Surya is academically an engineer from the south indian city of Chennai who later pursued his passion into the wild. His jungle journey that commenced in the forests of Satpura at Forsyths. Personally having been mentored by Hashim his interests widened to all types of life forms, especially the lesser fauna of the region and their microhabitats. Satpura having been a less tiger centric park gave him the chance to explore other activities other than just Jeep safaris. After 5 years at Satpura he moved to Kanha and also experienced the feelers of working in a major tiger centric park. His love for wildlife and eagerness to learn led him exploring India’s special and rare mammals, birds, reptiles and butterflies. Be it Satpura or Kanha the thing Surya enjoys the most is the idea of guiding and explaining the little secrets of the jungle to people rather than just seeing it for himself. The need to guide people encouraged him to write a book and thereby successfully authored ‘Photo Field Guide to Central India’ which covers 850 species of the region, a first of its kind field guide in India. During the Monsoon period he even leads his own tours to Africa for groups. Irrespective of the region or faunal diversity Surya’s zeal and vigour never fails to captivate guests. His continued undying passion and dedication led him to be awarded the prestigious TOfT award for the year 2016.Surya believes that the key to sustainable ecotourism is to keep the locals at the helm. He currently is working on setting up wildlife lodges in Ladakh in the trans-Himalayas with snow leopard and other lesser fauna present there as the focus. This is going to be in collaboration with the houses and villages in the valley thereby making sure to include the locals. He believes that this could help in a lot of conservation issues faced in our country. Surya’s inquisitiveness and enthusiasm is sure to rub onto guests and leave them spellbound.