One lone sambar, a huge male sporting impressive antlers, stands amidst the still waters...dawn’s just breaking and the golden rays spread a luminous glow over his coat, the lake and the fecund forests of Tadoba that merge with lush green hills. Not a sound...except for the faint whisper of wings as the butterfly flutters past my nose, the murmur of leaves as they drift, then fall, softly on the earth..
Exquisite, this tranquillity. Almost too tranquil, for some Homo sapiens, gathered in Tadoba in pursuit of tigers. One jungle aficionado squirms demanding some ‘action’. A few leave. There is only so much of a sambar in a lake that one can watch; and there are tigers, elsewhere.
But I wonder. Why the deer chooses to remain in the cold waters of the lake when succulent grasses and warm sunlight await just yonder? There is more to it than meets the eye...
The minutes move—the sun glows brighter, stronger. Our attention wanders, but the jungle-and the sambar remain still.
Suddenly he stirs, the sambar—as if coming to a weighty decision after careful thought--moving steadily out of the water.
It happened so fast—like lightening, terrifying in its intensity.
In the next second—is it even that?—one huge orange blur thunders out of the green, sprints, and hurtles itself at the deer. Tiger. But the deer’s fast, faster. He makes it...almost, when he tumbles, confronted with another tiger, facing him.
But the tiger is far and the deer, is free. The climax collapses. After that one powerful moment—that seized your heart and left you breathless—the drama moves back to Act I: The serene forest, the silence, the sambar back in the water. The added dimension being the ominous presence (or is it the absence) of two tigers. They are backstage not visible. Out of sight. But clearly not out of mind—mine or the deer’s. Meanwhile, other malevolent characters have entered the fray. Crocodiles. Two of them. Not very far from the deer. One swims closer. It is clear to us, from the safety of the jeep, that the crocs have no evil designs on the sambar. The stag is just too large for them to overcome—it will be too much energy consumed without any gain. But the deer, getting more nervous by the minute, is in no state of mind to comprehend logic. He trudges out. And its action replay again...tiger dashing out, sambar dashing in...
So the sambar’s back—where he doesn’t belong. He waits, fidgets. Clearly restive—but equally unwilling to move. I could see him pondering over his—extremely limited—choices. Death lurked in water, death awaited outside. His leg, bleeding and broken was giving way—he could see the beady eye of the crocodile come close, closer. He knew there were tigers somewhere, not far from the bank, well-camouflaged in the tall grasses. He sniffed the air, peered. Maybe not? Then heaved himself out, and oh-so-cautiously stepped out of the water, lifting one wary foot after the other...when they burst forth. Two tigers on either side of him. And the hunt began...the sambar taking flight as death closed in...
It didn’t actually. Not yet, anyway. Incredibly, the sambar—lame leg and all, managed to make his escape. Again.
Clearly, it is not easy being a wild tiger. Success in hunting is difficult even for the world’s most powerful predator—by some accounts tigers succeed about one in ten attempts.
I watched them—the hunter and the hunted, and a tear slid down my eye. Was it for the stag? For his unfailing courage? For confronting death (surely he know it was inevitable) with a calm dignity. Or was it the tigers? Young, perhaps just out of their mother’s shadow...inept yet in the art of hunting.
No. Maybe it was me. Devoted to the cause of tiger,..yet dejected by the enormity of the battle. How precious was this sight-routine in the forest, but rare to the human eye. This was what made the struggle worthwhile..each wild tiger...
Maybe it was the fear that lurked. The devastation of coal mines I had seen bordering the reserve, Tadoba is locate in heart of the ‘coal district of India’, Chandrapur’ and has many mines surrounding it, and the threat of more. There are other horrors. Fragmented corridors, broken forests, too many people, too few prey—the perfect recipe for fatal conflict. The picture of a the caged emaciated tiger cub, whose mother is lost to poaching just outside this haven, refuses to go away..
So happy to see these wild tigers, so worried for their future.
I leave –very reluctantly-but this drama in the arena of the wild continued for another 24 hours. For those who want to know—the tiger won the day.
