Tigers of Central India

[Pckts]

Zain Azam


"Tiger harassed by Elephants"
As we went deep inside Kisli, we saw a couple of elephants standing in the dense forest, forming a rough circle. Surely they had sighted a Tiger, so we decided to wait on. The elephants soon started moving briskly towards the safari track and which indicated that the tiger was on the move. When we drove to the point around where we anticipated the tiger to cross, we were shocked to find that an elephant had blocked off its path completely! We still hadn't actually seen the tiger because of the undergrowth but could easily understand everything that was going on. A few minutes later, we saw the elephants marshalling the tiger back to the original spot and surrounded it once again. By now, I was really irritated by the behaviour of the mahouts and predicted that there was going to be some trouble. I had hardly expressed my concerns when it all started happening. We saw an elephant getting very agitated and the mahouts screaming out and waving their sticks around in defense. Suddenly we heard a deafening roar echo through the forest! This was quickly followed by the elephants striding behind the tiger who was presumably heading towards the safari track once again. Finally, we had our first glimpse of the magnificent male tiger. We were around 20 meters from where we predicted the tiger would cross the road and since we were the first car in line, I ordered our guide and driver to stay put and block off the other cars from going ahead as I wanted the tiger to be able to cross the road without our contribution in blocking it off. Unfortunately, 2 other cars manoeuvred their way in front of ours and went to the point of the predicted crossing. There was now a good 15 meter gap between our gypsy and the other two for the Tiger to cross, but to our dismay and shock, that gap was quickly filled by two elephants making sure the crossing was completely blocked off again (This is when the video starts). We heard one of the mahouts speaking into his Walkie talkie saying "we have a male Tiger here, come fast". The tiger was PISSED OFF by now and let out roar after roar towards the elephants and was in complete 'attack mode'. Judging by his warranted aggression, it was unbelievable to us how it didn't charge at the elephants as it had ample provocation to do so. I was begging the mahouts to let the poor beast cross but they were having none of it. They even had the nerve to ask us not to take photos or videos of them as they clearly knew what they were doing wasn't right. The tiger sat down for a while, visibly irritated and suddenly got up and charged through a little opening between an elephant at the gypsy, finally crossing the road. The elephants, as expected, ran after the tiger going deep into the forest. Our guide told us the Tiger would soon cross a parallel road on the other side of the jungle, to which we replied saying that we wanted nothing to do with troubling this poor tiger any more. We drove off in the opposite direction, praying that the Tiger had managed to evade the elephants for good. This whole saga lasted for more than an hour!
Although we had this incredible and unique sighting of this magnificent tiger, our excitement was vastly overshadowed by the anger caused by the behaviour of the mahouts for the pleasure of the VIP. I don't fully blame the mahouts as they are merely pawns in this corrupted VIP culture. The expectations of the VIPs and the obligation of the department to entertain these VIPs needs to be addressed. I sincerely hope that the Mahouts escape the brunt of the complaint. I questioned our guide and driver to ask if the VIP was the CM (as the CM was around the previous day and a similar incident took place for him with the 'Dhamangaon Male Tiger', but luckily he wasn't as bothered by the intrusion), but they were sure that the CM had already left the forest, so unfortunately, I don't know who this VIP was. My friend who took the video apparently overheard that all this 'hungama' wasn't for a politician but for some official of a higher rank within the forest department (I did not hear this part, so I cannot say for sure).
A tragedy of an incident which I hope never repeats itself.

A follow-up to my previous post about the elephants harassing this tiger (Identified by the experts as Karai Ghati Male).

This was around when he was losing his temper!

*This image is copyright of its original author

Zain Azam

Had an incredible sighting of this male a few days ago. He was being harassed by Mahouts on Elephants. They wouldn't let him cross the road, kept blocking his path wherever he moved and were informing some VIP via walkie talkies to come to the location. After a few times of getting blocked off, this big boy started to lose his temper a touch. He let out deafening warning roars to get the elephants to move. Finally, he managed to find an opening on the road between the gypsies and the elephants and went storming away. An attack on the elephants would've been well warranted as the provocation was disgusting, and no doubt the tiger would've been made out as the guilty party!

*This image is copyright of its original author

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