The Long Walk of a Single Mother

It is a reckless script gone so horribly wrong that a happy ending is unbelievable, if not impossible. A desperate mother seeking shelter far from her forest home in the fields to save her two cubs from murderous males; villagers living the terror of running into big cats amid standing crop they cannot afford to abandon; forest ground staff trying hard to avert conflict that could end all hope for the tiger family. This could well be a tragedy of circumstance but for the villains of the piece

Open, 15 January, 2011

It was nearing noon. Standing on the high western bank, I could see a broken layer of mist still hanging on the Chambal river. The gentle slopes leading to the water glistened with promising crop. About a hundred yards to my left, the slope became steeper where the Kharad nallah, a minor tributary, joined the mighty river. Behind me, red gram (arhar dal) crop stood four feet tall on a rectangular field. Less than 50 yards to the right, shrubby growth of thorny vegetation broke the monotony of green.

Walking single file, forest officials were looking for pugmarks so that they could warn the farmers working nearby. A tigress and her two cubs had killed a cow barely a kilometre away four days ago. Range Officer Jodhraj Singh Hada had already deployed eight men to keep track of the runaway family. Now he was out in the field himself to assess the ground situation.

Clearly, nobody except me was expecting any miracle. But then, these were hardened forest hands, and this was only the fifth time I was looking for tigers on foot. So while I wistfully surveyed the vegetation around, most eyes scanned the ground next to their feet. If we spotted fresh pugmarks, I was told, we would count ourselves lucky.

Walking about 50 yards ahead of me, Hada spotted a lonely farm hand and stopped to give a routine warning. Forester Mahavir Sharma was keeping pace with me. Earlier, as we drove past sprawling mustard fields, he had laughed off the possibility of black-and-golden stripes darting out of a sea of yellow. “Try spotting a tiger here,” he chuckled again, pointing at the standing red gram crop to our right that shuttered vision more effectively than Venetian blinds. I smiled sheepishly and stopped looking.

Two forest guards who were painstakingly scouting the slopes below for pugmarks suddenly decided to catch up with us. Possibly their upward momentum took them a few yards inside the red gram field. Ahead of us, Hada was now standing in an open ploughed ground, looking for that farm hand. Mahavir and I also veered to the right to cut distance.

Perhaps the four of us formed a human chain too close-knit for comfort. Out of the blue, I heard an angry rumbling. Through the corner of my right eye, I caught a glimpse of at least two big cats making a dash in our direction barely ten yards away. The next second, I could only see the vegetation sway and Mahavir dash away. The rumbling of the growl only got louder. Unsure and terrified, I blindly lunged forward.

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My desperate lunge got me entangled in a bush of thorny Prosopis juliflora. But the tigress, known as T13 in Ranthambhore, had no intention to harm any of us. She was worried for her cubs and had just warned us before we got too close for mutual safety. For more than a month now, her close vigil against people has worked. But the next time, her nerve may not hold.


On 26 December, the Ranthambhore management launched a search after T13 and her cubs had been missing for 22 days. On 29 December, forest guards found their pugmarks, and the same day, a blue bull kill made by T13 was spotted near Senwati Dharmpuri, more than 10 km from her home range inside Rajasthan’s famous national park.

Bodol forester Sudarshan Sharma saw the family the day the blue bull kill was found. He noticed that one of the cubs was bigger, implying a male. But why did he lose track of the family? How did the three big cats leave the reserve unnoticed? Sudarshan claims the canny tigress took the hilly ridge behind his range via Bheronpura village and then took the Kundli riverbed to reach the Chambal. To be fair, if tigress T13 had managed to give her murderous suitors the slip, Sharma stood little chance.

To complicate matters further, T13’s aging mother, T14, has also been pushed out of the reserve by younger competitors. The old tigress is now fighting her last battle for survival in the same ravines not too far away from her daughter’s family. While T14’s days are numbered, aged tigers wandering close to habitations have a history of getting into conflict with humans. If the old granny ends up attacking people, the mother and cubs may have to face the ire of villagers.

Meanwhile, out in the ravines, T13 made her first cattle kill on 2 January near Lasora village. Ranger Hada promptly swung into action. Forest guards recovered the remains of the kill the next day to leave no room for poisoning. On 7 January, a local NGO raised funds through its volunteer network to compensate for the kill. With Rs 5,000 each coming from the volunteers and government, Bhuvanya Bairwa admitted that he would make a small profit on the bull he lost to the tiger.

Lasora sarpanch Tej Singh appeared a reasonable man. Before posing with Bairwa and Mahavir for photographs while handing over the compensation, he did ask Hada how soon the ranger would take away those tigers. But when told that the mother and cubs might turn the village’s fortune around, Singh listened carefully. Hada explained that thanks to the tigers, Lasora had already been added to a list of villages that will benefit from a new Rs 12 crore ‘tiger fund’ meant for micro development. Now Singh was nodding easily; so a little routine advice followed on the precautions to be observed while the tigers were around. It was a breeze. The few villagers present readily agreed to comply. Relieved, a confident Hada went scouting for pugmarks.

