Rajaji

Rajaji National Park, Uttarakhand · 13 and 14 March 2026

Rajaji sits where the Himalayan foothills meet the plains — sal forest, dry riverbeds full of stones, and far fewer jeeps than the famous tiger parks. I went for two days in March without expecting much.

On the first afternoon, at 2:22, a leopard was lying along a branch above the track. It looked at us, rearranged itself and stayed. The rest of the two days belonged to birds: black storks on the river stones, a crested serpent eagle that sat for its portrait, a peacock in a tree, and a red junglefowl — the wild ancestor of every chicken — scratching in the leaves.