Nonetheless, we have a prime spot. The tiger is a nearly two-year-old cub, which is interesting because he is as full grown as any tiger I have ever seen in a zoo. He's about 15 feet away and completely oblivious to the gaping mouths and clicking shutters all around him. As he rounds a tree, he haunches up and begins to slowly creep - gracefully, gorgeously - toward some unforeseen victim. He's stalking.

Suddenly, he springs forward for a chital, though it turns out he is merely toying with it, as his hunting skills are not yet honed. The whole thing leaves us all quite jazzed. "Your first tiger in the wild?" asks Kartikeya. "Oh yes!" we say in unison. "Congratulations," he says. We would see two more by the next day (one from the vantage point of the back of a four-ton elephant), along with something called a sambar, whose clever name simply means "animal" in Hindi. I'll raise the ante here on specificity and say it looks a lot like a moose.

If You Go For information on Taj and CC Africa's jungle safaris in India, visit www.tajsafaris .com or call (866) 969-1825. If you're interested in helping to save a tiger, check out Project Tiger (www.projecttiger.nic.in), an Indian government initiative launched in 1973 and championed by former prime minister Indira Ghandi. American Airlines offers daily round-trip service between Chicago and Delhi. From Delhi, AAdvantage partner Air Sahara (www.airsahara.net) offers one daily round-trip flight to Nagpur and one daily round-trip flight to Khajuraho. Air Deccan (www