Bangalore:
Looking for the tiger in India's forests is a delight in itself. The beauty of the tiger's natural habitat - and the delight of seeing the wildlife with which our national animal shares the forest - always makes the search worthwhile, whether you spot the big cat or not.
And when you do - like we did in Karnataka's Nagarahole tiger reserve - it is a magical moment.
We were an NDTV team filming for the Aircel-NDTV Save Our Tigers campaign.
We were very lucky to see a magnificent male tiger in Nagarahole where it is not that easy to spot one because of the dense forest. We saw this beautiful tiger, very close to the jeep we were in - he came, he crossed the road, went to the side of the road and sat and looked at us - an experience none of us will forget!
So how many wild tigers are there in India? The last estimation had the number at around 1706.
"The last figure came out in 2010 and the next one is due to come out in December. It happens every 4 years and this has been the most widespread estimation programme every conducted in India. It has covered 45 tiger reserves and also certain areas that are in the corridors of tiger reserves. So it is probably going to be the most accurate tiger population figure ever," said Anish Andheria, president of the Wildlife Conservation Trust.
This time round, camera traps were used to take pictures of both flanks of any tiger that passed it - which should hopefully help give a more accurate estimate.
Karnataka is the state with the most number of tigers in India - and Nagarahole is part of a forest belt that has the highest number of tigers in the world. And we can vouch for at least one.