With a tiger 10 feet away...
“In waking a tiger, use a long stick.” – Mao Zedong
Imagine that eerie time of the twilight when the light just begins to fade. Shadows lengthen around you, as you sit in an open jeep, with a naturalist and a guard with an ancient rifle (which probably pre-dates WW II) for company. You, at once, hope that a tiger is around and also pray that a tiger is NOT around... The former in the hope of catching a glimpse of that magnificent beast while the latter, in the hope that you do not become the headline 'Tiger mauls photographer' in tomorrow's newspaper!!
Mao Zedong may very well advise using a long stick - probably because he never went near a tiger in the wild in his life. His advise probably pertained to some lazy ass tiger, too bored to make an effort to kill anyone, in a zoo somewhere.
A tiger in the wild , on the other hand, is a different story. The beast can bound towards you at lightning speed. Before the blink of an eye, it can easily cover a distance of up to 30 feet! How long a pole are you going to use?
Not that I had any desire to poke and wake a sleeping tiger. The meek mouse in me wanted to be content to just glimpse a tiger, at a safe distance away and preferably as it walked away from me without showing any interest in my affairs (or my juicy hind-quarters!)
The tiger in me, on the other hand, wanted to get as close to a real tiger and take a few great photographs. I wanted to see right in to the eyes of the tiger with my camera lens!
In such a state of mind, undecided between the mouse / tiger syndrome, I failed to notice a sudden hush fall upon the surroundings. We were at the edge of a lake in Ranthambore in India. A moment ago, the atmosphere was lively with birds hopping around and singing like there was no tomorrow. Monkeys chattered away like noisy school kids and deer were creating a ruckus with some mock fights in the lush grass by the lake shore. My companions went almost wooden in their stillness and stared towards the lake.
Then I sensed it, I swear - before I saw it. The lake shore dipped down sharply 8-10 feet from our location. The ridge there, had a huge flowering tree and the ground in front of it was adorned with tufts of tallish grass. The sun was setting directly opposite us and hence the ridge was back-lit with the eerie fading sunlight that I spoke about earlier. The darkness that was hovering around, with a promise to come soon suddenly seemed to materialize directly ahead of us. Only, the darkness was moving - moving with a powerful but unhurried and sinewy motion. The tiger had arrived!!!
Spellbound and barely avoiding shaking life a leaf in a storm, I took this picture with my Nikon P900
The tiger got captured in my picture - framed as a royal silhouette against the lake, the fading sunlight and the golden grass in the front.
I could not have taken a better picture even if I had planned the whole thing for months!
I was in no state of mind to rejoice though - about my phenomenal photography skill (?? or plain brilliant luck?). I could literally smell the tiger. The rancid, wild smell of a tiger was filling my nostrils. I had no desire to stay in that location longer and offer a reciprocal opportunity to the tiger to smell me!
In my haste to get out, I even forgot to note that this was not a male tiger - but a tigress. An adolescent one too, at that. She was none other than 'Arrowhead' - grand-daughter of the legendary tigress 'Machhali'. She belonged to an illustrious lineage that had names in the forests of Ranthambore - not merely census numbers!
Given abundance of food in the region, it stood to reason that she would not turn to humans as a food source. Especially, not humans like us - who probably would not fit the definition of 'fresh' by any yardstick (we had not showered and had been roaming around in an open jeep in the jungles all day!).
I should have been excited to get an opportunity to see such a magnificent creation of God at such close quarters. However, the mouse in me does peep out at such crucial moments. I tapped the driver and we backed out. Safely making our get-away and watching over our shoulders that the tigress began stalking a group of deer on the lake shore - she did not even grace us with a small glance of interest. Broke my heart, I tell you - but "I live on to photograph more tigers ..." was the overwhelming emotion in my mind.
What would YOU feel under such circumstances? Fear or excitement? Mouse or Tiger?
In Conclusion:
Ignore Mao Zedong - Stay a safe distance away from a Tiger and live long!
Steemians, please comment freely to share your experiences, knowledge and views about Tigers and how they make you feel. Please share freely how you would react. Thanks.
Note: All images except for the wildlife photos and the title image created by me are from pixabay.com.
