Ghosts in the Dark: Waiting for the Lions in Sasan, Gir

I will admit that there is a slight sense of nervousness before traveling to Gujarat, which is temporarily intensified the moment my cab pulls out of Rajkot airport and plainclothes policemen are checking the luggage for the slightest smell of alcohol, which some outsider might have smuggled into India’s most notoriously dry state. Still, the prospect of a reward – one of the subcontinent’s most remarkable biospheres – and its royal inhabitants – was enough to temper my reactive disappointment.

At Sasan Gir, the west-kissed folds of the Saurashtra peninsula reveal themselves through textures and an air that feels stripped of the essentials. About two hours from Junagadh and a short drive from Rajkot, the national park covers over 1,400 square kilometers of dry deciduous forest, scrub, rocky terrain and seasonal rivers. It is the only place on Earth where Asiatic lions still roam freely – survivors of near-extinction that left barely a dozen of their kind in existence at the end of the 19th century. Today, more than 600 lions live in and around this forest, along with leopards, hyenas, crocodiles, sambar, chital and hundreds of bird species.

The forest at Sasan, where we stayed on the edge of the park, is located in an eight-acre mango orchard just outside the forest boundary. Conceived by Maulik Bhagat and architect Maria Portela as the flagship property of 1000 Islands Hotels & Resorts, this retreat is spread across low stone structures discreetly placed among the trees. Thirty-eight private residences sit apart from each other, leaving the garden intact. Built largely from local stone, lime plaster, reclaimed wood, khadi, terracotta and cane, the structures rely on thick walls, intelligent orientation and natural light. Concrete is used sparingly, plastic has been almost completely reduced, and not a single mango tree has been cut down to make way for construction.

French restaurateur Laurent Guiraud, who now oversees operations at In the Woods, described the retreat’s biophilic philosophy through three pillars: culture, community, and wellness. Most of the workers came from nearby villages, and dozens of local artisans worked on the construction. “We want to bring more into the ecosystem than we take out,” he said. He explains that Wellbeing in the Woods creates a connective tissue that emphasizes sleep, silence, darkness, the preservation of ancient natural rhythms, and respect for nocturnal life that begins where the garden ends.

Those rhythms made themselves felt on my very first night. In winter, Delhi hardly allows you to see the moon, leave alone any other divine offering through its particle soup. But here, I found myself standing under the clearest night sky I had seen in years, the constellations opening up above us as the constellations came into view one after the other, as if someone had turned the contrast knob all the way up. Under that sky, Woods’ culinary team prepared a barbecue in the garden, smoke swirling in the cool breeze, while Laurent regaled us with stories of his early years in India. He talked about arriving in Delhi as a young “blonde” professional, roaming the capital’s restaurants and having a tolerance for alcohol as generous as that of a visiting Frenchman. He admitted that his move towards Gir felt like an inevitable pull away from the noise towards something quieter and more fundamental.

Our mornings in the woods began before dusk. On our first day, Akash Ahir – the estate’s naturalist and extremely enthusiastic lecturer on the ecology of Gir – took us on a walking tour through the forest that surrounds the garden. The land here is often frequented by lions in the early morning, a fact Akash mentioned with cheerful indifference as we stepped over fresh pugmarks buried in the dust. Eventually, the path opened up into a clearing at a lower altitude, where breakfast appeared with incredible timing, and we watched the sun rise over a mosaic of forest paths blending into agricultural plots on the horizon. The afternoon was spent with Gujarati thali in Swadesh, frequent stops at the retreat’s charming wellness centre, and cinema and long conversations over food before bed.

The rest of our time there was spent in pleasant bliss. Lunch was a sumptuous traditional Gujarati thali at the property’s signature restaurant Swadesh. Between meals, we popped in and out of SOM, the retreat’s wellness space, which offered a series of treatments designed to recalibrate the body to be more in tune with the environment. Afterwards, pizza for dinner from the wood-fired grill, followed by a long conversation with Laurent about French New Wave cinema and culinary memories in Paris.

