STATE OF TIGERS…!!!

I was reminded of a personal tryst with a white cheetah when I received a sms from a friend that they were at a tiger sanctuary in Rajasthan but they weren’t ‘lucky’ to spot a tiger on two whole days of safaris but that they did see hear a ‘leopard’ near their hotel - out in the bushes .

I was equally drawn to the chain of memories on reading the news-item just a while ago of the alarm raised in the Guwahati Zoo yesterday when a eight-year old tigress [one who tasted human-blood three years ago]walked out of her caged enclosure ,alongwith a one and a half year old cub .Fortunately ,for the ten thousand odd people present in the zoo-campus,both the mother and child were tranquillized and caged back in a space of two hours.

It was not the case with another tiger in another part of the country yesterday [in Bhiwani Zoo of Haryana State]when a tiger mauled a zoo employee who had forgotten to lock the cage after keeping meat for the big cat.

It was a full moon night when yours truly was returning by a Maruti Van from a meeting in a palace built in the midst of the Adilabad jungles of Andhra Pradesh State [through Naxalist-infested dense forest-land]after visiting a Member of Parliament whose teak-forest property was the subject of my discussions that evening,alongwith my client who had done his bit of real-time shikar prior to independence of India,i.e;during the British Raj era.

Predictably,I was excited having grown up on Mulk Raj Anad’s and Jim Corbett’s tales of tigers in Indian jungles.But ,little did I realize that God and Nature had a pleasant surprise in store for us.As we sped steadily on the thin ribbon-like road to cross the den of extremist-elements[they would take to a lawyer as does a man-eating tiger to flesh of humans]asap.

All on a sudden ,we saw a circle of a band of the dreaded people holding their meeting at midnight in the midst of the jungle but the vehicle gave us our speed [Besides, our host I suspect had a role in signalling our safe passage as being 'friends,not foes']and as we were nearing the highway in a hundred kilometres distance ,I saw something shining and white glowing in the beautiful moonlight and I asked my client on the wheels to slow down .He did but did not stop.After a couple of minutes, I was struck [so was he and the burly Nawab sitting in the backseat and puffing away on his cherrot!]by the dazzling beauty of the white striped feline sitting majestically - in the centre of the road,commandingly .

I goaded my friend to halt but the otherwise brave paan-chewing man turned the vehicle away into a dirt-path in the forest and we took a detour of about ten minutes to cross about ten kilometres of distance and then joined the highway-track.But again,lo and behold,our White Friend was up there sitting ahead on the road as if commanding us to halt and shake his paws…!I was both foolhardy as well as seized by a sense of bravado or mesmerized fantastic rush of blood and asked the van to be halted but again my travel companion turned the vehicle and sped us away in another narrow direction…

His explanation was that the jaguar is the fastest animal on the planet and if iot came dashing through the windshield,neither the vehicle nor the occupants will survive the crash!I could recall the sign-posts of kangaroo-tracks of the Australian landscape or those of great black bears in North Carolinan territory…!

A little ahead we saw villagers sleeping on cots out in the open of an otherwise pleasant summer night ,alongside cows and buffaloes…!!
Imagine how beastly human-beings and an almost human-like beast transformed my outlook towards life on earth and the state of our society…~!!

I am therefore compelled to pour the mixed feelings of angst at the non-sighting of tigers in a reserved sanctuary whilst those caged in a zoo are turning man-eaters.

Where have the wizards of Project Tiger vanished?

Psst,am not referring to the decimation of self-styled tigers amongst we humans.I realize we are more inhuman than the tiger…!!!