Ratna Singh

OT What is a typical day in your life like

Ratna Singh Whether it&rsquos winter or summer, my day starts really early. On an average, naturalists wake up at 3.30am and then it takes about an hour to get ready for the day. Every naturalist is in charge of his/her own vehicle &mdash they drive and are trained to handle huge 4x4s. And while we have mechanics in the lodges to maintain the vehicles, in the forest, the naturalist is solely responsible for the vehicle &mdash so we are also trained mechanics.

In summer, we pick up the guests by 4.45am and then we&rsquore off to the jungle. We return by 10.30/11am, have a longish siesta, and head out again to the jungle by 3pm, to be back by 7pm for cocktails. I change into my khakhis before going behind the bar and mixing drinks &mdash naturalists are also trained in hosting and by mixologists. Then dinner, and we&rsquore in bed by around 11pm.

OT What happens when you&rsquore out in the wild You drive out, and&hellip

Ratna Singh Start looking for tigers To be honest, there is not a single naturalist who, when stepping into the forest, will say, &ldquoI am not looking for a tiger.&rdquo We&rsquore always looking for tigers. While I try to make sure that the guests&rsquo experience in the wild is a well-rounded one, most guests only want to see tigers. Tigers are territorial, so we always go to the known tiger territories. You can pretty much predict that you&rsquoll see a tiger if you&rsquove seen tracks, or there have been alarm calls from a section of the forest. Come summer, most of the smaller water holes dry up. So I head for the bigger water holes because I know that&rsquos where the game will be &mdash especially after sundown. And, unfortunately, we&rsquore not allowed in the park after sundown. So we conduct walks in the lodge&rsquos grounds, which can be around 50&ndash200 acres. Thankfully, animals don&rsquot know a core zone from a buffer zone, so they move around freely and come into the lodge grounds fairly often.

OT How do locals and guests react to you

Ratna Singh In 2006, when I had just started working as a naturalist, people would run out of their homes to look at me. Even the forest staff would gawp. In 2007&ndash8, when elephant safaris were still being conducted, I was helping guests onto the elephant, and people were ignoring the tiger, and taking pictures of me Another time, I was driving back to the lodge and offered a lift to some women who were walking back to one of the villages near the lodge. The whole time the women kept their heads covered, because they thought I was a man &mdash I was wearing a hat and trousers. When I asked them where they wanted me to stop, they heard my voice and were shocked that I was a woman. Now they&rsquore used to me.

OT Tell us about the gender dynamic in your industry.

Ratna Singh &nbspAt first, people some people were patronising. They didn&rsquot think I had it in me to stick around. However, jungles and rural areas are where I&rsquom most comfortable. So this was home ground for me &mdash that comfort helped me keep focus. Besides, I wasn&rsquot doing anything to prove a point. I was there because I loved being there.

It took a while to be treated like a professional at par with the men. There was this guide who had no faith in my driving, and Bandhavgarh has some tricky terrain. The whole time that we were going over a particularly treacherous track &mdash he had one leg dangling outside the door I actually struggled with my emotions, not knowing whether to laugh or be annoyed. But in a couple of years or so, I was one of the guys. In any case most people call me &lsquosir&rsquo, because rural folk haven&rsquot really seen a woman in a position of power. I&rsquom not really complaining.

OT You spend most of your time out in the wild does it affect your family life

Ratna Singh &nbspFortunately, both my husband and I are avid wildlife lovers. We work in the jungles, and holiday in the jungles. Besides, we have a bit of a competition going on &mdash he&rsquos heavily into birding and we both keep lists of the birds we&rsquove sighted &mdash always trying to outdo each other.

OT Any tips for other women looking to get into your line of work

Ratna Singh &nbspWell, it sounds like a cliché, but in a job like this, loving what you do is of utmost important. It&rsquos not only a career, but a lifestyle. And unlike a city job, you don&rsquot leave it and go home in the evening to have other interests. One has to be comfortable in one&rsquos own company and have above-average levels of physical fitness.

OT Tell us about your childhood and how you got into this line of work.

Ratna Singh &nbspMy home is a couple of hours of drive from Bandhavgarh national park, and the village was surrounded by rather thick forests. I have seen all sorts of animals, including tigers in my backyard I went away to boarding school when i was very young, and longed to go back home. So this line of work was but the natural choice. After all, the wilderness is my home