part0005

R ana Shaan-Bahadur, the most macho and royal of the Royal Bengal tigers of Sher-kila National Park, yawned and stretched as the first golden rays of the sun set his coat afire. His Personal Assistant and Press Secretary, Naradmunni the jackal, swept up dust with his tail and smiled ingratiatingly as he crawled towards him, head between paws.

‘Huzoor, I bring glad tidings on this golden morn! The world-famous photographer from the National Geographic , the beautiful raven-haired Ayesha, has arrived at the Rest House. And even as we speak, she could be setting forth into the park to take pictures in the gilded light of this new dawn…’

Shaan-Bahadur’s green eyes glittered. ‘Eh? What the hell are you talking about?’ Then understanding glimmered. ‘Is that so? I’d better go down to the waterhole and make sure I’m looking good…’ Actually, it was the first thing Shaan-Bahadur did every morning—look at his re flection and make sure that every whisker was perfectly groomed and positioned, and his coat glowed like the interior of Popacatapetl volcano.

‘Huzoor, do forgive me, but you always look so noble. You are the most handsome tiger in the country, even in the morning when you awake, with bits of grass sticking out from your head and ears and your dragon’s breath that can render a rhinoceros unconscious at twenty feet!’ Naradmunni rolled his eyes and reeled as if he were about to faint.

‘You talk too much!’ Shaan-Bahadur growled and made his way down the rocky path. The waterhole was some distance away, surrounded by high elephant grass with only one winding path leading to and from it. Shaan-Bahadur had often crouched behind the grass, at a bend, waiting for prey and had scored many kills here. In the summer, when most of the other waterholes dried up, many animals had no choice but to come here to drink.

This morning however, well before sunrise, there had been visitors of a different, sinister kind. Two men in khaki shorts and shirts, carrying something which had terrible steel jaws. They had stopped on the path near one of the spots from where Shaan-Bahadur had launched many an ambush and then nodded to each other, keeping their torches well hooded. They were armed, and while one looked around nervously, the other began his work. It took him longer than he thought it would because the soil was rock hard and by the time he finished, the sun had turned the waters to gold.

Unknown to them, Ayesha the beautiful raven-haired photographer from the National Geographic , had also risen very early, coiled her tresses into a neat bun at the nape of her neck and had set out in a Gypsy towards the waterhole in the hope of photographing the animals and birds that came there to drink and bathe. Normally, of course, visitors were not allowed unescorted into the park, but Ayesha, a prize-winning photographer and wildlife film-maker, was from the National Geographic after all. She had beautiful silky hair and the most wonderful curling eyelashes (framing big black eyes) that anyone (and certainly the Field Director) had ever seen…

‘You just stand around farting, don’t tell me to hurry up!’ the first man snapped irritably. ‘Come on now, it’s done! Let’s go! We’ll check again at dusk.’

They packed up their digging equipment and started to walk back around the bend…

…And came face to face with Shaan-Bahadur!

‘Yaaaa, mummy bachao!’ they shouted and backed away, white in the face, too petrified to raise their guns.

‘Grrrrrowwwrrr!’ Shaan-Bahadur roared, equally startled. He roared again and then turned and fled, leaping through the grass as though the devil was behind him.

Phattack! went the trap as one of the men tripped backwards on top of it, its jaws snapping shut on his bottom.

‘Owww! Pakad liya!’ he howled, clutching his bum and trying to free it of those merciless jaws. The other man panicked and dived into the waterhole forgetting that tigers were good swimmers… and anyway now Magar and Machch, the crocodiles who owned it, were languidly swimming towards him.

‘Breakfast is served, darling,’ Magar murmured, grinning.

‘You are too kind, my sweet!’ Machch said, flipping his tail.

