'When it comes to seeing tigers in Bandhavgarh National Park in India, there is no substitute for seeing them from the back of an elephant - the ultimate four wheel drive, but this involves a number of, what can be fairly shambolic, stages. The first is the location of the tigers. This task is done by the mahout at dawn - but only after he has located and captured the elephants, which wander freely at night. The mahout on his elephant then follows the tigers until they lie down to rest. A radio call then directs your jeep to a suitable place, on the nearest available track. When you arrive at the designated place, an elephant materializes magically out of the forest, and you mount your shifting steed from the bonnet of the vehicle, occasionally using a ladder if one is available. Sometimes, when you get to wherever the tigers were last seen, they have already moved on, or they immediately start moving, and it’s then that the fun starts. What follows is a roller coaster ride, on which you are whipped and scraped mercilessly by tree branches and bushes, as the elephant pushes its way through the forest. The tigers are used to these elephants and sometimes play games with them, stealthily stalking up from behind the elephant, eyes seemingly locked on one of the passengers. “Don’t worry! It only wants to play with the elephants tail,” declared our mahout, when a startled Clarissa drew his attention to the sudden appearance of a tiger behind us, one that appeared ready to pounce up at us. On another occasion, a tiger took exception to the elephant approaching too close for its comfort, and with a deafening roar, lunged right at us from a distance of only a few feet. The problem with tigers is that, when they are on the move, they provide only fleeting glimpses of what they are doing, while the elephant struggles to keep up - but those glimpses are invariably rewarding. This painting was based on one such lucky glimpse, as two tigers froze in mid-stride, when the alarm calls of a nearby barking deer spooked the wild boar they had been stalking. A few seconds later the tigers had disappeared up a gully which the elephant could not negotiate, and so, with much reluctance, we headed back to the distant track, where our jeep was waiting for us.'

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