Confessions of a Safariholic: Lessons from Central India's Tiger Habitats by Dr. Milind Desai

 

🐾 I went looking for tigers. I ended up finding the forest.

There’s something wonderfully deceptive about Confessions of a Safariholic. You pick it up expecting tiger stories, thrilling sightings and perhaps a few spectacular encounters. Instead, Dr. Milind Desai quietly pulls you deeper into the world around the tiger and that is where this book truly comes alive. 🌿

What I particularly enjoyed was how the author notices the little things most of us would probably miss.

Take the recurring “Bhai, lens kaunsa hai?” question. It sounds amusingly familiar but it becomes a surprisingly sharp observation about how safari photography can sometimes become more important than actually experiencing the forest. 📷

Then there are the alarm calls—the sambar, the langurs, the subtle changes in the forest. The book makes you realise that a tiger sighting doesn't begin when you finally see stripes. It begins much earlier, if you know how to listen. And sometimes, the most memorable safari is the one where the tiger never shows up.

I also loved the wonderfully specific world of breakfast points. A simple breakfast becomes part of the safari rhythm—drivers, guides, tourists, conversations, routines and those little unwritten rules that regular safari-goers understand. ☕🌳

And perhaps my favourite part is the author's honesty about the lens itself—how expensive equipment doesn't automatically make someone a better wildlife photographer. It's observations like these that make the book feel lived-in rather than researched.

This is not just a book about wildlife. It is about patience, people, photography, forests, obsession and learning to notice.

By the last few pages, I wasn't simply thinking, “I want to see a tiger.”

I was thinking, “I want to go on safari like this.” 🐅✨