Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh is one of India’s premier tiger reserves, which means it’s a place where tourists pay significant money for the privilege of maybe seeing a tiger, probably not seeing a tiger, and definitely seeing a lot of trees while someone insists the tiger was “just here a moment ago.”

The economics of tiger tourism are straightforward: tigers are endangered, their habitat is protected, and people will pay hundreds of dollars for a jeep safari into that habitat on the chance of seeing one of approximately 100 tigers spread across 940 square kilometers of forest. The math suggests you might see a tiger. The reality suggests you might see evidence that tigers exist in theory.

I paid for three safaris over two days. This is the recommended strategy – multiple attempts increase probability, like buying extra lottery tickets. The guides position this as persistence and proper wildlife viewing. It’s actually just admitting that the odds on any single safari are terrible and your only hope is repeated gambling.

Safari one: We saw deer. Many deer. Spotted deer, barking deer, deer that stared at our jeep with the resigned expression of animals who’ve seen tourists before. We saw langur monkeys. We saw birds that the guide could name in both Hindi and Latin but I couldn’t photograph because they moved faster than my camera could focus.

We did not see a tiger.

The guide assured us that we’d heard tiger calls in the distance. These sounded identical to every other forest sound to my untrained ears, but the guide was confident. Tigers were near. Tigers were present. Tigers simply chose not to present themselves for our viewing pleasure.

This is the central tragedy of wildlife tourism: the animals have not agreed to the transaction. You’ve paid money, taken time, traveled to a remote location, and woken at 5 AM to ride in an open jeep into the forest. You’ve fulfilled your part of the deal. The tiger has no such obligation.

Safari two: We found tiger tracks. Fresh ones, according to the guide. Made within the last hour, maybe less. This meant a tiger had walked across the road we were driving on, recently, and then disappeared into forest too thick to follow.

The group debated whether to wait. Maybe the tiger would return? Maybe it was nearby? The guide explained that tigers have ranges of 20-30 square kilometers and don’t return to locations on tourist-convenient timelines. We could wait. We’d probably see nothing. Or we could continue the safari and see more trees.

We saw more trees. And more deer. And a wild boar that had the decency to pose for photos.

We did not see a tiger.

This is when the philosophy sets in. What exactly am I seeking here? I want to see a tiger – a wild tiger, in its natural habitat, doing tiger things. This is different from seeing a tiger in a zoo, which is depressing, or seeing a tiger photo on the internet, which is empty. I want the experience of encountering a tiger in the wild.

But what is that experience? Spotting it from a distance of 100 meters while sitting in a jeep full of other tourists, all of us with cameras, all of us documenting the moment rather than experiencing it? The tiger, if we saw one, wouldn’t be doing tiger things. It would be tolerating human presence briefly before leaving. We’d get three minutes, maximum, before the forest department ranger required us to move on so other jeeps could have their three minutes.

I’m seeking an experience that’s been mediated into meaninglessness by the infrastructure required to make it happen. The only reason I can safely be in this forest is that I’m in a jeep on a road with a trained guide and forest rangers ensuring tourists don’t get eaten. The wildness I’m seeking has been managed into safety, which makes it not wild.

Safari three: We saw a tiger.

Not for long. Maybe ninety seconds. It walked across the road ahead of us, paused to look at our jeep with what I interpreted as mild annoyance, and then disappeared into bamboo thickets. The entire encounter was over before my brain finished processing that yes, that was definitely a tiger.

Everyone in the jeep erupted in excitement. Cameras clicked desperately. The guide confirmed the tiger’s identity – a young male known to the forest department, one of the regular visitors to this zone. We’d gotten lucky. This is what we’d paid for. This is what we’d woken early for.

And sitting there in the aftermath, I felt… fine? Satisfied that I’d seen a tiger, certainly. But not transformed. Not enlightened. Not significantly different from the version of myself who’d never seen a wild tiger. The experience was meaningful mostly because of how much effort it had required, not because of any intrinsic revelation from the encounter itself.

The tiger didn’t care that I saw it. The tiger was just existing, moving through its territory, going wherever tigers go. The significance existed entirely on my side of the transaction. I’d imposed meaning on a moment that meant nothing to the other participant.

This is the tragedy: we want wildlife encounters to be profound, to connect us with nature, to provide some kind of authentic experience outside the commodified modern world. But we’re seeking these encounters through tourism infrastructure that commodifies the experience itself. The wildness we want has been packaged, priced, and mediated into a product.

Kanha is actually one of the better-managed tiger reserves. The park limits visitor numbers, enforces zone systems to distribute pressure, trains guides extensively, and reinvests tourism revenue into conservation. If you’re going to do tiger tourism, this is how it should be done. But even done well, it’s still tourism, still commodified, still built on the paradox that we want to see animals that we’ve had to make habitat for precisely because human presence has destroyed their original habitat.

The absence of tigers – the high probability you’ll go home without seeing one – is actually the most honest part of the experience. It reminds you that these are wild animals in a functioning ecosystem, not performers in a wildlife theater. The disappointment is the point. You’re supposed to feel the gap between your desires and reality.

What I learned from not seeing tigers (safaris one and two) was more valuable than what I learned from seeing one (safari three). The not-seeing taught me that nature doesn’t owe me spectacle. That the forest exists for itself, not for my experience. That my presence there is a privilege granted by conservation efforts, not a right purchased by my safari fee.

The seeing taught me that getting what you want often feels less significant than the anticipation of getting it. The tiger was beautiful. The encounter was brief. The photos are blurry. The memory is already fading. In six months, I’ll probably misremember details.

But I’ll still tell people I saw a wild tiger in Kanha. Because that’s the transaction we’re all engaged in: converting rare experiences into stories, stories into social currency, and the actual moment into something that matters less than its retelling.

The tiger, meanwhile, continues not caring. Which is, perhaps, the most valuable lesson of all.