by Ranjit Lal
‘Will you stop yapping like a hysterical Pomeranian and listen? I studied the facts pertaining to the great holocaust. If you will recall, only vultures died. They got sick after eating those dead domestic buffaloes, which had been given some drug to make them give more milk, and which, when they died, were dumped outside the village where the vultures gorged on them.’
‘Ninety-nine per cent died! Ninety-nine per cent, huzoor! What a kill ratio!’
‘Yes, it was a wipeout! But only vultures died. As a precaution we decreed that no carnivore eat dead domestic buffaloes in the valley and then of course thanks to the general hysteria, it was deemed that all hunting in the valley be banned. Carnivores left the valley en masse.’ Shaan-Bahadur’s green eyes glinted. ‘But the herbivores have stayed on there and multiplied; it’s become a vegetarian paradise. They’ve probably already become lax and lazy in their ways because of the lack of predators. Easy meals! A great place to train those three clumsies to hunt! That’s where we’re going!’
‘But…but…’ As a consumer of carrion like the dreadful Diclo-Fenac, Naradmunni was perhaps correct in being worried.
‘Besides, the problem was not confined to Taboo Valley. It’s happened pretty much all over the country. And so far, only vultures have been affected!’
‘So far huzoor, so far…Who knows what the morrow brings?’
‘True, but we can’t live in fear of that all the time. We leave at dusk!’
They set out at nightfall, heading due south, back past the rock-faces and cliffs where the cubs had been born and brought up by Raat-ki-Rani. Shaan-Bahadur led the way, followed by Zafraan, Hasti, Masti and little Phasti struggling at the end of the line to keep up. Naradmunni kept a special eye out for her, as he circled the straggling procession making encouraging noises.
‘That’s the way baby, be careful of that vine, it’ll trip you up! Good, very good…that’s the way!’
The cubs paused as they went past their old home and playground, gulping. Shaan-Bahadur stopped and looked back at them.
‘What’s the matter? Hurry up. We have to take cover at dawn!’
‘Papa, this…this is where Mamma…’
‘It’s all right babies,’ he rumbled in that deep baritone that made Phasti feel totally safe. ‘I know. Remember it for all the happy times you had here.’
‘Yes, Papa,’ they chorused in small voices and scampered after him.
Three nights later, they were still on their way and the cubs were exhausted. They travelled at night, lying low during the daylight hours to avoid detection (which made Shaan-Bahadur extremely irritable). But he set a very brisk pace and was now getting impatient to reach.
‘Come on, you lot, hurry up. The sooner we reach the better!’ He looked back at his struggling brood as they followed him over the rough terrain, complaining plaintively.
‘Papa, we’re tired!’
‘I’m hungry.’
‘I’m thirsty!’
‘Do we have to go to this godforsaken place?’
‘What was wrong with the meadow?’
Only little Phasti gamely followed her father without complaint, tripping and stumbling like she always did, but keeping her mouth shut.
‘Just pipe down and stop whining, will you?’ their father growled, losing his patience and wondering what the hell had prompted him to take charge of his brood. He ought to have left them in the meadow. But then he looked into little Phasti’s (easily his favourite) feisty green eyes and knew there was nothing else he could have done. She was struggling now as they clambered up the steep smooth rocks, slipping and sliding and landing on her tummy with a whump but never complaining. Suddenly she stumbled and rolled down several feet, landing flat on her tummy again, her breath whooshing out of her.
‘And Phasti came tumbling after!’ sang Hasti, as she and the others watched and giggled.
Shaan-Bahadur walked over and gently picked up the winded little tigress. ‘Come on baby, let’s go,’ he growled.
‘Papa spoils her…’
‘She’s his favourite… ’
‘We’re like his step cubs!’ Masti sniffed affronted. ‘Like we’re adopted!’
‘I mean, what’s his problem?’ Hasti rolled her eyes. ‘I mean, he was big dada tiger in the park and now we’re fleeing like we’re vermin or something.’
Zafraan, lying down regally cross-pawed as always, shrugged. ‘I guess he has a point. He’s this macho guy, the alpha male and all that, and is suddenly saddled with babies like you! I wouldn’t like to be in his paws… The other tigers must be laughing at him.’
