India, July 2 -- The origin of the word 'safari' lies in Kiswahili, which built upon 'safar', the Arabic word for travel. For a late riser like me, who hasn't seen sunrises for many years, it can equate to 'suffer' too. Still, Aditya, armed with his cameras, and me with my SPF50, decided to do all the five ranges of Kaziranga National Park. We had three days to spot elephant herds, hornbills with their magnificent beak-dos and of course, rhinos - bouncers ready with their horns to topple your jeep. It's no wonder that they'd like to do that. Unbridled poaching for the rhino's horn is what resulted in Kaziranga being declared a sanctuary in the mid-1900s.

From the very first morning, as we rode on an elephant's back, it turned out to be a...