Tiger Diary ~ Pink as a Lotus Flower

Fabled Ranthambhore National Park, Rajasthan, India...

Early morning. The dawn mists are just starting to rise, the sun is cool and low. The stillness and quiet are other-worldly. This forest feels complete, with its Eden-like herds of chital and sambar deer, pre-historical crocodiles, birds of every description, black-faced langur monkeys... and every blade of golden grass, every dusty rock and leaf, every crooked tree informed by the presence of the tiger.

Our jeep stops on the rocky shores of Rajbagh Lake. Twenty yards out in deep water, an enormous sambar stag munches aquatic plants. An egret stands on its back -- the pair are amusing and regal at the same time. In the blink of an eye, the egret lunges for something in the water, and hops back on to the sambar's back, frog legs visible on either side of the rapier beak. "Tiger," hisses a companion in the jeep. Sure enough, far across the lake, a tiger has come down to the water's edge. She drinks. Then, stepping into the water, she leaps, tail flying for balance, from rock to rock to an island in the middle of the lake.

"She has left her cubs well-hidden in the grass," said a friend, versed in the ways of Ranthambhore's tigers, "and is now 'going to the store' for them."

The tigress, which had disappeared in the tall golden grass on the island, now reappears on the shore quite near us. She drinks again. This time I see her tongue, pink as the pinkest lotus flower, lapping the water. Ripples spread across the surface. With one stride, water streaming from her chin, she is across the last shallow stretch of lake, walking up the dusty track in front of our jeep. Tigers love to use jeep tracks! We follow, slowly, and at a respectful distance. She is utterly indifferent to our presence, striding, tail in an elegant, catty curve, back long and thin, head low between her muscled shoulders. A striped cat.

At the top of the hill she comes to a sudden stop. Our driver brakes, several yards behind her. There is a magnificent view here. For a long moment, she stands, motionless, head up, ears forward, gazing out at Padam Talao Lake in the distance, the craggy remains of Ranthambhore's medieval fortress a blue haze on the cliffs above. Her tail flicks upwards. Padding slowly down the track, she pauses from time to time, head lifted to catch the scent-bearing breeze, gazing toward far-off deer in the shallows of Padam Talao. She disappears in brush.

We find her again ten minutes later. She is lying down, stretched out under a canopy of trees across a track. But this is no sleeping tigress. She alternates between resting her head on the ground, and lifting it, listening intently. She is "lying low." We sit a little way down the track and wait with her, chatting in the subdued but excited whispers of tiger-lovers near a tiger. Our whispering ceases abruptly as we see her suddenly rise and crouch, in one fluid motion. We had thought she had drifted off to sleep! With one great leap, she is into the thick undergrowth at the side of the track. A second later, we hear two choking, yelping cries, which can only be the sounds of a deer being throttled.

In a quick flurry of dust and grinding gears, our driver turns and re-positions the jeep along a parallel track where the tigress may show herself again. We wait, breathlessly, staring down the long, narrow track, tall grass on the right, trees on the left. The seconds tick by, stretching into minutes. Just as each of us begins to wonder whether we have seen the last of her, a collective gasp rises from the jeep. An enormous tiger head has popped out of the grass. Clutched in her jaws is the throat of a chital stag. She is panting with the effort of dragging her kill through the thick undergrowth. She lays the chital between enormous paws, and gazes down the track toward us, mouth open, tongue moving in and out with her breathing, sides heaving. For a moment or two, we watch these two magnificent heads in profile, framed by the golden grass: the predator, catching her breath, the anticipation of her next effort reflected in amber eyes, and the wide-open, darker eyes of her prey, still liquid and beautiful in death.

The tigress turns her head again, but pays us no more mind than she would a tree or rock. Absent-mindedly, almost tenderly, she lowers her head and licks the chital's cheek. A moment later, jaws around the chital's throat once more, and with all four legs straddling the deer's inert body, she hauls her prize across the track. Dream-like, she disappears.

~ Jen Scarlott, January 2001

(Photo: Aditya Singh, Ranthambhore)