On the day of the safari, we again woke up before dawn, braving the cold, and climbed into an open jeep headed towards the Gir National Park Centre. Dozens of tourists gathered in nervous groups, guides barking instructions into the cold wind. As the state-owned jeeps pulled out one by one, a huge bronze lion presided over the plaza. Everyone I spoke to before this trip seemed suspiciously confident about the sightings. Many of them claimed that the chances of seeing a lion here were inevitable, and that I must have fantastic luck to leave the forest without seeing a lion. When the jeep was swallowed by the darkness, the confidence of that person sitting wrapped in a blanket burrito started to waver.

At that time the forest seemed vast and mysterious. Our headlights cut a narrow corridor through the darkness while the canopy thickened overhead and dry leaves crunched under the tires so loudly that I felt nervous, as if we were announcing our presence to every creature within a kilometer. My thoughts turned, somewhat involuntarily, to this kitschy but deeply entertaining 1996 thriller ghost and darknessWhere Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas spend two hours being terrorized by a pair of famously man-eating lions in colonial East Africa. Naturally, as the jeep started hurtling down the track, I began to notice every slight rustle in the brush and every pair of mirrored eyes flashing momentarily from the darkness before disappearing again.

After barely twenty minutes of driving our driver applied the brakes. In front of us, three lions were lying lazily as if the road belonged to them. There was a semi-adult male, his hair still growing into a slight ruff, and next to him rested two adult females whose bodies were clearly feeling a heavy, satisfied lethargy after filling their bellies. All three of them blinked slowly in the dim glow of our headlights, giving us faint acknowledgments, before they returned to the much-important task of morning sleep.

As dawn broke over the forest, the landscape revealed itself in layers. Spotted deer were the first to appear, their white markings glowing softly as they froze in midair to watch us pass. The terrain kept changing. Dry deciduous expanses opened up into grasslands where the horizon broadened for a while, then turned back into thorny acacias and rocky outcrops.

Within the first 20 minutes the three lions felt incredibly generous, and as the cold began to increase, they sat on the jeep and took a load of satisfaction. About 45 minutes later, a more immediate concern took hold. Early morning tea, the cold and the open jeep had rapidly turned into a escalating bladder crisis. I considered three options: bear it out, discreetly soil myself, or risk the most beautiful but potentially deadly bathroom break of my life.

Thankfully the forest took pity. We reached the designated spot where the vehicles were gathered, an open space with a toilet. When I returned, Akash was in the middle of a conversation and he seemed to be hearing something special happening, so we left immediately. After about an hour, we reached a clearing where there was a shallow water hole amidst dense bushes and scattered trees. About 10 jeeps had already positioned themselves in a semicircle. One by one they gave up and went away until only we were left. “Safari is a waiting game,” Sky said calmly. “Those who wait the longest usually win.” That patience soon bore fruit.

a lion. Then another. Then another, until eight lions gathered at the water’s edge – six juvenile cubs and two adult females standing behind them, keeping watch – as they bowed their heads and began to leap to the surface in a slow, rhythmic motion, making a low thudding sound. shlup-shlup Against the peace of the clearing.

The cubs were playfully pushing each other, biting their tails and shaking their shoulders, while the adults kept a watchful eye on the surrounding forest. Not even once did he acknowledge that barely 10 meters away was sitting a jeep full of stunned humans. After several long minutes they finished their drinks, extended their hands lazily and, one by one, went back to the bush from which they had come.

Later Akash told us that such scenes were rare. They told us that this pride came from two male lions named Jai and Veeru, who are named after the characters cinder. The two ruled their territory together for years before they were killed in battle by rival lions, leaving their cubs in danger of being released from their heredity. What saved them was the strategic intelligence of adult females, who shepherded the cubs into vigilant migrations designed to keep them out of reach of the new alpha. When chance encounters with those ethnic cleansers became inevitable, lionesses resorted to what zoologists politely describe as “false mating behavior,” which is scientific shorthand for luring the enemy into a honeytrap long enough for the babies to escape.

A few days in the fall and a chance encounter with some unexpectedly empowering resident feminist icons is sometimes enough to make one reconsider some previously held beliefs. But even if the morning sets Eleven Among the country’s most photogenic apex predators, well, there’s nothing to complain about.

This author was in Sasan in Gir at the invitation of Woods.