by Ranjit Lal
‘J ust listen to her!’ Hasti muttered indignantly.
‘Such a prissy missy!’ Masti agreed.
‘Lions have a much better system,’ Zafraan averred, stretching languidly. ‘The females do all the hunting and offer their kills to their lordship. That’s how it ought to be!’
‘Dream on, bhai-jaan, and don’t butter up Phasti so you can swipe her kill!’
‘Okay you kids, get off your butts!’ Phasti’s feisty green eyes glittered as she bustled up to her elder siblings. ‘You’re going solo today! No kill, no meal!’
‘Sez who?’ Masti asked dangerously.
‘Papa!’ Phasti blinked primly. ‘So move it, babes! Okay, draw lots—who’s the lucky one today?’
From the shade of an overhanging rock, Shaan-Bahadur watched proudly as his littlest one put the other three louts through their paces. She was enjoying herself to the hilt!
Zafraan yawned and got languidly to his feet .
‘Watch me!’ he told his sisters. ‘And learn!’
Hasti nudged Masti. ‘By the time he gets down to the grasslands, we’ll be dead of starvation.’
‘And boredom!’
‘Yo bro, go get them!’ Phasti said chirpily. ‘Don’t forget to check the wind direction or you’ll spook them before you even get there.’
‘Sure, sure kiddo, don’t you worry!’
‘God, is he insufferable or what!’ Masti said, grimacing.
‘And that silly Phasti just takes it!’
‘Anyway, let’s watch this; it ought to be fun!’
‘Fun…in…slow…mo…tion!’ Hasti intoned, dissolving into giggles.
Zafraan had slunk out from the shelter of the rocks and entered the golden grasslands. A troupe of langurs had foolishly come down from the trees and was frolicking about in the abandoned village, darting amongst the ruined huts and houses, pretending to be human beings. They lay in postures of abandonment along the walls and roofs or chased each other through the windows and doorways. Zafraan approached with caution, checking the wind direction every now and then and licked his lips. He loved langur. He crouched beside a hillock and studied the scene carefully.
Watching him, his sisters (except Phasti) were not impressed.
‘He’s going to be there all day!’ Hasti giggled .
‘Has he gone to sleep?’
‘I don’t know about him, but I’m about to.’
‘Keep quiet you two!’ Phasti hissed. ‘Let him do his work!’
‘Wake me up whenever…’
Zafraan had by now edged himself right next to the house closest to the border of the grassland. He’d noticed a pattern in the play of the monkeys. They would pick a house, race up to its roof, leap down, chasing each other and then race up again and repeat the process. When they got bored, they just went to the next house and did the same thing there. They were now two houses away from the one he was crouched next to… All he had to do was to wait—and not fall asleep of course.
He crouched down in the grass, his eyes on the shrieking monkeys. They were in high spirits, leaping and bounding. The guard monkey, sitting upon a rooftop, was himself distracted as he grabbed at the tails of his leaping compatriots. It had been a long time since any tiger or leopard had come this way, even though there had been rumors that a tiger and cubs had recently been seen in the valley. At any rate, tigers usually avoided places where humans had lived; the odour of all the evil deeds they had done lingered for a long time after they had left a place.
Zafraan’s eyes were riveted to the cavorting langurs. With whoops they landed on the roof of the house just in front of him. Turn by turn, they leapt down into the dust and raced up again rather like children playing on a slide. For a second after they landed, they were stationary before they raced off. Zafraan wriggled to a place just ten feet from one such spot. His tail twitched with excitement. He hoped Phasti and the other idiots were watching him. This would be a lesson in ambush hunting—the tiger’s way. Besides, langurs were not the easiest prey to catch; they measured pretty high up in the degree of difficulty.
A langur landed with a thump on all fours, exactly where Zafraan anticipated. With a growl, he leapt on it. It shrieked. And then Zafraan felt something land on the back of his neck, screaming with terror. The langur following the one he had pounced on had just leapt blindly off the roof straight onto the tiger cub’s back.
The lordly Zafraan had a monkey on his back!
Panic-stricken, he reared up and the monkey he had pounced on wriggled free and fled. The one on his back jumped off and stared stupefied at the striped monster he had landed on. Then his eyes rolled up and he fainted with terror. About to flee, Zafraan saw it lying still in the dust. With a growl of triumph he pounced.
