The People Who Make It Happen
Get to know the talented individuals who bring our vision to life every day.
Roots deep in the earth, branches touching the sky – we are all connected.
As we take you behind the scenes to meet the tiger safari experts that guide you on our wildlife safari tours, this quote really speaks to the heart of why we do what we do. It reflects not just the interconnectedness of nature but the spirit of collaboration that characterizes our team.
As the roots of a tree and branches stretching out to the heavens, our team members’ roots delve into their passion for wildlife conservation and spread out to touch excellence in creating an inspiring safari experience.
We understand that every successful project is not only a great idea but also a group of dedicated professionals who bring it to life. Our team at Tiger Safari Tours India is the driving force behind everything we do — our innovation, creativity, and commitment to excellence.
And so, we invite you to peek behind the scenes to learn more about the personalities, passions and stories that make our team tick. Prepare to meet the brainpower behind the illusion — because at Tiger Safari Tours India, it’s not just about what we do; it’s about who we are.
India Destination Specialists
Megha Arora | Destinations Specialist – India
It was not in the jungle, but in the lecture halls of academia that Megha Arora embarked on her journey into wildlife tourism. She was born and brought up in Kota, Rajasthan where she completed her education and worked for public welfare. But it was a chance visit to the forests of Central India that changed the trajectory of her life.
A langur call and a scattered deer herd in the hushed silence of the jungle witnessed Megha embrace a wider commitment — to bridge wild landscapes with local lives. What started out as curiosity turned into a calling. She gave up a bright career in education and for the last four years, she has captained Tiger Safari Tours India with a firm belief that tourism should pay back.
For Megha, each trek is about more than just seeing the sights — it’s a story of coexistence, supporting village livelihoods and exposing India’s natural wonders through a lens of empathy. Megha with her warmth and sharp expertise, ensuring every safari is not only an adventure but a gift towards the preservation of the soul of the wild.
Pradeep Pandey | Tour Operations – India
For Pradeep Pandey, perfecting a safari is like conducting an orchestra—every moving part must play in harmony. Having shaped journeys through India’s jungles for many years, he is the steady hand behind Tiger Safari Tours India operations. But the invisible web of logistics he oversees vehicle permits wangled at dawn, guides corralled, backup plans for unexpected weather shifts is seldom seen by guests.
To Pradeep, those facts aren’t to-do items but the beat of how you tell a story through travel. He is an alchemist, capable of turning uncertainty into memories, enabling you to get lost in the magic of India’s Jungles knowing that everything has been considered. With extensive experience of wildlife destinations and a sturdy grace around the unexpected, Pradeep is the interface between raw wild beauty and guest comfort.
His commitment ensures every safari is perfectly planned, from the dusty forest trails to that magical moment of golden light upon a tiger.
Himanshu Singh | Tech Consultant
Himanshu Singh’s journey to wildlife tourism was paved not with forest trails, but with lines of code and algorithms. He was a mechanical engineer by training, but grew into an architect of digital transformation, pointing companies toward new paths to reinvent themselves with technology.
But his heart leaned towards purposeful endeavours, where his skills would enrich the human experience. At Tiger Safari Tours India, Himanshu took on the role of surreptitious architect of the modern safari. From seamless online bookings to sturdy digital platforms that support what happens in the field, his systems take the hassle out of technology so that travellers can concentrate on marvelling at nature, uninhibited by the inconvenience of technical obstacles.
To Himanshu, technology isn’t cold hardware but a hushed facilitator of magic—a means to maintain authenticity while enabling smooth travel. Whether through scalable cloud systems or intuitive apps, he ensures that every guest’s first click is as thoughtful as the moment they lock eyes with a tiger in the wild.
Local Destination Experts
Manisha Rajput | Destination Expert
To tread Gujarat’s terrains with Manisha Rajput is to live through the state as pressing epic. Growing up amid its teeming cities and rich cultural pageants, she forged an enduring bond with the region’s myriad strata — its salt deserts all aglow under moonlight; crumbling stepwells that murmur of dynasties gone by; and forests resonant with the roar of Asiatic lions.
Destination Expert for Tiger Safari Tours India, Manisha incorporates these and myriad other aspects in itineraries that bring Gujarat out of guidebooks. Not only does she develop itineraries, but she ensures that they include encounters with artisans, fetes and traditions that bring the state to life.
And visitors depart not simply with photographs, but also with a sense of ownership of Gujarat as if they have seen the place through her eyes.
Rajkumar Gurjar | Wildlife Safari Expert – Ranthambore
For Rajkumar Gurjar, the jungle is more than a workplace — it’s a living, breathing friend with whom he has spent countless dawns and sunsets. A child of the landscape that is Ranthambore, Rajkumar grew up with an ear for its rhythms the rustle that gives away a sambar’s retreat, the warning call that breaks silence moments before a tiger stalks in.
After years of guiding travellers among the park’s treacherous terrain, he has acquired a reputation for knowing how to anticipate where its most elusive predator will hit next. But Rajkumar’s gift is not just in finding tigers; it’s how he educates guests to see the forest as a network of life, where every tree and bird has its part.