But the growling, darting tigers were surely more than what the forest staff had bargained for. Immediately after the scare, Hada readily accepted suggestions from Dr Dharmendra Khandal, noted field biologist who generated supplementary compensation for the cattle kill, to preempt conflict. With a frown on his forehead, the ranger set out to plan daily village meetings, pamphlets for distribution and even media advertisements.

But the media has already lapped up the story, explaining the runaway tigress as a victim of over-population. Intimidated by too many males, forest bosses explained, tigress T13 fled the reserve to save her cubs. For the record, the tigress was photographed on 1 October last year. Next morning, she was seen fighting and pushing a male tiger, T28, almost 3 km back from Ranthambhore’s Ada Balaji main road to Goolar Kui. That night, she was seen by the forest staff at the main road barrier with her cubs. The next day, she boldly crossed the tar road with her cubs and probably started her journey away from the nasty males.

In the absence of the tiger that sired T13’s cubs, any other male tiger seeking to mate with her would first kill the cubs to establish its own bloodline. Also, it is not rare for a male tiger to be killed or chased away by a more able adversary. But the father of T13’s cubs was not eliminated by nature. Tiger T12, one of Ranthambhore’s four dominant males then, was airlifted to Sariska last year in a joint exercise by the state forest department, Wildlife Institute of India and National Tiger Conservation Authority.

After the first three translocated tigers turned out to be siblings (‘Conservation: the New Killer,’ Open, 24 July 2009), the Sariska repopulation drive was put on hold and a thorough DNA test was ordered (‘Centre Orders DNA Test for Tigers,’ Open, 24 February 2010). The fourth tiger was to be picked up based on this DNA report (‘DNA Tests Confirm Sariska Siblings,’ Open, 26 June 2010). But the officials inexplicably decided to overlook other crucial criteria. A Union ministry guideline clearly stated that only young transient tigers could be selected for translocation. Nevertheless, forest officials shifted a mature male tiger, which had already impregnated a tigress, T13 (‘Dispatched to Die,’ Open, 19 November 2010).

It was nothing short of a pre-natal death sentence for the cubs. Only a really exceptional mother could raise her cubs in the absence of their father. And so far, T13 has done a great job.

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But life around Lasora is on the edge. The people here are simple, unlikely to target the big cats if they get timely, adequate compensation for livestock losses. Between Hada and Dr Khandal, they have a sound assurance. But an accidental attack on people—a distinct possibility during the crop gathering due next month—can change the entire equation. T13 needs to shield her seven-month-old cubs for another 13-17 months. Major conflict is inevitable if the family stays put in the cropland and ravines for that long.

Presence of ample livestock and some wild prey in the fields along the Chambal river may discourage major movement of the family. However, it is not really practical to tranquilise all three tigers simultaneously, which is essential to keep the family together. In any case, taking the family back to the national park will again expose the cubs to dominant males, and the tigress’ courageous foray into the unknown to save her young ones will come to naught.

The tigress has not tried to cross the Chambal river yet, probably because her cubs are too young to risk the tide. But if the trio does move onto the other side of the river in the months to come, they will enter a very crowded landscape and may run into poachers. While gunmen may hit them even at their present location, it is easier to secure the area, flanked as it is by the tiger reserve and the river. In recent times, few Ranthambhore tigers that crossed the Chambal have survived.

So, is there no hope for T13 and her cubs? Nature is never short of possibilities. Male tigers do not harm young females that are potential mates. So if both cubs of T13 are female, the family may well be rehabilitated if it moves back to Bheronpura area in the Sawai Man Singh sanctuary, about 6 km from its present location. Bheronpura has a small but good tiger habitat without any resident tiger and is only occasionally scouted by a couple of male tigers.
However, if Sudarshan’s observation is right, T13 will be wary of venturing anywhere close to the forest with a male cub. Unfortunately, a growing male cub in the cropland may also increase the chances of conflict.

Ranger Hada and his team of ground staff have a thankless job at hand. These foot soldiers of conservation are now expected to undo the damage done by their mighty generals. Rajasthan’s chief wildlife warden HM Bhatia went on record last week accepting that T12 is the father of T13’s cubs, but did not explain why the tiger was packed away. The WII scientists who picked up T12 after handpicking three siblings are still at the helm of the country’s most ambitious conservation project. The NTCA has not explained why it flouted its own guidelines by allowing the translocation of a dominant male.

It will take great resolve and much greater luck if the ground staff are to secure the future of T13 and her cubs. However, it should take Environment and Forests Minister Jairam Ramesh much, much less to fix some accountability, somewhere.

Just laugh it away, Mr Ranthambhore

Though stunning in its winter splendor, Ranthambhore is incomplete till the resident tigerman returns from his sickbed in Jaipur

The Bengal Post, 13 January, 2011

“What do you do with so much mustard?” The question came from an American couple who clearly had a taste for that yellow sauce (the more innocuous French versions of it) but were at a loss, considering the quantity of paste those hundreds of acres of standing flowers would amount to.

