part0010

A ll that afternoon and evening, Ayesha photographed the family of tigers. With delight she watched the cubs play, mock fight and pretend to hunt each other. She watched Zafraan sidle up to his mother and settle down beneath her chin; she watched the others rough and tumble all over their mother; she saw Raat-ki-Rani lovingly groom her cubs. Occasionally, the tigress would glance up at her, but she didn’t seem upset by her presence. Very cautiously, and step by step, Ayesha began descending into the ravine, so that she could get closer. Raat-ki-Rani watched her and gave a low growl when she thought she had come close enough. Ayesha stopped and hunkered down. From this spot she’d get some gorgeous pictures, especially since the sun was turning the animals to pure gold.

Eventually the sun slipped behind some craggy outcrops, and the ravine lay deep in shadow. Ayesha knew it was time to return—being close to a tigress with cubs in the dark was not wise. Thrilled with her pictures, she climbed up the ravine and drove off in her Gypsy, her heart singing.

From behind a huge lantana bush, Khoon-Pyaasa watched her go. He had scanned the ravine thoroughly, walking up and down its length from the top. The walls were almost sheer, impossible for anything or anyone but a mountaineer to climb up. There was only one narrow winding path leading into and out of it, which Ayesha had used and along which the tigers would have to walk to get out and return to the forest. It would be so easy.

Twenty minutes later he shot Raat-ki-Rani clean through the head as she led her family around a narrow bend flanked by high rocks. He’d shimmied up a convenient tree and it was the perfect spot for an assassin. The tigress was flung backwards by the impact of the bullet, but landed on her feet. Then, eyes blazing she roared and charged. Fifteen feet high on his branch, Khoon-Pyaasa yelped with terror and wet his pants. The furious tigress gathered herself for her leap, and as she became airborne, died. But the momentum of her leap enabled her to rake Khoon-Pyaasa’s bottom with her claws. With a shout of fright he fell out of the tree and landed on the back of the dead tigress. Somehow he gathered himself, frantically got on to his bicycle and gibbering with terror like a monkey, rattled off at top speed. His bum was going to be very sore for a long time.

The cubs had instinctively bolted and scattered at the sound of the shot. Hasti and Masti had fled back down into the ravine, and Phasti just vanished headfirst into the nearest lantana bush. Zafraan leapt up at the rock-face, fell back and followed his sisters into the ravine.

Khoon-Pyaasa did not stop cycling till he reached his village.

‘Oye, what happened to your bum this time?’ Pappu inquired, ‘and your pants are all torn.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t think you’ll be sitting down for a long time now.’

‘That tigress! She attacked me after I shot her! I had to flee for my life.’

‘Did you kill her?’ Pappu tore up a bedsheet and gleefully emptied half a bottle of tincture iodine onto it.

‘Yes! Shot her through the head. Owww! Abbe, what the hell are you doing?’

‘Hold still! And the cubs?’

‘They fled. They’ll die. They’ll starve without their mother.’

‘We should retrieve her body. We’ll get a good price for her skin and bones.’

‘I’m not going back there—you go! My bum is torn to shreds and I can’t even sit down.’ He glanced at his bum. ‘What the hell have you done, tied a pugree on it?’

‘Bandage,’ Pappu said succinctly. ‘You’d better not fart.’

An hour after the terrible shot had been fired, Hasti, Masti, Phasti and Zafraan, who had found each other in the ravine, padded up the path and approached their mother cautiously.

‘That noise!’ Hasti complained. ‘My ears are still ringing! What was it?’

‘Mamma did a backward somersault!’ Masti giggled. ‘Did you see?’

‘Gave me the fright of my life!’

Zafraan shook his head. ‘That was a shot. Someone shot at us!’

‘Just look at Mamma!’ Hasti said. ‘She’s gone to sleep!’

‘Mamma’s the limit!’

‘What a time to have a snooze!’

‘Mamma, wake up! Why are you sleeping here?’

