Good Rain In Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve

Bandhavgarh Tehsil has recieved 886.8 mm rainfall till 20 September, 2010. The average rainfall in Bandhavgarh is 1374.7 mm annually. The figure last year was 534.5 mm till date. The rainfall in Bandhavgarh this year has brought smile to everybody's face.

The Orphaned Jhurjhura Cubs Are Safe

Both the cubs are visible in this picture.

The cub walking away from the camera trap.

The tail of the male cub is visible in this camera trap picture. The bhiriya or Bhirra undergrouth in this picture is typical of Jhurjhura.

The remaining two orphaned Jhurjhura cubs are alive and playful. The camera trap pictures taken three days before establish this fact. Many fingers were raised on the forest department in the last month regarding the safety of these cubs. In fact, Mr. Chandrakant Patil, the field director of Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, has worked day and night to ensure the safety of these cubs. All the credit goes to him and his staff.

Tiger and Woman

Sipping the refreshing morning tea in front of my cottage, I read the news –‘Lamiabai Baiga, age 42, village Bijharia. She went to collect wood in the prohibited area of Bandhavgarh National Park, where two tigers killed and ate her.’ Such news is a very shallow thing. It never tells you about the concerns of the life of man and animal and the struggles and pains inevitably coming with those concerns.

   After finishing the simple midday meal of rice, Lamia had sneaked into the reserve forest with three other women of the family to collect firewood, having no idea of the two seventeen month old tigers lying in the thick bamboo grove behind Judwani pond. She would not have stopped even if she knew about their presence, for wood was the lifeline of her tribe. It was required to cook food, to erect and repair their mud huts and to fence their crops to protect them from deer, wild boars and cattle.

   These tigers – a male and a female – were locally known as Chorbehra Tigers. They  were the first litter of a young tigress who was still inexperienced in bringing up the cubs. Tiger cubs remain blind at birth and it is only after a few months that they are taken out of the lair by the mother. Leopards, wild dogs and even jackals can kill them in their early days. But this tigress, being inexperienced, had exposed her cubs to the dangers of the jungle too early, even at a time when they stumbled while walking. Cubs lucked out and had grown to the size of a great den, but with very little training and an absolute fearlessness against the human beings, largely due to the early exposure. With the assistance of their mother they would kill a cow and feed openly in the field near a village, with crowds watching them from the safety of the village. The cubs had lost all the fear of humans but they had not committed the gravest crime of killing a man yet, though their entire territory was severely disturbed by the movements of villagers, elephant camp and cattle. The two tigers had eaten a spotted deer in the tall grass near Siddhbaba previous day and had walked in behind Judwani pond in the early hours of the morning. They were lying there since then.

   On that fateful day the four women picked the same area for collecting firewood. They seemed very happy and kept giggling as they got closer to the bamboo thicket. They were not walking, they were almost running. Holi, the festival of colours was close, seducing the women with unstoppable and bubbling enthusiasm. Spring was in the air, a little earlier this time. The leaves of Sal had turned into thousands of shades of green, yellow and brown, giving a different hue to the hills scattered under the deep blue sky. The bamboo too seemed to have turned deeper yellow overnight and Kosam and Kumbhi trees stood out with their new red leaves in an otherwise yellow-green background. Mahua was in flower and the air was thick with their intoxicating smell. The pleasant western wind made the trees shower their dry leaves and the forest floor was covered with them. The Brainfever Bird was calling incessantly from the depths of the forest.

   The tigers were lying half asleep that winter afternoon which was mellowed by the arrival of spring, when they heard the women. They were up instantly with their ears cocked and stared in the direction of the approaching women. Any other tiger would have moved away or shown his resentment by growling in a situation like this, but for these two novices curiosity got the better of fear and the male started to stalk the women with his belly almost touching the forest floor. He moved forward very cautiously with not making as much of a sound. His sister, thoroughly amused by his movements, watched him closely.

   Ignorant of the danger, the four women dispersed in the grass near the bamboo thicket and started collecting fallen dry wood. Soon Lamia was left by herself. The tiger, almost invisible in the dry grass hardly fifteen paces away, was following her movements intently.

   At this critical moment poor Lamia made the fatal mistake of bowing down, as she tried to pile up the wood she had collected. The hidden tiger, presuming that bowing Lamia was a quadruped, rushed and pounced on her.

   The uncertainty in life makes it beautiful. We all lose it one day, not knowing when, where and how. This suspense of the game of life and death is as attractive as it is tragic.

