Tiger, tiger burning bright! My most memorable wildlife moment ever

[Guest guest]

Dear all,

I have always been uncomfortable when friends and

colleagues, especially from abroad asked me if I had seen a tiger in the

wild because I had not. Well, I will not be anymore. For on 11th December,

2009, at 4.30 pm I saw my first wild tiger at Kanha National Park in Madhya

Pradesh where I was attending a training programme for senior forest and

police officers with office colleagues.

 

We went on a park drive as soon as we arrived on 11th December and one hour

of the most intensive searching did not reveal anything. And just when I had

given up hope and we were completing the last round of the tour, the king of

the Indian jungle was spotted in a ravine in Salghat Charia in Kisli Range.

He could not be clearly seen initially. But we stayed put and then he walked

out on the trail right in front of our jeep, barely ten feet from where we

were stationed.

 

The tiger is an animal that does make me speciesist, at least momentarily.

The Giant Panda is cuter, the Pygmy Hog more endangered, the Snow Leopard

more elusive, the Leopard perhaps more difficult to spot and Great Apes more

interactive. But the tiger is simply the tiger in terms of sheer glamour and

appeal and when the animal walked out in the open, it was a feeling unlike

any other I have ever experienced, it was so thrilling.

 

My first wild tiger! Panthera tigris. The consort of Santoshi Maa, one of

the most revered figures in Hindu mythology. Rudyard Kipling’s villainous

Sher Khan. Jim Corbett’s large hearted gentleman. Billy Arjan Singh’s

controversial hybrid Tara. Saroj Raj Chaudhuri’s beloved Khairi. The animal

the World Bank wants to save. The target of the entire poaching community.

George Schaller’s subject of study in 1965 in Kanha National Park. William

Blake’s inspiration for his immortal poem. The subject of endless discussion

and debate among conservationists, animal rights activists and animal

welfarists. India’s national animal that has now become a symbol of

conservation worldwide.

 

But when you first view the animal, these thoughts do not occur at all. You

are struck speechless by the sheer beauty and grace of the animal. The

animal I saw initially was a large male in prime condition, and he was

visible for half an hour flat. He ambled down the road, followed and

preceded by our jeep and several others. He marked his territory and went

inside a thicket several times, only to re emerge. I was literally

trembling with emotion when I first spotted him, so great was my excitement.

Several scores of photos and minutes of video filming later, he vanished as

mysteriously as he had appeared. The King of the Indian forests had finally

condescended to grant me a sighting. The forest guards were tipped

handsomely for all their help after the trip by my colleagues and me.

 

Later on, we saw another tigress in another area but the first sighting is

the one that will remain embedded in my memory till the day I die. I must

have seen several hundreds of zoo and circus tigers, but these two animals

were incomparable to anything I have seen before.

 

We saw several other species, Gaur, Jackal, Sambar, Cheetal, Langur, Peafowl,

Paradise Flycatcher, Kestrel, Shikra, Barred Jungle Owlet and Spotted Munia

among others but the Tiger captured the show for the entire duration of my

stay in Kanha. Even as I write this note, I feel a tingling sensation of awe

and wonder at having seen such a marvel of evolution. A sensation only

comparable to the beauty of a starlit night that continues to stupefy me. A

sensation that makes you feel that animals are worth saving for waht they

are, and not what we can get out of them.

 

A live animal makes you respect the process of evolution and pay attention

to their habitat, for the Kanha forest is as beautiful as a cathedral,

especially when light filters in through the massive sal trees. And I can do

no better to end this note than share a quote with you by the American

ornithologist William Beebe, that repeatedly struck my mind during nights at

Kanha : " The beauty and genius of a work of art may be reconceived, though

its first material expression be destroyed; a vanished harmony may yet again

inspire the composer; but when the last individual of a race of living

beings breathes no more, another heaven and another earth must pass before

such a one can be again. " (*The Bird* (1906).

 

When I left Kanha today morning, I bowed once before entering the

vehicle. Expressed

my gratitude to the gifts of organic evolution and hoped that the rolling

greenery of this marvellous national park, one of the best maintained in

Asia, would always be a home to the most regal denizen of the Asian

wilderness.

 

Thank you.

 

Regards,