They came up to their mother and nudged and nuzzled her.

‘Mamma, wake up!’

‘She’s bleeding!’ Zafraan said suddenly. ‘Can’t you smell it?’

‘She’s not moving!’

‘Her eyes are open!’

‘But she hasn’t seen us!’

‘Yoo-hoo Mamma, we’re here!’

‘Let’s get out of here; it’s scary! ’

‘We can’t. Not without Mamma!’

They nudged their motionless, silent mother and nuzzled her, clambered all over her, whimpering and mewing. Then they looked at each other, trembling.

‘We’ll stay here till she wakes up,’ Phasti said in a small voice. ‘Let’s go to sleep with her.’

It was going to be a long night.

Two hours later, the cubs were awakened by a horrible liquid giggling sound.

‘Hee-yuck, hee-yuck! Just look at them! So sweet!’

The cubs opened their eyes and whirled around. From the gloom of the trees they saw glowing pinpoints of green light; and then the gleam of jaws and teeth, glistening with saliva and foam-flecked pink tongues. Four hyenas lurched out of the darkness like apparitions in a nightmare.

‘Wh…who…are you and what do you want?’ Zafraan asked bravely.

‘Your lordship, they call us the Gigglers, do you know why?’

Suddenly the darkness was filled with a most malevolent giggling; it made the fur on the backs of the cubs’ necks rise; it made them shiver with fear, a fear that was sharp and icicle cold.

‘Now you know…’ went on the wheedling voice. ‘What we want is to dine on this delicious-looking fresh tigress—your former mother!’ The hyena inclined his head to wards Raat-ki-Rani and went on: ‘So if you will excuse us and get the hell out of here and let us eat in peace!’

The hyenas moved forward menacingly, joined by four others.

‘Stay away from Mamma!’ Phasti screeched and launched herself at the brute nearest to her. He giggled and turned to flee and she clamped her jaws hard on his tail. He yelped, while the others just rolled about in paroxysms of giggles. Phasti suddenly found her mouth full of bushy, smelly hyena-tail, while the animal fled yelping. She spat it out in disgust.

‘She’s de-tailed you! Hyuck-hyuck!’ A chorus of giggles rippled out into the night air.

‘Dum-katta! Dum-katta! Dum-katta!’ the hyenas giggled maniacally. But even as they giggled the animals lowered their heads and hunched their backs even more and moved towards the cubs.

‘Heeyuck-heeyuck, and babies, we’re going to take your heads off with one bite!’

‘Come on!’ Zafraan snapped, rounding up his sisters like he had never done before. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’

‘But Mamma!’ Hasti protested.

‘We can’t desert her!’ Masti agreed, looking back. Already the filthy animals were swarming all over their mother, giggling in that blood-curdling way of theirs, their jaws making terrifying crunching sounds. ‘Look what they’re doing to her!’

‘We’re never going to see Mamma again,’ Zafraan said, trying to quell a rising sob. ‘She’s gone. A shot through the head! Fatal! I saw the bullet hole!’ He gulped.

‘What?’ the sisters chorused, shocked.

‘We’d better go as far away from here as possible. It’s too dangerous to stay here.’

‘But…’ Bleakly Hasti, Masti and Phasti looked back towards where they had left their beloved Mamma.

Weary and whimpering, and still not fully understanding the enormity of what had happened, they followed Zafraan as he led the way back to their current cave hideout at the base of a cliff face.

‘We’ll stay here for a while and then move out,’ he said heavily. ‘Those hyenas will be after us.’

Phasti looked around the cave. ‘It feels weird without Mamma. I don’t like it! I don’t want to stay here. I want Mamma!’

‘Zafraan, but what are we going to do?’ Hasti looked panic-stricken.

‘Mamma did everything for us!’

‘How’ll we eat?’

‘I want to go back to see if she’s all right.’

‘Phasti, Mamma’s never going to be all right!’ Zafraan said, going up to his sister and licking her face.