‘You wouldn’t know what the hell to do with babies either,’ Phasti said indignantly. ‘At least he’s taken us under his wing.’
‘Besides, you’ll never be a macho guy!’
‘Or have babies either.’
‘And, it’s such noble work!’ Hasti added virtuously, ‘there’s nothing nobler than having babies and bringing up cubs, especially since there are so few of us left. I’m going to have lots of them.’
‘Come on now, we’re almost there!’ Shaan-Bahadur encouraged his family on the fourth night. ‘We should be there by dawn!’
Ahead of them loomed a solid rock wall, more formidable than any fortress.
‘Papa, where do we go?’ Hasti asked .
‘There’s a wall right in front of us!’
Naradmunni smiled. ‘Babies, Taboo Valley is beyond the wall…’
‘We…we have to climb up that?’ Hasti paled.
‘Papa, you can’t be serious!’
The three older cubs just sat down astonished. The break enabled little Phasti to catch up with them.
‘Are you coming or not? Now get off your butts and move!’
The big tiger began leaping up the rocks.
‘Papa!’
‘Wait for us!’
‘Don’t leave us!’
‘Go! Leave us! Abandon us!’
‘As if we care!’
Again, only little Phasti gamely tried leaping up the sheer rock-face as her father had so easily done. But for the cubs, it would clearly be impossible; it was just too high.
‘That’s the way, baby!’ he growled as Phasti leapt up and fell back repeatedly. ‘She has more guts than the three of you put together,’ he called out to the others.
Grinning, he jumped down fluidly, picked Phasti up and leapt up again.
‘Who’s next?’ he asked laconically, ‘or do you lot want to stay here?’
One by one, he carried the cubs up the impossibly steep sections .
Tired and footsore, they scrambled up to the top of the ridge just as the sky in the east began to lighten.
‘Take a good look,’ Rana Shaan-Bahadur told them as they stopped for a breather. ‘And welcome to your new home—Taboo Valley!’
It was in fact, a smaller version of the Sher-kila National Park: rugged ferocious cliff faces ringed around a forested valley, interspersed with grassy meadows. A broad stream ran through the middle of the valley into a blue lake studded with purple and yellow water lilies. One end of the lake had been dammed to form a water tank. Beyond the tank lay the ruins of the evacuated village. Houses and huts crumbled into rubble as the forest reclaimed them, bordering grasslands where once the villagers had grown their crops. Even from this distance, the cubs could see deer and antelope—sambar, chital and nilgai—grazing placidly in the grasslands, while wild boar rooted around the edges of the lake. A crested serpent eagle screamed as she flew overhead and snow-white egrets fished in the lake.
‘Papa, I’m hungry! Hasti said, licking her lips at the sight of all that game.
‘Me too!’ Masti added.
‘Umm, Papa, but how do we get down into the valley?’ Zafraan asked, not daring to look down the sheer cliff face.
‘We can jump!’ Phasti said airily. ‘We always land on our feet! ’
The cubs rocked with laughter and Phasti smiled sheepishly.
‘Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, I know…’
>
Naradmunni had been looking at the valley with apprehension. He had been expecting to see skeletons of animals and birds strewn everywhere, but the herbivores here seemed to be in excellent health and spirits. Perhaps Taboo Valley was no longer as dangerous as it had been made out to be.
‘Come on, kids,’ Shaan-Bahadur headed for a deep overhanging rock and to the cubs’ consternation disappeared into it.
‘It’s the opening to a cave which leads to a long underground tunnel that runs alongside a stream,’ Naradmunni explained. ‘Unless you’re a mountain goat it’s the easiest way in and out of Taboo Valley. Now, after you, my dears…’
The tunnel was dark, steep and slippery (poor Phasti had a tough time), but at last they emerged into the open, a deep gully through which the stream ran, abutted by sheer rock-faces to which thorny bushes and scraggly trees clung tenaciously. They made their way to the edge of the gully, where the stream ended in a small waterfall and tumbled into the valley floor.
‘Okay, you lot, sit and stay. I’ll get us something to eat,’ Shaan-Bahadur growled.
