Dear readers, last week I was fortunate to visit the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in the heart of Madhya Pradesh. Although I had some stunning sightings of what is easily among the most graceful, powerful and beautiful animals on the planet, this post is not about that. It is about an amazing, true story of a tigress and a forest guard.



One of the reasons Bandhavgarh has the highest tiger density in the world is that, apart from it being well managed, compared with the tiger reserves in Rajasthan and UP, it is an ideal tiger habitat. It abounds in tiger’s food such as Chital and Sambhar deer, and the terrain is just what it should be. Meadows, water bodies, a perennial water stream, hills, thick forest and caves that ensure that the tiger, if he so wishes, can perform a catwalk to delight thousands of visitors to the park, or choose to remain hidden, away from the prying eyes of man.



The last bit is of critical importance to the tigress, especially when she’s pregnant. Speak to those who follow tigers and they’d tell you that one seldom gets to see the cubs till they are at least three months old. The first glimpse of the cubs can be had only when the tigress, having shielded them from those who can harm them, is confident that they are now strong enough and ready to learn the ways of the jungle, including observing how a kill is made. I am sharing all this so that you can better grasp the story that I am about to narrate.



Forest guard Chandar Bhan Singh is an able man and is rated highly by his peers and superiors. He is among the few who patrol the park on foot, keeping track of movements of animals, including those who can attack him, such as tigers, hyenas, bear, wolves, etc. The foot patrol is also critical to check if poachers are up to some mischief. It was during one such patrol that Chandar Bhan sighted what none in the current lot of guards had. He saw, hidden from all in a small cave, tiny tiger cubs. Now, when Chandar Bhan saw the cubs, their mother too saw that this human had seen where the cubs were.

(Forest guard Chandar Bhan Singh)

Full of excitement and eager to win brownie points, Chandar Bhan sprinted back to tell his boss, who too was excited and said they must go and take a look. Since it was evening, they postponed the trip to the next morning. In the morning when the two went looking for the cubs, they realised that the tigress, having sensed that the hideout had been exposed, had moved them somewhere else.



Initially, Chandar Bhan’s boss pooh-poohed his claim that he had seen the cubs, but then they decided to look around, assuming that it couldn’t be too far away considering there were two. By evening, the two found the new hideout. Once again, the tigress noticed the duo who were on the lookout for her cubs, and one of them was Chandar Bhan.



This time, the eager and excited boss thought it was his turn to earn some brownie points, so he went and informed his superior, who in turn got excited and expressed a desire to see the cubs. So, the next day, Chandar Bhan, his boss and the boss’s boss all went together to the point where the tigress had hidden the cubs. But no, the tigress was smarter and had moved location again. The desperate trio, against all norms of forestry and acceptable behaviour towards wild animals, thought they must find out where the cubs had been hidden and decided to comb the area.



About 70 guards stood in a line, at a distance of not more than five metres apart, and started combing the area where they thought the tigress might have hidden the cubs. Within minutes, out of nowhere emerged an enraged tigress, and she came straight at Chandar Bhan and pinned him down.



She used her hind legs to make his legs immobile, put her formidable paws on his chest and growled at him, looking straight into his eyes. Chandar Bhan recalls that not once did he feel she was going to sink her canines into him. She just growled to express her extreme displeasure at his temerity to endanger the lives of her cubs.



While the others stood around, shocked and astounded at the sudden happening, Chandar Bhan, whose hands were still free, waived the small stick he was carrying in his hands. The tigress parried the stick and in the process the paw scratched his face. The tigress then disappeared as quickly as she had appeared.



A shaken Chandar Bhan sat up, dazed, till others gathered around and told him that one of his eyes had fallen out of the socket. While they quickly moved him to a hospital and even shifted him to Sankar Nethralaya in Chennai, the eye couldn’t be saved.

But the point of this tale is not that Chandar Bhan lost his eye, but the tigress’s behaviour. No one can deny that Chandar Bhan, his bosses and others acted most irresponsibly in not respecting the privacy of a immensely shy animal. Instead of being benefactors of tigers, they were behaving like petulant kids. This was in sharp contrast to the tigress’s behaviour.



The sharp power of observation that she showed she possesses is amazing. She recognised that the common thread across the three attempts to locate her young cubs was this man, and she had the ability to single him out of the 70-odd and pin him down. Even more importantly, something that Chandar Bhan himself admitted and which vouched for by all those who witnessed the attack, not once did the tigress show she wanted to harm him. Her intention was to merely give him a stern warning, to lay off and not endanger her cubs. And having done that, she disappeared in the bushes.



If anything, the tigress displayed traits that should otherwise be considered human while the real humans displayed all the weaknesses of mankind – temptation, greed, impatience, easy way out.



And the guards certainly seem to have learned their lesson. While Chandar Bhan, a much wiser man, proudly displays the scratch marks on his chest and vows never to let anybody mess with the tiger’s personal space, the others too seem to understand the onerous task they have at hand.

Ultimately, they all realise, and I hope this feeling grows, that while a mobile company or others can do all that they wish to raise awareness, it is people like them on whom the real responsibility lies. I noticed first hand the seriousness with which the park administration, led by a very able director, takes its task. They entertain absolutely no request that is illegal.

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