Pench National Park: The forest that inspired story of Jungle Book's Mowgli

Pench, a deciduous teak forest that stretches across Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, is home to some of India's most charismatic mammals - tigers, leopards, dholes, wolves and gaurs

The sun beats down on our heads mercilessly. The jungle, miles upon miles of leafless trees, is quiet, save for the constant drone of crickets. A leafless kullu tree (a local varietal of gum) rears its knobby, finger-like branches to the sky, its white bark like the sun-bleached bones of a long-gone animal.
 
Pench National Park in summer is the driest forest I’ve ever seen, seeming too arid to host any life. How wrong I am! A branch cracks, and just like that a pack of dholes appears. One of the wild dogs emits a high-pitched whistle. Their ears