Journey 03 · India
The Tiger I Did Not See
Six days in the Sundarbans
Published 30 Jan 2026 · Travelled 8–13 Jan 2026
- 8 moments
- 6 days
- 134 km
- Winter
- India
- 70mm · f/2.8 · 1/125 · ISO 3200
- 22.5560° N, 88.3300° E
- The Hooghly, Kolkata
- 17:40
- 21°C, haze, cool
The Hooghly at Kolkata at dusk, with the bridge lit and a country boat taking twenty people across because it is quicker than the road. Everything downstream from here is the same water. I have photographed this river a hundred times from the bank and never once thought about where it was going.
- 70mm · f/8 · 1/500 · ISO 400
- 22.1050° N, 88.7900° E
- The channel below Godkhali
- 09:20
- 18°C, flat calm, haze
From Godkhali the boat goes south and the channels get narrower and the villages stop. There is nothing to photograph and you photograph it constantly. The green boat is Nemai's and the coil of rope on the bow was the only thing in focus for about forty minutes because I could not find anything else to focus on.
- 200mm · f/4 · 1/250 · ISO 1600
- 22.0400° N, 88.8400° E
- Pirkhali creek
- 07:15
- 15°C, mist on the water
At low tide the whole floor of the forest is exposed and it is not soil, it is a field of pneumatophores — thousands of pencil-thin roots standing straight up out of the mud so the trees can get air. In the morning haze it looks like something burnt. Nothing about this place is designed for a long lens and I used one anyway to compress it flat.
- 200mm · f/2.8 · 1/640 · ISO 2000
- 21.9950° N, 88.8100° E
- 200mm · f/2.8 · 1/640 · ISO 2000
- 21.9950° N, 88.8100° E
- Sudhanyakhali
- 08:05
- 17°C, haze lifting
Chital come down to the mud at low tide to eat fallen leaves and they are the only large animal you will reliably see. They also stand completely still for a very long time and look directly at the boat, which is either curiosity or the calculation of an animal that is somebody's dinner. The stag came out of the treeline on the second morning and stayed put for six minutes.
- 200mm · f/2.8 · 1/1000 · ISO 800
- 22.1147° N, 88.8036° E
- Sajnekhali
- 10:35
- 22°C, bright, still
Kingfishers here are not shy and there are several kinds, and they sit on the exposed root tangle at the water's edge waiting for the tide to bring something. This one held the same branch for eleven minutes while the boat drifted past it twice. Everything else in the Sundarbans hides; this bird apparently did not get the memo.
06 · What it actually takes to be here
- 85mm · f/4 · 1/500 · ISO 640
- 21.8800° N, 88.7600° E
- Netidhopani channel
- 14:10
- 24°C, overcast, flat
Nemai has worked this water since he was twenty-two and has seen four, all of them swimming, all of them for under a minute. He was completely unbothered that we saw none, and when I said something apologetic about it he said the ones you do not see are also there, which I have thought about a great deal since.
- Dobanki, and the channel north
- 08:40
- 19°C, still, hazy
- Last frame
Fifth morning, a bank at Dobanki, fresh enough that the edges had not slumped — Nemai put his own hand next to it without touching it and said nothing at all for a while. That is the closest I got. We turned north on the last afternoon into completely flat water with one other boat on it, and that is the frame the whole trip was actually about.
- 135mm · f/5.6 · 1/500 · ISO 800
- 21.9700° N, 88.7800° E
The route
8 stops
Journey completed
Six days, eight stories
- Distance walked
- 9 km
- Frames exposed
- 2600
- Tigers seen
- 0
- Pugmarks found
- 3
- Hours on the water
- 41
- Favourite moment
- Nemai cutting the engine in a side creek and the sound the mangrove makes when you let it
- Best food
- Bhetki cooked on the boat's stove while we were tied up waiting for the tide, eaten with rice off a steel plate