In the shelter of the rocks, Hasti and Masti rolled about in the dust, in hysterics. Even Shaan-Bahadur pursed his lips. Phasti smiled in delight as Zafraan walked over proudly with the langur in his mouth. He put it down and looked at his coach .
‘Saw that? Got it in one!’ he smirked. ‘How many tiger cubs have been successful in their first solo attempt? Nothing to it, really! Hah!’
‘Actually, bhai-jaan,’ Hasti giggled, ‘you didn’t catch it—it caught you!’
‘Then you grossed it out with your good looks and bad breath! Poor thing! What a way to go!’
Zafraan glared at his sisters. ‘Ask for a tidbit and see what you get!’ he snarled.
Phasti came up to him. ‘Well done, bro!’ she said. ‘Granted you were lucky, but the fact remains you scored a direct hit on your first target and took advantage of the second one even if you were spooked at the time!’
Zafraan nodded deprecatingly. ‘Wasn’t spooked really, just pretending… Actually, I was hoping to kill two monkeys with one strike…’
‘Yeah, yeah, sure!’
‘Right, now you two others, it’s your turn. We’ll have to go to the other side of the valley, they must be on their guard here now.’
Hasti made a complete hash of her attempt. She picked a nilgai fawn and had managed to wriggle close enough undetected to launch an attack. Its mother was foolishly gossiping away with another doe and the fawn was lying down beside her. Hasti gathered herself for the leap, then suddenly thought of Zafraan with the monkey on his back. She giggled. The nilgai doe looked up in alarm, even as her fawn leapt to its feet and they were drumming away as Hasti stared at them in surprise.
‘Hey, you, wait a minute!’ she yowled. ‘Get back here! Wait for me!’
Little Phasti was furious. ‘You just don’t concentrate, do you?’ she raged. ‘You have a mind like a…like a… feather in a storm. Well, Papa says you’re to go hungry, maybe that will help you focus!’
‘It’s all his fault, Auntieji,’ Hasti said, still bubbling with giggles. ‘I thought of him just before leaping… The way that poor monkey landed on his back… The look on his face!’ She dissolved into giggles again.
‘Now you, Masti—listen up and listen good!’ Phasti stalked around her elder sister. ‘Imagine you have cubs back in your den. They’re starving and have to be fed. If they don’t eat, they die, savvy? It’s your duty to bring them food. Now go and get some!’
‘Really, Papa,’ the earnest little tigress told her father later as they rested in the heat of the afternoon. ‘Sometimes I despair of those two.’
‘They’ll be okay, baby,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry!’
But it was Rana Shaan-Bahadur who would have to do the worrying.
Wheeling in great circles two thousand feet above the park, a flicker of silver and puffs of dust rising from the ground from the southern-most section of the park caught Diclo’s eye. He switched to telescopic mode and drifted in that direction.
But oh-oh, the activity was taking place in the middle of Taboo Valley. Even the airspace over Taboo Valley was restricted for vultures. He wheeled as close as he dared and focused.
‘This is Delta, India, Cola, Lola, Ola to Funda, Eeta, Nina, Alpha, Cola, do you read me?�
� he radioed to Fenac. ‘Fresh kill in Taboo Valley! Over!’
‘Are you crazy? We don’t go there! Over!’
‘Natural kill, not domestic! One number langur monkey, being taken away by tiger cub…repeat tiger cub! Over!’
‘Repeat, stay away from that airspace! Over!’
‘Tiger cub now with three others and one adult male nearby! The fugitives have been located! Over!’
‘Access denied! Repeat, access denied! That airspace is denied to you! Over!’
‘Adult male positively identified as the missing Rana Shaan-Bahadur! Am flying over for a closer look; wish me luck! Over!’
‘Are you mad? Over!’
‘No dead buffaloes or traces thereof observed, over!’
Taking a deep breath, Diclo banked steeply and flew directly over Taboo Valley into restricted airspace, the wind whistling through his pinions. They had nearly died here, he and Fenac, and he would never forget the sight of sick and dying vultures clinging to the trees like so many Frankensteinian umbrellas. Only he, his partner and four or five others had survived the holocaust and now made up the entire squadron of the park. Fenac watched now, her heart in her mouth, as Diclo dropped height, his eyes peeled on the tiger family far below.
