Don’t tempt fate even in a zoo

Pic Courtesy Hindustan Times

I think the picture of the day yesterday, horribly so, was the white tiger in the Delhi Zoo staring down a youth crouching in fear, pleading for his life. It said it all. It’s tragic that the young man had to die such a horrible death.

However, even if we treat this as an isolated case of misadventure gone horribly wrong, there is the bigger issue of the way humans behave in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries and the propensity to blame the authorities when something goes wrong – never looking at where we erred. The point is, we really can’t say what an animal will do and when. That is why it is an animal and we as humans are supposed to understand that.  Whether we visit zoos or wildlife sanctuaries we are told to stay within our limits. We are told to respect the privacy and rights of the animals because we are in their territory. Unfortunately, human beings just don’t understand the simple dictum – whether we are in the jungle or we are in a zoo. Sometimes, I think we should be in a cage and not the animals. I’ve seen people sticking their hand through the metal grill of a cage as if the animal is their distant relative they intend to shake hands with! I always wonder how many seconds it would take for a wild animal to react thinking it was being attacked and grab the hand? But then we are Indians, we learn our lessons the hard way – sometimes, not even then.

And of course, our intelligent broadcast media blames the zoo officials for not having security in place. Why don’t we just allow people to climb into the enclosures where the tiger lives along with security and then see what happens? I would understand if the tiger jumped the enclosure and attacked people. Then the question of lax security could be raised. There are signs everywhere warning us not to cross the barriers, not to throw food, not to irritate the animals etc etc, but we never follow those rules do we? Some reports say that the youth was mentally unbalanced others said he was a bhang addict. I guess we can only feel sorry for him and the way he died. One could fault the zoo authorities for not showing up on time to rescue the young man. Whether they really could have done anything to stop an enraged tiger without any tranquilizers is another issue. Some TV channels said that the fencing was too low. Too low for whom man or animal? We all know an animal will attack only if he thinks it is threatened. And it’s obvious the animal felt threatened at the sight of a human in its enclosure.

I saw the video someone sent me. It is taken a little after the youth fell in till he is dragged away by the tiger. The animal seems as surprised to see the youth in his area as the boy seems terrified. First it looks at him and then starts to paw at him, almost playfully. I can’t even imagine the terror the youth must have experienced even if the tiger was just being playful. The caretaker even calls out to the tiger by name (Vijay) and the cat looks up at the caller. It gets enraged only when the people begin shouting and throwing stones at it. It’s a tiger not a dog, who will take to its heels when that happens. Who knows, if the people on top had remained quiet, the youth might have stayed alive long enough to be rescued by the zoo officials. So who’s to blame here? And that is the real problem.

That apart, look at how we behave when we travel on jungle safaris. The forest guide tells us not to disembark from the SUV, but out we go, posing for photographs in the jungle! Funnily, I’ve sat in canters and jeeps with foreigners and I’ve never seen them break the rules. On any jungle safari, we are told time and again by the forest guards that we are intruding into their territory, so we should respect that and stay within our limits. But, no, we have to throw banana peels and bread at monkeys and rush out of the jeep or lean out to take pictures of the deer or any other wild animals in the area. Worse, when we are told to stay quiet, we just cannot keep our mouths shut. So we do the next best thing. We start whispering loudly! I am just thinking who one would have blamed when in Gir, we were charged by a whole pride of lion cubs. And these weren’t babies but pretty huge. We were sitting on our jeeps in a culvert watching the cubs playing when the two of them charged towards us snarling. Thankfully, the driver reversed in quick time. We weren’t even doing anything crazy like getting off the jeep. We were just sitting without making a sound. Would you call that stupid?

However, I’ll give you just two examples of human stupidity. The first was an incident at the Nagzira wildlife reserve a couple of years back. There was this particular watering hole being frequented by a tiger. Thrice it landed up there to drink water only to be disturbed by a horde of screaming tourists who raced towards the spot. We were a little distance away from the spot, but we were told by one of the excited guides that one adventurous young lady thought she could distract the animal so she used her flash. This enraged the tiger so much that it charged at the jeep. It was the screams of other equally frightened tourists that scared the animal away.

The second was at Pench. There was a pair of tigers snoozing in a lake down below where we were parked and as usual, the tourists were calling and hooting to draw the attention of the animals. I guess it is the Indian upbringing – If I’m paying for it it’s my ‘baap ka maal’ – that makes us what we are. After a while, one of the men, a Gujarati, turned to the forest guard in exasperation and said, “Unko hilao na” (Why don’t you shake them up). With pure disgust on his face the guard said, “unko hilaun ga, to woh hum sab ko hila denge” (If I shake them up, they will leave all of us shaking).

It’s a pity, that the youth and onlookers in the Delhi Zoo on Tuesday realised that a little too late.

The guide who fell asleep during a safari!