‘But Papa, Mamma always took us hunting with her,’ Masti said, blinking her blue eyes. ‘We were of invaluable assistance to her!’
‘We have to learn,’ Hasti giggled. ‘Or Mamma said we’ll be useless little prima donnas!’
‘Papa, let the girls stay. I’ll come with you,’ Zafraan said, earning glares from his sisters.
Poor Phasti just lay down with her legs splayed out, enjoying the coolness of the rocks. She was beat.
‘I told you, sit and stay! If little Phasti feels up to it, she can give you a lecture on stalking and how to approach prey without sounding like a JCB…’
‘Sure Papa, I’d love to!’ Phasti said, suddenly perky again.
‘That’s my baby!’
Hasti and Masti rolled their eyes. ‘She has him round her little finger,’ Hasti whispered to Masti.
‘Did you know, some of the tigers in the famous Ranthambore National Park had started hunting in water?’ Zafraan said, lying down and crossing his paws. ‘I read that in a book.’
‘Try that in Magar-Machch’s pond and see what happens to you!’ Masti retorted.
‘Huzoor, some big, bristly sambar in the grassland just ahead,’ Naradmunni reported. He’d been scouting ahead cautiously, alert for the terrible stench of death by foul medication. But his nose told him that Taboo Valley seemed to be an exceptionally healthy place with clean air and clear water and juicy prey. After the diclofenac holocaust, most of the herbivores, as well as rodents, monkeys and reptiles had stayed on happily because they had not been affected at all. To their huge delight, the great predators and scavengers had fled, and the villagers had been evacuated along with their dogs and livestock which ate up everything. For the wild herbivores, Taboo Valley had turned into a Garden of Eden.
Rana Shaan-Bahadur followed his batman out of the rocks and tested the wind. He could see the sambar up ahead, browsing, quite relaxed. He put his head down and began his stalk.
Far away in her Forest Rest House, Ayesha was distressed. Suddenly all the charismatic, photogenic tigers in the park had disappeared! First, the beautiful female with cubs had been killed by poachers and her cubs had vanished. Then that big show-off dude who she had made famous had stopped strutting his stuff from the ramparts of the fort and had disappeared too.
‘He might have been killed in a fight!’ one of the rangers told her.
‘That guy was such a show-off he would have put an ad in the papers if he were to fight.’
‘Sometimes these quarrels just flare up, like road rage… ’
‘Surely we would have heard them fighting or it would have been reported by the staff.’
‘True. Ma’am, maybe you should just keep a good eye on the vultures. If there is a dead animal around, they’re the first to find it.’ He shrugged. ‘There are so few of them left, maybe just six or seven, so keeping track of them shouldn’t be difficult.’
‘Thanks, I will!’
So that’s what Ayesha did. She would drive up to a vantage point and scan the skies. Invariably, by around eleven in the morning (vultures are usually late risers) she’d spot the huge birds circling and wheeling high in the blue heavens. And once they’d start spiraling down, she’d drive towards the spot, hoping to come across a kill…or some clue as to the whereabouts of the missing tigers.
In Taboo Valley, the cubs and their father settled down, much to the consternation of the resident herbivores. To her delight, Shaan-Bahadur had put little Phasti in charge of giving the others hunting tuitions, while he himself (occasionally joined by his son and heir Zafraan) watched from the shade of a tree as she put them through their paces.
‘Hasti, stop giggling!’ Phasti hissed angrily, as her sister tried stalking a paddy bird. The bird croaked derisively and flew off. ‘Can’t you be serious for a second? Hunting is about life and death.’
‘Cool it chick, Papa’s always there…’
‘And so are you!’
Masti was slightly better, and Zafraan, when he did bestir himself, managed quite well too, being keen to show off before his father.
Naradmunni would slink out of the valley from time to time into the main section of the park, to meet up with his missus and pick up the latest news and gossip. He returned one afternoon, looking quite vexed.
‘Huzoor,’ he said, ‘you know those filthy hyenas who call themselves Gigglers?’
‘No! I don’t deal with scum!’
‘Of course not, but apparently they’re now looking for the cubs. And they’ve teamed up with those terrorist porcupines belonging to ASKAA who are determined to destroy all tigers in general and your goodself and the cubs in particular.’