He’s turned that into respectful, safe encounters, imparting awe and responsibility in visitors through his own commitment to ethical tourism. For those who step into Ranthambore under his care, a safari is no longer just a sighting but also a meditation in patience and reverence and awe.
Rajendra Jhariya — Naturalist, Kanha
If Kanha has a pulse, Rajendra hears its beats like an EKG the silence before a langur call, the light thump that signals stripes moving across the track. He has led travellers and world-class photographers since 2006, directing jeeps and lenses at precisely the best angle, exactly the right second. Years of learning beside photographers sharpened his own eye; when he’s not guiding, he frames moments through the viewfinder. Down with Rajendra, a drive is a lesson in timing of how patience can turn into possibility, and a late-minute sighting pen the day’s finest story.
Shafeeq — Senior Naturalist, Kanha
Shafeeq’s Kanha is a quilt, hanks of tiger trails sewn into herbs, bird calls stitched to village lore. Sixteen years in these sal and bamboo corridors have made him a speaker of all three: fluent in big-cat tracking, the practical uses of forest herbs for daily life, the sense behind the smallest sound. He leads you and the jungle starts talking first in whispers, then in sentences until a sighting comes like a full stop to a thrilling paragraph.
Mukesh Kumar — Naturalist & India Biodiversity Expert
Mukesh reads forests as living textbooks every scrape, feather and paw print a portion of an overarching thesis on survival. A conservation biologist now with 18 years in the field, his journey started back at the Wildlife Institute of India on a national tiger project and progressed through conflict studies in Shimla to guiding and ecotourism in Central India. He has written papers, books and articles, but his favourite chapters are composed in the field, turning data into wonder on every drive. With Mukesh, visitors don’t just witness wildlife; they comprehend the science that protects it.
Ramesh Suri — Senior Naturalist, Bandhavgarh
Ramesh grew up on the terrain where tiger stories are family history, the same paths, the same waterholes, the same roaming dynasties of cats. Twenty-five years of guiding in Bandhavgarh have made him a dour maestro at turning bucket lists into lived experiences: the hush of leopard at dusk, the crackling of barbets at dawn and laughter among anecdotes between sightings. But guests don’t just walk away with photographs, they leave feeling that they have been in the park with somebody who understands its soul.
Ram Negi — Senior Naturalist, Corbett
Ram’s progress from cattle fields to Corbett’s riverine forests is a testament to patience and love for the wild. The first to be educated in his community, he learned the ropes through stints at Taj Safaris and across central India before making Dhikala his theatre. Easily as recognizable for his encyclopaedic knowledge of the park (and its animal residents) as he is for a quick wit, he makes tracking fun until it is time to point and whisper and share that thrill with guests who keep coming back.
Ashish Prajapati — Senior Naturalist, Pench
Ashish’s field school was his village — a place where farming met with forest, and curiosity met innumerable trails. The practice of watching birds and animals gradually evolved into a vocation; for more than 16 years, he has led travellers through Pench with the clarity of a teacher and the intuition of a tracker. For Ashish, it’s the little signs and moments that accumulate quickly, and before they know it, the forest parts to disclose what everyone has been waiting for.
Harsh Bansal — Senior Naturalist, Tadoba
Harsh’s own story starts in the Tala, the mythical boundary where Tadoba’s legends were initially written. Early on, he assisted film crews from Discovery and BBC as they mapped the park’s feline family tree, following lineages and behaviour with the cameras rolling. Today, he leads travellers with a documentarian’s eye; linking sightings to history, territory to temperament so that a single pugmark is an introductory character sketch and the distant call sounds the cue for plot lines.
Kishore Sharma — Senior Naturalist, Satpura
Kishore treats each drive as a new beginning, one day unlike the next, no forest face with the same mood. Tala-based with decades of guiding under his belt, he marries old-school tracking to a farmer’s patience; the park sets the pace. His excitement about Satpura is contagious; by the time a tiger emerges, guests no longer feel like spectators, but participants in an age-old daily routine.
Mohan Chetri — Senior Naturalist, Kaziranga
Mohan began following the trails of tigers before he got out of school first for giggles as an eighth grader, then as a backup driver, and finally as a full-time naturalist when his family obtained its own safari gypsy. Mentored by famous naturalists, he polished the most important skill of a guide: learning when to wait and when to go. Like Mohan, the approach to a sighting is a tale well told — measured and purposeful, often punctuated by a flawless view at exactly the perfect moment.
Ombir Pakke — Senior Naturalist, Panna
Ombir was raised on the edge of a forest, where civilization and wildness aren’t easily distinguishable from one another in day-to-day life. Since he graduated from his naturalist training, in 2007, he has attuned himself to Panna’s subtleties, the changes in wind, a murmur of river talk, an angle of shadow that hesitates. One of the park’s most gifted birders, he slips through the understory in search of colours and calls that reveal some part of a larger drama, between prey and predator, decoding a kingfisher’s dive or a drongo’s alarm for signs of what could come next.