‘Cannot believe visual! Male tiger is horsing around with cubs! Over!’
‘What?’ Fenac croaked, banking steeply. This, taboo or no taboo, she had to see for herself.
‘Male tiger is playing, repeat playing with cubs! Frolicking, repeat frolicking with them! Disgusting! Over!’
‘No need to shout, I’m right behind you. Am radioing squadron for backup! Over!’
‘Seems quite safe… Oxygen levels normal, stench of death recorded between delicious and delectable, no trace of chemical or medicinal odour or disease! Over!’
‘Then what are you waiting for, dodo? Commence descent…2,000-1,500-1,000-500-250…feet, landing gear down… On final approach… The vulture has landed!’
Folding her great wings, Fenac landed with a ghoulish hop, skip and jump, quickly followed by Diclo and then the rest of the Diclo-Fenac squadron. This they had to see, no matter what the risk.
A male tiger, a macho male tiger, playing and frolicking with his cubs! The great Rana Shaan-Bahadur was actually licking a little cub sitting under his chin, while three others attacked his flicking tail. The great tiger growled as the vultures landed and the cubs looked up. As one, they flew at the birds—no way that these filthy creatures were going to get a morsel of the langur Zafraan had hunted! The birds hopped away just out of reach.
‘Tactical retreat, we’ve seen enough, over!’ Diclo radioed, leaping and running clumsily as he took off. The others followed as the cubs and their father watched them go.
‘I don’t like this,’ Naradmunni said darkly. ‘It’s a bad omen!’
From her vantage point on a hillock, Ayesha of the black tresses had kept her binoculars glued to her eyes. She followed the vultures’ flight as they wheeled and then glided down into Taboo Valley and disappeared from view.
‘They’ve found something behind those mountains!’ she muttered. ‘Better check it out.’ She got into her Gypsy and roared off. An hour later she found herself at the foot of the sheer cliffs that guarded Taboo Valley. She parked under a tree and made sure her cameras were primed. Then she approached the rugged cliff faces on foot and dusted her hands on her dungarees. She had a Ph.D in Cliff-Climbing (otherwise you can’t get a job with National Geographic ), so these cliffs were chicken feed for her.
Pedalling behind furiously was Khoon-Pyaasa, following the dust thrown up by the Gypsy and its fresh tyre tracks in the path. He reached the parked vehicle an hour afterwards and dismounted. So, she had gone ahead on foot—but where? She was nowhere to be seen, and there were sheer mountains right in front!
There had been other (beady) eyes watching the vultures too. The Gigglers kept a close eye on the birds as they were excellent pointers to a kill. Normally the Gigglers preferred dining after dark when they could eat in peace but if the birds had found a promising enough kill, they would move in. This time, much to their surprise, the squadron landed on trees very close to where they were spending the time of day, resting.
‘We have news!’ Diclo said. ‘We think you’d be interested in hearing…’
‘Like what?’ Dum-kutta looked up at the huge iron-coloured bird with distaste.
‘You’ll have to pay us for the information. First scavenging rights at any kill you appropriate for the next six months.’
Dum-kutta shrugged. ‘That’ll depend on the news!’
‘It’s to do with those tiger cubs that bit your tail off… Hahaha, that’s just so funny!’
‘What?’ Dum-kutta cocked his head.
‘We know where they are!’
‘Nonsense! They’re probably dead! ’
‘Surely you’ll be interested in them dead…’
‘Maybe!’
‘So we know where they are. They’re alive!’
‘Rubbish!’
‘Suit yourself. We’ll inform ASKAA—they’re after them too. And we’ll tell them that we told you too and you didn’t pass on the information to them. Then they’ll come after you! Then you’ll be Shri Pincushion Dum-kutta! Hahaha!’
The hyena eyed the birds balefully. ‘All right, you have a deal! Hee-hee-hee!’
‘Good! The cubs and their father are in Taboo Valley.’
‘Hahahaha! You expect us to believe that?’