‘What?’
Naradmunni swallowed. ‘Apparently huzoor, Missy Phasti bit off the tail of the leader of the Gigglers. They call him Dum-kutta now and the whole gang is furious and wants revenge.’
‘They should know better than to come anywhere close to the cubs.’
‘It gets worse, huzoor. ASKAA has sworn vengeance because apparently the cubs once tried to assassinate their commander by bouncing on the roof of his hideout in order to make it fall on top of him. He only escaped after a furious fight!’ He paused. ‘And you yourself have fearlessly hunted and killed and eaten several members of ASKAA.’
The cubs’ jaws dropped. ‘Papa, that horrible porcupine is lying!’
‘We didn’t try to kill him.’
‘We only wanted to see what was inside the hole!’
‘There was no fight.’
‘Mamma got real mad at us!’
‘But she did say you taught her how to eat porcupine!’
Naradmunni went up to the great tiger; it always made him a little nervous to get so close, but this was not meant for the innocent ears of the cubs.
‘And huzoor,’ he whispered, ‘it is said that the luscious Lolita is extremely upset by your apparent disappearance; she’s been caterwauling heartbrokenly every night from the ramparts of Sher-kila…’
‘Let her. I told you she plays fast and loose!’
‘Of course, sire!’
Indeed, while the other big daddy tigers in the park, Thug, Taimur and Caligua, had been pleased and secretly relieved by Shaan-Bahadur’s apparent disappearance (an act of total cowardice of course), the tigresses were puzzled and upset. Like him or not, Rana Shaan-Bahadur was the finest, most handsome tiger they had ever set eyes upon and his absence was keenly felt.
‘He must have got himself killed or shot!’ Lolita sprayed sadly on her tree trunk message board. ‘He actually ate at my table.’
‘I think of him and my knees still fold up!’ Resham admitted, suddenly nostalgic.
‘Do you think he’s done something silly because that idiot Raat-ki-Raani got herself killed?’ Razia wondered. ‘What a fool!’
The messages flew back and forth:
‘I can’t believe he chickened out of a fight.’
‘Espec
ially against that moron Thug.’
‘He’s not a moron.’
‘Is too!’
‘Is not and speak respectfully of him. He’s boss tiger now! And I’m First Tigress, so mind your manners, madam!’
‘He’s not a patch on Shaan-Bahadur.’
‘I miss him so much,’ Lolita sighed. ‘Just so much!’
‘I wonder what happened to Raat-ki-Rani’s cubs. They vanished too.’
‘Must have starved by now!’
‘Good riddance.’
Diclo and Fenac and their squadron too were on the lookout for the cubs. Every time they spotted a kill they would circle over it, hoping that they’d come across the cubs, either dead or alive. Preferably dead, because then they could boast that they had actually dined on tiger meat and their prestige (and power) in avian society would soar.
Dum-kutta the hyena was still livid. He’d noticed that even the other Gigglers had, ever since his ‘accident’, begun giggling one hell of a lot more than usual especially in his presence, even if it was just behind his back.
‘I’m going to bite off the head of that cub, see if I don’t!’ he swore. ‘Now, any rumour or news as to where they may be hiding, the miserable wretches?’
‘No,’ said his second-in-command, wagging his tail and giggling. ‘But as you know, we’ve entered into an alliance with ASKAA to hunt them down collectively. They’ve sworn to stab out the eyes of the cubs and destroy all tigers.’
‘Well get off your butts and find the cubs!’ fumed Dum-kutta, licking his bum, which was still tender as a grilled tomato. ‘Stop sitting there dribbling like idiots!’
‘We attack all tigers but remember: Rana Shaan-Bahadur and those cubs are on the top of our hit list. Intelligence tells us that the cubs are in fact his, which makes it doubly important!’ Col. ‘Cuddles’ Khujlimal rattled his quills ferociously. ‘Shaan-Bahadur has killed and eaten several of our members and he’ll teach his filthy progeny to do the same! We have to eliminate them. ’
‘Slow death to tigers! Slow death to tigers! Slow death to tigers!’
As one, the smelly members of ASKAA grunted and rattled their quills.