‘I don’t believe you! I bet she’ll come walking through the entrance at first light. We dreamt about all those hideous hyena things…’

‘Will you please take care of her?’ Zafraan asked Hasti and Masti in a choked voice. Silently the two nodded and cuddled up to their little sister.

‘We’ll look after you, baby,’ Hasti said, ‘don’t worry.’

‘Now try to sleep.’

Eventually Phasti did fall asleep, between her two sisters. They looked at each other bleakly.

‘We’ll look after her…’ Hasti said in a tearful voice, ‘but who’ll look after us?’

Outside, at the entrance to the cave, Zafraan lay down, crossed his paws and grieved silently for his mother.

No human being had either heard, or taken note of the single shot that had rung out late that evening in the ravine, taking down Raat-ki-Rani. The Gigglers gorged themselves all night and lurched away from the remnants of the animal at first light. Later in the morning, from high up, Diclo and his wife Fenac were quick to spot the carcass of the tigress… They went down. Within minutes the news was everywhere.

‘Did you hear?’ Lolita yowled, completely shocked as she rushed up to the other tigresses who were deciding their respective hunting blocks for the following month. ‘Someone shot Raat-ki-Rani last evening and those bloody Gigglers have already torn her apart and eaten most of her!’

‘They’re so revolting those hyenas—they make you sick! But she had cubs! I wonder where they are!’ Resham’s amber eyes shone.

‘Wherever they are, they’re good as dead!’

‘Good riddance!’ That was sweet Razia. ‘Now I can have mine in peace!’

Rana Shaan-Bahadur had reached the northern-most parts of his territory when the news reached him. Naradmunni suddenly came running up, his head lowered, his tail well between his legs.

‘Huzoor, I have heard grave news,’ he said with downcast eyes, but flicking a glance sideways for an escape route in case the great tiger decided to get after the messenger of bad tidings.

‘What?’ Shaan-Bahadur asked irritably. ‘We know that Thug has been intruding into my territory and I have challenged him to a fight on the ramparts of the Sher-kila on the night of the coming full moon. That should up my TRP ratings considerably. Make sure all the photographers and press are informed, especially that one with the beautiful tresses.’

‘Certainly, huzoor! But, huzoor, I have just heard that the beautiful Begum Raat-ki-Rani has been ruthlessly gunned down by a poacher. As you know, she had four young cubs—your cubs. No one knows where they’ve gone! They haven’t been seen since the shooting.’

‘So the bastards nailed her, eh? Really, she ought to have been more careful! ’

‘But huzoor, the cubs…’

‘What about them?’

‘They’re very young. They’ll die without their mother…’

‘What’s that to do with me?’

‘But huzoorji, forgive my saying so, you are their sire! They have your genes!’

‘And I am telling you once and for all, I will have nothing to do with them. There will be lots of other cubs carrying my genes, along with the genes of mothers who have better sense than to get themselves shot by a poacher! Look at me. I caught the stinking poacher in his own trap! Hah!’ He shook his head. ‘Just what was she thinking?’

‘Whatever you say, huzoor!’

Ayesha was utterly heartbroken when she heard the news about the killing of Raat-ki-Rani, late the next morning.

‘It can’t be true!’ she wept. ‘That gorgeous tigress! I photographed her with her cubs all of last afternoon and evening… Those poor cubs! They’ll die without their mother. They were such a loving family! And…and they knew I was there and let me photograph them to my heart’s content and never snarled at me even once. They made me feel at home with them. They were like family! My own family!’

And so, again in no time at all, Raat-ki-Rani and her cubs became Sher-kila National Park’s latest, though tragic, international celebrities as their photographs were published around the world.

‘We have to find those cubs and help them survive!’ Ayesha begged the park authorities. ‘Just look what those wretched hyenas did to that beautiful animal!’

‘Ma’am, what we do to them is worse,’ the Field Director of the park said sephulchrally. ‘Don’t forget she was shot by a human being. If he had got his way, he would have skinned her or taken her bones and sold them to the Chinese.’

