Mr. Morarji Desai is dead, and there's nothing for me to do. In my hotel room in Ahmedabad, in the west Indian coastal state of Gujarat, I watch Star TV and drink soda. Outside, the streets and stores stand silent in the heat. The city has been shut down by the police, who are fearful of civil unrest. Mourning for the former prime minister--a native of Gujarat--confirms his status as the biggest political figure of the state's recent past. Desai was also a strict prohibitionist, which explains why Gujarat is--at least according to the law--a "dry" state. And why I'm cooling off with Limca, a popular, sickly sweet beverage, and not beer.

Prohibition is responsible for a thriving illicit trade in alcohol smuggling and distillation, and the Gujarati press regularly reports on poisonings by imperfectly brewed liquor. The law has hardly succeeded in achieving temperance--while the late Desai is regarded with deference, almost every mention of his passing leads to the inevitable, ". . . so when do you think we can drink?"

Despite the sensationalist tabloids and their blaming of all wrongdoing on the dangerous "Paks," whose nation borders Gujarat to the north, the streets of Ahmedabad are safe. People smile readily, no beggars or hawkers accost me, and almost no one solicits tips. This may have something to do with the absence of tourists, or perhaps it owes more to the proud spirit of Mahatma Gandhi, another Gujarat native. Both Hindus and Muslims regard his Ahmedabad ashram with awe.

Of course, danger is not unknown here. It's just that nothing untoward happens to me, not once during my seven week stay.

I am on a hunting trip, shooting rare wildlife with my camera. My driver Rajesh and I travel from Ahmedabad to the Rann of Kachchh, a searing pan of treeless earth where the temperature nudges 50 degrees. We photograph wild horses from a jeep at 70 km/h. Later, we visit a small island on the Arabian Sea off the Gulf of Kachchh coast, where the lighthouse keeper treats us to spicy dal, the claws of mangrove crabs and chilling tales of smugglers. "There used to be bringing in of gold from the gulf states," he says smiling. He sounds almost proud. "But now there are other things. Drugs. Hashish. And I have heard of guns. And young girls smuggled from India to be child brides in some Muslim countries. But here is safe."

Then we head south to the village of Sasan at Gir. During my stay, a lion will attack and kill a 14-year-old girl who is gathering firewood. But the main danger, I'm told, comes not from lions but from the massive leopards that prowl the forest. "You never sleep outside here," says Rajesh.

It is dark when we pull in at Sasan. The short stretch of the main street is lit by the signs and fluorescent tubes of tea-shops and open-air eateries, but the surroundings quickly fade to black.

The 1,412 square kilometers around us are the last refuge of the Asian lion, the symbol of India and an animal whose domain once stretched from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Bengal; from the deserts of Turkestan to Cape Comorin. By 1913, only 31 of them remained in the wild. Now, 304 survive here, at the Gir Lion Sanctuary and National Park. It is proof of how a concerted conservation effort can work.

But there are problems. The lions have grown too numerous for the reserve to support them. They prey on the livestock and occasionally on the locals themselves. Attempts to relocate some of them have failed, for no one wants these predators in their backyard. The reserve's chief officer, P.N. Katariya, is a locally-born man appointed through a political arrangement. He cares little for the lions and often feeds them live, tethered buffalo calves for the entertainment of visiting bureaucrats--despite experts' warnings that this only increases the likelihood of attacks. Katariya may get his comeuppance yet. A new local government has been elected, and word is that the officer's days are numbered.

Our initial sightings of the lions are fleeting, but on the ninth day Wajirbhai, my tracker, and our three accompanying rangers locate a pride of 12; two males, four females and six cubs. As we edge towards them on foot--approaching as close as six meters--one of the lionesses pays unnerving attention to my lens. Wajirbhai leans close. "They think," he whispers, "it is goat maybe." But I am lucky, and thankful that the lions must have already eaten. I spend the next 10 days shooting them blissfully.

Perhaps the most hair-raising encounters I have are on the road. The traffic moves with breakneck recklessness. Everywhere we pass careening trucks, overweight and overheight, their cargoes bulging like inverted pyramids. We pass wreck after wreck; in one I see the driver's legs, poking from under his crumpled cab. Yet Rajesh pilots our trusty Hindustan Motors Ambassador across the shadeless landscape without incident--apart from the one night, after a little too much moonshine, he takes a shortcut and temporarily maroons the Ambassador in a gaping ditch. I almost regret that I wasn't with him.