‘Up to you,’ Diclo ruffled the feathers on his shoulders. ‘You can imagine what ASKAA will do to you when they realize you’ve been told and did not verify the information and chose to discard it. Especially since it’s true…’
Dum-kutta glared at the birds. ‘All right, we’ll inform ASKAA.’
‘Good luck.’ Diclo prepared for takeoff. ‘And don’t try to conceal any kills from us, we have eyes in the sky. Hahahaha!’
‘Very funny!’
Dum-kutta approached the headquarters of ASKAA with considerable trepidation. Members of ASKAA were highly unpredictable and usually impaled you first and asked questions later. The guard inside the mouth of the den backed out at a reckless 60 kmph, rattling his quills furiously. Dum-kutta yelped and danced clumsily out of range.
‘Yikes! Watch it, Velveteen.’
‘What do you want?’
‘To talk to your boss, Col. Khujlimal. I have information.’
‘Pertaining to what?’
‘If I tell you, he’ll kill me for that. Just call him.’
‘Hmm…wait here.’
‘Taboo Valley, eh?’ Col. ‘Cuddles’ Khujlimal blinked his beady eyes and scratched his legion fleas. He nodded. ‘Somehow I can believe that. Right, we leave tonight. Prepare to march. We take no prisoners. We spare no tiger we meet, inside the valley or outside. This is a declaration of war!’
At the headquarters of ASKAA an action plan was finalized.
‘We follow them; we prick them off one by one. Once they’re inside we block the tunnel exit so they can’t escape and hit them hard!’ Col. Khujlimal gloated, rattling his quills. ‘Before you know it all the tigers here will be man-eaters and then be exterminated!’
No one quite knows how the other tigers in the park heard the news about the fugitive tiger family, a little after Diclo-Fenac had been doing deal with the Gigglers. True, Naradmunni had left Taboo Valley on one of his forays into the main areas of the park at the time and, just might—just might, mind you—have let something inadvertently slip (leak, say the cynics) to his missus, who it was well known, could not keep anything to herself for more than twenty seconds tops. At any rate, the news, rumours, canards, call them what you like, in their various forms were being sprayed from pillar to post all over the park by its astounded, horrified and maliciously gleeful big cat population.
The great Rana Shaan-Bahadur was running a crèche for abandoned and orphaned tiger cubs in Taboo Valley!
The great Rana Shaan-Bahadur was doing what no m
acho tiger had ever done before—being a Mamma to his cubs!
The great Rana Shaan-Bahadur had broken an ancient tradition endangering tiger society the world over!
The great Rana Shaan-Bahadur was an official wimp and the laughing stock of Sher-kila National Park!
If the great Rana Shaan-Bahadur was the mother of the cubs, who was the father? Hahaha!
The tigers of the park stood united in their horror and condemnation:
Ths is unacceptable behaviour!
Hve 2 stop it !
Tradition cnot be trampled upon!
Hve 2 teach him a lesson!
Matter of gr8 shame!
Reputation of tigers at stake.
A dark day in the glorious hstry of Panthera tigris.
Our sentiments hv bin hurt!
Where’s Jim Corbett when you really need him?
Kill the cubs! Kill Shaan-Bahadur!
The tigers and tigresses of the Sher-kila National Park now wanted to see for themselves exactly what was going on in Taboo Valley and then decide on the action to be taken to restore the lost glory and prestige of their species.
O utside the entrance to the cave and tunnel which led into Taboo Valley, Thug sprayed the rocks, outlining the strategy that would be adopted.
‘First we set up observation posts around the perimeter of the valley and see what’s going on. We must establish that Rana Shaan-Bahadur and his cubs are alive before we go down into the valley ourselves. We have to make sure there is no sign of the disease that wiped out those filthy vultures.’
‘Affirmative,’ sprayed the other tigers. ‘Yes! We shall be happy to follow your lead.’
At intervals of an hour apiece, the great cats slipped into the cave and tunnel, wrinkling up their noses as they smelt the one that had gone just before them.
‘That Caligua, he really stinks!’ Razia growled to herself, ‘hasn’t bathed for at least a year! Makes me feel really queasy.’
Once they emerged on the high ledges that overlooked the valley, the tigers spread around the perimeter, keeping as high up as possible amidst the rocks, so that they got a bird’s eye view of the valley.