We finally came out on this high ridge where Surya's village was located as it was getting dark. We'd reached the village in the last light of day. Surya could see his wife and two oldest children silhouetted against the sky sitting with their neighbors on the crest of the ridge and waving to us. They yelled to us happily as we traversed across a steep, wide pasture. They said they had been expecting us. The villagers, Surya's told me, his family included, sat up on the ridge every night to gossip late into the night.

During the evening villagers took turns tending the buffalo as they grazed on this commons. There was ample grazing but water was a problem as the only spring on the ridge would dry up in hot weather and it was a hike down the mountain to another spring. Bringing water to the animals and to the houses meant carrying it uphill. The buffalo were occasionally preyed upon by tigers that ventured up out of the dense jungle on the south and east side of the ridge.

Just as we began the last part of the ascent across the steep, open pasture, Surya pointed out a buffalo wallow, a small man-made pond, a bit down and off to the right, with a curb of large stones. The buffalo "wallowed" here when it was hot. They wade in and roll around in the mud and water to cool off and wash off flies and parasites. He pointed to a small bower in the trees close to the wallow where a large female tiger sometimes comes in the evening to prey on the buffalo. Each night after that, as the light faded, I went with some villagers to watch for the tiger and, sure enough, one evening the female tiger was leisurely lying a 100 feet from the wallow, lofting it’s tail and warily gazing back up at us. She was more than beautiful.