‘Yes, I know. Do you have any idea about who may be behind this?’

The swarthy man pushed back his hat and nodded. ‘We have ideas, but no proof. We can’t move without proof.’

He nodded. ‘We will look for them. Trackers will set forth on elephant back to look for them. Once we find them, we’ll decide what needs to be done.’

‘Thank you. Can I accompany one of the search parties?’ Ayesha begged making such big puppy eyes at the Field Director there was no way he could refuse. ‘They were like my own family!’

‘But of course, ma’am. I’ll give instructions.’

But in the days that followed, the search parties which fanned out all across the park came across no trace of the orphaned cubs. They had just vanished off the face of the earth.

‘They’re small and young and inexperienced and tender. They’ll starve and weaken…’

‘And then we move in!’ Fenac giggled. ‘They got away the first time, but not again…’

There was just one hitch. Even the vultures, with their wonderful telescopic vision and keen sense of smell could find no trace of the cubs.

‘They must have died and rotted away!’ Razia said with some relish as she came across Lolita while on patrol. ‘Besides which, madam step back, you are about to infringe into my territory…’

‘If they’d rotted those damn vultures would have spotted them. And I’m on my side of the border if you please!’

‘They say that Shaan-Bahadur couldn’t give a damn. Didn’t even twitch his tail when he heard the news,’ Razia snorted. ‘Apparently he said something about his cubs needing to have better genes than from a female like Raat-ki-Rani who got herself shot by a poacher. So it was like good riddance.’

‘I hear Shaan-Bahadur challenged your stud Thug to a fight,’ Lolita said maliciously.

‘He’s not my stud for your information. He’s just time pass!’ But she closed her eyes and purred. ‘Still, who knows…’

‘Oh yeah, sure, sure! Well wish him best of luck! He’ll need it!’

Rana Shaan-Bahadur had just completed clearly marking his territory’s northern border—which that coward Thug had intruded into—when Naradmunni trotted up to him again, his face expressionless. He’d know what expression to put on once he gauged his boss’s reaction to the news.

‘Huzoorji, I hear that the cubs have vanished.’

‘Cubs? What cubs?’

‘Your cubs, sirji. I mean yours and Begum Raat-ki-Rani’s cubs…’

‘I just thought you ought to know, sire…’

‘Well, now I do. Good, if they’ve vanished. Now can we get on with our lives for a change and not be bothered about what’s happening to them?’

‘But of course, huzoor. Whatever you say!’ He blinked and swallowed. ‘Um…huzoor, there’s one more thing…’

‘You know that beautiful photographer who made you famous? Ayesha, of the silky black tresses.’

‘Yes, what about her? ’

‘Well huzoor, now she’s made Begum Raat-ki-Rani and her cubs world famous too. Apparently she photographed them on the day the Begumji was killed. Their pictures were splashed all over the world! They’ve gone supercalifragalistichyperviralonthenet.’

‘What?’ Shaan-Bahadur roared. ‘What the hell are you saying?’

‘Indeed huzoor, they had better ratings than even you did in your heyday!’ Naradmunni wisely scuttled twenty feet away and was poised to flee.

‘What? No one, I repeat no one gets better ratings than I do!’

‘Of course, huzoor, of course! It must have been a computing error.’

Shaan-Bahadur’s green eyes glowed like emeralds. ‘And,’ he growled so menacingly that poor Naradmunni piddled a little, ‘if we ever come across those cubs, I will kill them without hesitation! Stealing my thunder like that! What’s this shameless new generation coming to? No respect for their elders! Better ratings than mine? Pah!’

‘Thank god they’ve vanished,’ Naradumunni squeaked and then bit his lip. Fortunately his boss was pacing up and down so agitatedly he didn’t hear him. ‘But of course, huzoor,’ he said now, nodding virtuously. ‘I’ll send the word out that you’re looking for them.’