Down In The Jungleland: Speaking Tiger

Excerpts:

Congratulations! You guys seem to have had a very good time during the last six years. Your numbers are up by 22 per cent. Enjoying life, eh?
Enjoying life? Bah! What the heck are you talking about? The Mrs has just had a litter of six — six, I tell you, and now she’s at me about helping her feed and potty-train the brats and change their nappies and teach them to hunt! Ever since that Ranthambore ninny started looking after his cubs, every tigress is now demanding the same from her man!

I’m sure if you could assist her, you could bring up larger families and it could help in increasing the number of tigers all around. That surely would be a good thing.

Do you think she’s the only Mrs I have? What kind of wuss do you take me for, eh? My magnificent genes have to be spread as far and wide as possible. I have to patrol vast territories and get to know as many ladies as I can. How many squalling brats can I possibly look after? Besides, some want nilgai, others want chital and others throw tantrums if they don’t get smoked ham — as if I own a fast-food restaurant or something!

But the government is widening all the roads running through national parks and tiger reserves, so travel will be easier and quicker and smoother. Soon, you’ll have 10-lane expressways to walk along instead of narrow forest tracks.

We try and cross a road and either we get run over or the bus careens into a ditch. Expressway indeed!

The government is certainly building enormous swimming pools for you…linking rivers and drowning large tracts of forest. They seem to appreciate that you’re water-loving animals, like to loll about in pools…

As if we have nothing better to do. I have a Mrs who is snarling. She thinks I better hunt for the cubs or else, and here you think I have time to loll around in swimming pools!

Well, it couldn’t be so bad — look at the tigers in the Sunderbans. They even hunt in the water…
You know what kind of reputation those salties have! Do you want all of us to become like that?

They say the Sunderbans tigers are exceptionally ferocious because of the saltiness of the water…
Yeah, it gives them man-eating kidneys! As for the waters of these linked rivers, do you think they’ll be pure mineral water or something? Look at your rivers — if we drink that stuff, full of cadmium, mercury and sulphur and god knows what muck — heaven knows what kind of monsters we’ll morph into and then you’ll have you knickers in a twist again.

What do you think of this plan of allowing tourists 24X7 access into tiger reserves like Ranthambore?
Even our private night life is no longer sacrosanct. Talk about encouraging stalking and voyeurism and peeping Toms… But heh, heh, I think we’ll have ways of dealing with this: all it will take is one deep, bowel-of-the-earth rumbling growl near a Gypsy in the middle of the night and see what happens! How many nappies will need to be changed then! I doubt the wildlife department would help visitors do that or appreciate the stink that’s raised.

There was also this suggestion that a reserve be declared for white tigers so they can breed. What are your views on that?
Well, it’s like in the old days, circuses and fairs used to show off what were then considered freaks — you know — unfortunate people with hare-lips or club-feet, or midgets or giants or just nut cases or bearded ladies. That’s what white tigers are. Did you see that Facebook post of that very unhappy white tiger with a squashed in face? It looked as if it had run into a wall at 90 mph. If you appreciate that sort of thing, well, then we tigers have even less respect for you than we already do.

Everyone’s been raving about the latest Jungle Book film… Have you seen it and what are your views on it?
No, we haven’t seen it and are not going to, but our sentiments are very hurt and we demand it be immediately banned. It shows us in a very poor light, and that is anti-national because we are the national animal after all! In fact, we demand that the book be banned too and be publicly masticated by the publishers. Unfortunately, the author is not alive or we would have demanded a tête-à-tête with him to discuss a few issues regarding rewriting the plot. I mean if Mowgli were raised by Sher Khan and his missus, and hunted by packs of slavering wolves, now that would have made a very interesting story I think. Um, if you know anyone in Bollywood who would be interested, we’d love to audition.

Do you think the Indian lion should replace the tiger as the country’s national animal? Considering it’s only found in Gujarat and they’re on the Ashoka pillar and all that?
Indian lion? Are you serious? What animal is that? Never heard of it! We only know of the Indian loin — and everyone knows what he’s all about!

Ranjit Lal is an author, environmentalist and birdwatcher