National Park.

The park is named after Jim Corbett, a British colonial army colonel who was born in 1875 in Nainital, not far from the sanctuary, and lived virtually all his life in India until 1947. An ardent hunter, he gave up killing for sport after witnessing a carnage of water fowl by three army officers, and dedicated his life to preserving wildlife.

The accommodations in Dhikala lodge are basic but comfortable and adequate. Only vegetarian food is available because meat leftovers and their scent attract carnivores.

Still, the lodge, protected by an electrified perimeter fence, can't be beaten for its location in the heart of the park, overlooking the Ramganga River where tigers sometimes come to bathe and drink in summers.

Visitors to Corbett National Park — about 160,000 come every year — usually spend two days at the lodge. Lodge officials arrange elephant and Jeep safaris that set out twice a day — once at dawn and again before dusk when most animals come out to hunt or forage.

Elephant safaris are highly popular and get booked days in advance. We were slow in booking and had to settle for the Jeep.

Our first day proved to be fruitless. Riding in an open Jeep, we crisscrossed the dirt tracks across the dry brown grasslands and stopped at a spot where a tiger was seen a day before.

But patience proved futile and as dusk began to approach we hurried back to the lodge before the curfew. Big mistake.

M.C. Klaarwater, a young Dutch engineer on his second trip to India, lingered and came across a frolicking tiger, leaping over the grass, its black-tipped tail up in the air. He even had pictures to prove it.

That evening, M.C. proved to be the most popular man at the lodge with all residents lining up to see the pictures on his digital camera.

With renewed vigor, despite near freezing temperatures, we set out at dawn the next day to the same spot and parked ourselves. The stillness of dawn was soon broken by jungle sounds.

To us they were just sounds. To our guide, the language was jungle telegraph: a Sambhar deer was alerting its herd, and another species, a barking deer, had issued its warning as well.