   Lamia’s mortal shriek was heard by other women who immediately rushed for help, but went nearly paralysed with fear when they saw a big tiger lying over Lamia and giving vent to full-throated roars on seeing them. They rushed to the village, crying and yelling madly. Their screams gradually became fainted as Lamia heard them, slowly lapsing into soothing unconsciousness.

   In the meantime the tigress had joined her brother. They were still confused over their unfamiliar catch, which they had not killed yet. Lamia’s torn cloths fluttering in the strong wind, her oily hair smelling strong and her bangles jingling on little movements put the two tigers in a dilemma. But the blood oozing out from the gashes received by Lamia as the tiger attacked her invoked the instinct of a carnivore and in a moment the Chorbehra Tigers turned into man eaters.

   All the elephants were called later that afternoon to scare the tigers away and recover Lamia’s partly eaten body. Mahout Mitthu, a distant relative of Lamia, could not hold his tears back as he did the job.

   The people of Tala and nearby villages crowded to see the victim’s body kept at the police chowky till late in the night. They became numb with fright and started fearing even their own shadows for two seemingly innocent tigers had turned  into fiends overnight and still roamed the jungle around them.

   Baigas of Bijharia created an effigy of Baghesur, the deity in the shape of a tiger, under the large banyan tree at the outskirts of the village. They worshipped the Baghesur and their priest performed many secrete rituals. The witchcraft assured the Baigas that there was no more danger from the man eaters now and the culprit tigers would shun the forest of Ketkia and Judwani adjoining the village. Truly so, for months passed and no more human life was claimed.

   Then came the month of May and Nautapa, or the hottest nine days of the year started with full fury. Hot winds without a trace of moisture blew even through the night. During one such stormy night the Chorbehra Tigers, along with their mother, killed a full-grown bull in the middle of the forest colony. Pandemonium broke loose in the morning when people saw three tigers feeding on the mangled mass openly, and right in the front of their houses. The mother left immediately hearing the screams and shouting but the two renegades gave a tough time to the forest guards and officials before they were forced to abandon the kill and retreat into the surrounding jungle. This incident caused uproar among the authorities and finally a special team was dispatched to capture all the three tigers alive and send them to Van Vihar, the famous zoo of Bhopal.

   Now there is nothing more torturous for a free-ranging tiger than the incarceration in a zoo. Most of the tigers captured from the wild and forced to spend their lives in captivity either die soon or go mad.

   The Chorbehra Tigers had committed a grave crime by killing Lamia, but they did that on the spur of the moment. They needed at least one more lease of freedom. After much debate and lot of appealing from conservationists and even from the people of Bijharia in their favour, the ‘capture operation’ was called off. The Baigas of Bijharia took a sigh of relief as they did not want their ‘Tiger-Deity’ further enraged by the capture of the tigers. They had lived under the awe of Baghesur for ages. On the other hand they claimed that their witchcraft had turned the killers of Lamia into normal tigers and they were not to be feared anymore.

   Lamia was soon forgotten but it seemed very strange that the tales about her promiscuity kept circling long after her violent death. The young tigers got their part of justice, but perhaps Lamia did not.

(The story above is based on a true incident. This incident happened in 2007.)

Kashmir Catastrophe

This is something unbelievable. People, both young and old, are dying in Kashmir but they are still violating curfew everywhere. They are emotionally charged by the urge for freedom. This is something like Quite India movement in 1942. Thousands of troops have failed in front of this mass public retaliation. Surprisingly, the one and only weapon these protestors have is a piece of stone. The ‘stone pelting’ is proving far more effective than the AK 47 or rocket launchers.

What has gone wrong? Why the people in Kashmir are so unhappy with India? Whom to blame for this situation? The Indian government will have to answer these questions. This is the time for self analysis. Kashmir is slipping away from the hands of India.

  

Tigress Dead

Jhurjhura Tigress, the mother of three small cubs, is dead. Some vehicle hit her on her left side damaging her liver and kidney. The tigress died at 9.20 am on 19 May 2010 in Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve. The identity of the vehicle is still unknown, but the truth will come out.

I Support Shahrukh Khan

Any Pakistani cricketer has the right to play anywhere in India and I fully share this view with actor Shahrukh Khan. Being an Indian, I am proud of our culture of co-existance. The beauty of India lies in it's diversity and even the whole world can't destroy it. I can only feel sorry for the petty politicians of Shivsena, for they live in a very small world.
Muslims of India don't need certificate from anybody. They belong to India and even they can't deny from this very fact.