Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright...

It is the Chinese year of the tiger. And yet the year started with Billy Arjan Singh, passionate tiger conservationist, creator of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve and my personal hero, passing on to the happy hunting grounds. It is also the year when I had the privilege of encountering the Royal Bengal in his home range at Bandipur – a moment that will forever be etched in my mind. I can’t quite figure out when my love for animals started. As a kid, I was guilty of committing innumerable acts of cruelty on all things small and living with many ants, beetles, lizards and other such denizens of my garden being at the receiving end of my war games. I was also terrified of dogs with “Japan” my landlord’s dog and “Jimmy” the neighbour’s crazed dog being the prime antagonists. Somewhere, somehow, all that changed quite dramatically. It could have been the temple elephants I was fascinated by and felt sorry for during my trips to Kerala. It could have been “Shiva” and “Parvathi” the pair of lions and their cubs at the Coimbatore zoo. It almost definitely involved “Puppy”, the Labrador retriever owned by the Coimbatore prison jailor. There were books by Jim Corbett, Kenneth Anderson and James Herriot and the Walt Disney movies “A Tiger Walks, “The Bears & I”, Free Willy”. And then a memory that stands out…the book section in Reader’s Digest titled “Eelie and the big cats” from the book by Billy. The book describes his tales with Tara – the tigress, Prince, Harriet and Juliet – the leopards and Eelie – the adopted stray that ruled the roost. I was captivated. I wanted to be Billy.

One of the items on my bucket list has been to meet Billy and as I reflected on my New Year resolutions in December 09’, I resolved to make an attempt to go to Dudhwa this year. I’ve been living life on the mindless fast lane for the last few years and in many ways had let my heart trail my mind. It therefore hit me quite hard to wake up on Jan1st 2010 to the news of Billy’s death. I have never believed in coincidences, and I felt the universe’s nudge once again. The heart began to assert itself over the mind and I resolved in all earnestness to keep it that way.

I’ve been visiting tiger reserves for a decade now, and had never spotted a tiger before. But when I set out on the safari on an early, misty February morning in Bandipur, I somehow felt that the moment was right. On cue, “Agasthiya”, the 12-year resident male majestically and almost magically appeared. To many, sighting a tiger in the wild might be just another exciting experience, but at the risk of sounding dramatic, in a very inexplicable way that moment meant much more to me. There are truly no coincidences. Thanks Billy! I will always hear you roar. And I will always remember what you said, “If the tiger goes, we go too…”

I may have found a calling in life…