By Nirmal Ghosh, Thailand Correspondent

Some years ago, on a now memorable New Year's Eve, I was walking with two friends in a dense jungle in northern India when a wild tiger growled at us from a distance of about 4m.

We kept our cool and simply walked away. The tiger, which had been disturbed while taking its afternoon snooze, sent us an unmistakable signal with a series of menacing growls - but it did not attack.

Had we panicked, run and inevitably fallen in the undergrowth, we would have spooked it and it would have lashed out at us, and I would most probably not be alive today to write this piece.

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