It was heartening to note that in a sea of tiger-hungry tourists, there were a few who drove away from Ranthambhore, cutting across those luscious mustard fields in search of blackbucks. The Americans went back with happy photographs and the knowledge of a new cooking medium. Ranthambhore always has a surprise or two for every visitor.

My friends among those blackbuck spotters recalled the collective “whoa!” that went up earlier in the day as their vehicle bounced up the undulated entry road on way to Jogi Mahal, throwing open the spectacular horizon. Under a mystical aerostat of bluish mist that masked the sun, the panorama was complete with craggy rock faces and majestic fort walls draped in winter vegetation of green and yellow.

It is difficult to feel partial to any particular forest. But Ranthambhore feels almost like home. Though I do not even remember the last time I entered the national park for a safari, this amazing forest has never failed to surprise me with its bounty of wildlife and stories. In fact, some of my best tiger encounters happened outside this national park, including the surreal leap of a young male tiger that cleared my jeep as I watched his white belly fly overhead.

My first Ranthambhore trip of 2011 was a short one. Yet it packed the usual punch -- two playful leopards by the road near Kushalpura village, a growling tigress with two cubs in the Chambal ravines, villagers negotiating the demands of conservation, and the customary evening debates in the open by the fireside.

But something was amiss. Ranthambhore’s resident tigerman Fateh Singh Rathore was away in Jaipur, in hospital for more than a week now. One who refused to lose his hearty laughter even after losing much of his voice, Fateh is a rare life force. But those close to him said he was not too well.


I know Fateh, Fatji to his innumerable admirers, for many years. He is the man who had virtually created the Ranthambhore national park as its first conservator. A true old world forester, he lived inside the forest and often put his life at risk to protect the park. A number of broken bones in his body still testify to those wild days.

I have never written anything on Fateh’s immense contribution to tiger conservation (lest it appeared a puff job). But some of my news reports did show him and his NGO’s early dealings in a not-so-favourable light. Not too long back, Fateh spoke to me of the injustice done to him and his family by the forest department when parts of their properties were demolished but I did not report (it was not national news). In short, Fateh had enough reasons to resent me.

However, I do not recall a single occasion when Fateh closed his doors to me. Every time he learns I am in town, he gets a beer or two placed in the freezer in case I drop by unannounced during the day. Age has forced him to give up drinking but it is still my privilege to light up a cigarette for him every time we meet. On occasions, I have simply walked in and shared his lunch.

Why has Fateh been so indulgent to a journalist who did him no favour? Is it because he believes my stories help his cause of tiger conservation? Possibly, yes. But I think it is in his nature to show warmth and trust people. He has many detractors, some among his friends, who routinely let him down. Some of them were jealous of his global fame, some others gloated whenever he was harassed by the establishment. A few still call him farji (fake) behind his back. For all his rustic charm, Fateh is sharp enough to know who stands where. But time and again, I have seen him open up with childlike spontaneity to his detractors when they need him. One requires a lion’s (or tiger’s) heart for that.

Dr Dharmendra Khandal came to Ranthambhore to work in Fateh’s NGO, TigerWatch, in 2003. Today, he is recognised internationally for his successful anti-poaching operations. I have never seen the boss rankled by his protégé’s meteoric rise even when occasional reporters left Ranthambhore with Dr Khandal’s quotes, without even meeting Fateh. Instead, he has happily given his protégé more space with each passing year.

To be fair, Fateh is no saint and he never claimed to be one. Like many Rathores, he has a weakness for land, lager (or whiskey) and ladies. Like most of us, he loves attention. His famed knowledge of tigers, though unmatched among his contemporaries, is largely anecdotal. At times, he overstates his cases against the establishment. When he is angry, he is usually abusive.

What distinguishes Fateh though from more visible tiger experts is the ferocity of his passion. He often concludes our discussions with a simple vow: “So long I am alive, come what may, I won’t let tigers disappear from Ranthambhore.” I often hear such lines in my job. I can tell Fateh does mean it.

But, like Ranthambhore, Fateh also keeps surprising me. In a world where experts are life prisoners of their early convictions, I least expected Fateh to be an exception. A man of modest education and feudal upbringing, he set up Ranthambhore by resettling villages and fighting poachers in the only way he knew: with an iron hand. Decades later, he was asked to accept that only guns would not save tigers, that poor tribal poachers were also victims of their circumstances. It required a paradigm shift in thinking that more erudite conservationists struggled with. But Fateh was up to it and soon, TigerWatch started rehabilitating poachers and educating their children.

For me, Fateh is as special a person as Ranthambhore a place. It is difficult to think of the two in isolation. The place owes its coming-into-being to the man. The man loves the place so much that he refuses to stay away one extra night than necessary. I am sure Fateh is laughing away his damned sickbed in Jaipur and itching to return. Ranthambhore is waiting.