Spotting a tiger at a wildlife sanctuary is a matter of chance. On a good day you can see one or more and on other days none. At Ranthambhore we had feasted our eyes on a tiger just 15 feet away that posed for us for over an hour. But one cannot get so lucky every time. Guides who show you around can also be good or bad. But what do you call one who falls asleep and leaves guests to fend for themselves for those five hours? That’s what happened to us at the Mukki zone at the Kanha sanctuary on April 24.

We drove around Kanha first through Mukki and tried to figure out the sights and sounds on our own. Secondly, waiting for a tiger to make an appearance can, sometimes, take up to an hour if one hears the calls. Our friend Santosh didn’t want to wait more than five minutes at any spot. He seemed more interested in rushing us through the forest! At one point we heard the growls of the tiger a few feet away initially, and after a few minutes because the deer had stopped calling the guide decided to push off, even as I requested him to wait a while.

But apart from this unpleasant episode, the fortnight (although a topsy-turvy trip because our bookings had to be rescheduled for extraneous reasons), was a refreshing change. I remember what the late editor SD Wagh used to say when he took leave -‘if I see one more newspaper I’ll vomit’! While I don’t feel so strongly I did need a break. Working thirty six months without a holiday does take its toll and I was desperately in need of one. We drove through tiger terrain in Nagzira, Pench and Kanha and were fortunate to see the cat.

The reserve at Nagzira is also looked after by the forest department but it was a lovely place. Our rooms were right in the middle of the forest and through the night one could hear either monkeys or deer warning the inmates of tigers or leopards in the vicinity.  Here too we spotted a tiger walking in front of us. This guy was a bit shy because as he heard the jeep he ran off into the jungle. This was the same animal that lunged at a jeep with a pesky woman in it.

Before coming to Nagzira we also visited Navegaon sanctuary but calling it a sanctuary is a misnomer. It is maintained by the Maharashtra Forest Department and is in a state of disrepair. The rooms are in terrible condition with latches missing on toilet doors and furniture that looks like it has seen better days. A lot of guests were couples on two-wheelers who seemed to have come from the village for a ‘quiet’ afternoon in one of the rooms. And except for hundreds of simians and some deer there wasn’t anything else to admire. The staff, however, were very helpful and courteous.

Indians make lousy tourists

Indians make lousy tourists, even in their own country. They make a spectacle of themselves when they go abroad, but I guess in their own country, it’s like their ‘baap ka raj’. Take those at the tiger sanctuary in Pench. A majority were ‘aapli mansa’. They were loud, boisterous and thought they were at a mall or multiplex. One idiot even asked the guide to shake the tiger out of its reverie – ‘usko zara hila do’! The guide told him very sarcastically “usko agar hila diya to woh aap sab ko hila dega”. The sarcasm was lost on the idiot.

The minute the guide signalled them to stay quiet they would break into excited whispers that would have woken up the dead. They made so much noise when a tiger was spotted that the scared animal fled. They were screaming to each other that they had spotted the ears, nose and tail of a tiger — which had already left the area! It was embarrassing to say the least., watching the manoos make a fool of themselves. And they also came with infants who screamed their lungs out. Like I said, just like in a mall or multiplex. On the other hand were the foreigners who admired the magnificent beast and clicked away…in silence.

And this was the state of affairs at each place. At Nagzira there was this particular watering hole being frequented by a tiger. Thrice it landed up there to drink water only to be disturbed by a horde of screaming tourists who raced towards the spot. We were told by one of the guides that one adventurous young lady thought she could distract the animal so used her flash. This enraged the tiger so much that it charged at the jeep. It was the shouts of other equally frightened tourists that scared the animal away. I guess it is the Indian upbringing – If I’m paying for it it’s ‘baap ka maal’ – that makes us what we are. What we don’t realise is that in wildlife sanctuaries we are the intruders and should give the animals their space. I guess some Indians will only learn the hard way some day.

Visiting Pench National Park was easily the best part of the trip. We spotted tigers twice and I loved the drive through the jungle. Mukesh Ambani was right, it is the best managed sanctuary. Our driver Shivshankar Baghel was pretty amazing too. He ensured that the three days we spent did not go waste. He drove around Pench like a man possessed to ensure we spotted a tiger up close. “Itni door se aap aaye hain, to aise kaise jaane dein?”

He then drove us to Rukhad forest. This was a real jungle, yet unexplored and so really scary. MP Tourism had just started promoting it so it had no visitors. Even here we spotted fresh pug marks of a rather large tiger. We followed the marks for quite a while but two guards who roared past on a bike must have scared it away. Baghel was so apologetic about it the whole way back that he even gifted my son a lathi!

We stayed at Kipling’s Court which was a very swanky star resort with a swimming pool, bar, a fee snakes on the premises, but little else. They made up for that with their professionalism and the enthusiasm. Thankfully the guides we had were also good. I guess when you’re cheek by jowl to the Taj group resort you really are up against it. The most interesting thing about the Taj crowd was this dark, pretty and extremely sexy woman dressed in camouflage outfit, with studs in her nose and ears, driving one of their canters! She also spoke perfect English to her guests. Both, my wife and I, gave her an appreciative look! Wonder when I can afford a driver like that!!

Kipling’s Court in Pench