‘Oh my God!’ Ayesha, breathed as she squinted through her viewfinder, her finger firmly pressed on the camera’s shutter button. She had parked her Gypsy at a vantage point and had seen (and photographed) everything. Well, almost everything: she’d got the face-to-face meeting between the men and the tiger and the poachers falling back, but (happily) not any shots of Shaan-Bahadur fleeing through the grass.

Within hours the photographs were everywhere, on the Internet, on YouTube, on Facebook, on every TV news channel. To say they had gone viral would be completely inadequate.

Before seven o’clock that morning, Rana Shaan- Bahadur had become the world’s most famous tiger—the only tiger to have caught poachers in their own trap. He was an international celebrity!

‘Holy chital,’ muttered Ugly Thug, the park’s Beta-male (no prizes for guessing who the alpha male was), ‘now his head is going to swell like a watermelon!’ He shook his own massive head. His chances of becoming boss tiger had diminished considerably. As it is all the tigresses in the park, Raat-ki-Raani, Resham, Razia and Lolita, went weak at the knees and behaved in a disgracefully coy manner when Shaan-Bahadur walked past them.

Naradmunni, of course, was ecstatic. ‘National Geographic , BBC, CNN, NDTV, ABC, DEF, GHI…! Boss, you name the channel and you’re on it!’

Shaan-Bahadur made the most of his celebrity status. He changed his Facebook profile photo every half hour. He posed statuesquely at sunrise and sunset when photographers get the best light, on the ramparts of the Sher-kila. He roared and snarled ferociously, he conducted mock charges, he tried very hard to be photographed while actually hunting, but the stupid chital didn’t cooperate and ran away behind some high grass… He was magnificent.

Tigresses as a rule are not in the habit of gossiping (or kitty partying), but after Shaan-Bahadur’s rise to stardom, they couldn’t help messaging each other frantically by squirting on their ‘walls’ (tree trunks) and calling .

‘I’m going to have his cubs,’ Raat-ki-Rani announced proudly as the others growled jealously. It was true… Three or four months ago Naradmunni had smugly informed the others that Shaan-Bahadur and Raat-ki-Rani were an ‘item’.

Well, their turn would come. Shaan-Bahadur was notoriously fickle and changed his mates frequently. Also, he wanted to father every single cub in the park. In the meanwhile, the other tigresses had to accept types like Thug and Taimur and Caligua.

‘Sure, but last time he walked past me, he gave me that look !’ Razia now messaged with a delicious shudder. ‘You know what that means? Turned my knees to water, I can tell you.’

‘And he pretended to drive me away from a kill I had made,’ Lolita replied. ‘I know the silly fellow was only flirting!’

‘Did you run away?’ Resham questioned bitingly.

‘I was honoured that he ate at my table,’ Lolita replied with great dignity. ‘And he ate everything!’

‘Sure, sure!’ the others chorused, ‘Of course he would!’

‘I’m the one he’s really after,’ Razia squirted smugly. ‘He ignores me, and that’s the first sign that he’s interested. One day he’ll…’

‘Keep on dreaming, darling.’

Soon, though, the outside world, in its usual fickle way, lost interest and drifted away. Not that it made any difference to Shaan-Bahadur; his head remained swollen as a pumpkin. He made sure that no tiger in the park ever forgot his deed. If any tiger or tigress did not show him the respect and deference he thought they should, they received a swift swipe to the head and a jet of urine up their noses, accompanied by a roar: ‘Do you know who I am, you hyena-striped scumbag? Now grovel!’

There was however, one person who was still interested in him: Ayesha, the beautiful raven-haired photographer. She had often wondered what had happened to him that morning; she had been so busy photographing the poachers falling into their trap and jumping into the waterhole that she had not seen what had become of him. Had he, in the manner of the best heroes, done his brave deed and vanished like a phantom super tiger? Of course, very soon afterwards, he had been photographed scores of times, posing statuesquely on the fort, but was that because he was clever? By letting the paparazzi and visitors photograph him was he ensuring that they wouldn’t bother him at other times, when he wanted his privacy?