The Great Downpour

Chapter IX

Chapter IX

The change in the weather over the last three or four days had made Rising Water increasingly uncomfortable and hungry. He killed a chinkara that strayed into his path on the morning of Thursday, and by Friday morning, he had finished off the kill and lay licking his chops, grunting with satisfaction from time to time. By the afternoon, it had begun to rain heavily, and the tiger sought shade, ironically, under a tourist machan that was erected for tourists and photographers to observe the wildlife in the jungle.

By early evening, the rain had reduced to a drizzle and the tiger was becoming a bit restless. Once or twice, he heard the growls of a female tiger; he replied with a few enticing growls of his own; he decided to search her out. He began his walk towards the direction of the sounds that he had heard. He was aware in some corner of his mind that the track that he was walking on led towards where men had their habitations and reinforcements, but the call of the female stirred something in his loins that made him forget the danger and led him to continue walking towards where the Tourist Centre and the Forest Officer’s Reserve Offices were located.

He was, however, almost 50-60 kilometres away from these structures, and not likely to reach them for a day or two at least. He walked with his head held high, a glint in his eye. His gait seemed almost “purposeful”, so elegant and quick did it seem to an onlooker were he to espy this magnificent animal at this moment. He passed by a stream of water that joined another larger tributary of the Pench river about thirty-odd kilometres ahead. He stood astride some rocks and bent his head down to drink long gulps of cool, fresh water. Satiated, he let out a growl that startled hundreds of roosting birds and a few wild boar which had been behind a nearby outcrop of the hilly terrain.

Uninterested in the creatures, he walked past their smells and went on ahead. Coming to a large ficus tree, he sat under it for a short while, licking and grooming himself in preparation for his meeting with the female later today or tomorrow. A hare came near him and he made as if to grab him, but he was not really interested in eating and his attempt was just an exploratory one and not really intended to kill the hare. The hare saw the paw with its razor-sharp claws and ran away, skittering on the grass before disappearing down a hole. The tiger growled at the disappearing hare and went back to his grooming.

A ferocious looking leopard came a little too close and the tiger jumped at it and scared it away. The leopard went away mewing loudly as the tiger had gotten a bit too close to it and raised his paws to attack it on the flanks.

Night came suddenly as it is wont to do in the jungle. The tiger continued his journey towards the female’s call. Owls could be heard flapping their wings and going from one tree to the next in their quest for prey. Over the ground were the more deadly hunters such as snakes, scorpions and leopards and other big cats. The tiger ignored any interruptions from anywhere and single-mindedly kept moving ahead.

At the break of dawn on Saturday, the tiger was within a few kilometres of the human habitation. It was at about that time that he finally met up with the tigress. She was a young animal, just about three to four years old, but she moved very gracefully and seductively in the tall, elephant grass. The tiger let off a mating call which the tigress immediately reciprocated with a happy growl that wafted across the distance on the rising warm air to the perked-up ears of Rising Water. He began to move in for the seduction. Sunlight broke through the canopy of the rain tree that sheltered the courting tiger couple. Very languidly, the tiger reached up to the tigress and gave her a lick on her nose.

The tigress purred with pleasure and turning around, presented her rump to the male. The mating would take place soon.

***

Pahelwan Ranjit Singh walked in front of his team of dacoits with an air of authority that was similar to a colonel of the army inspecting his troops before going into battle. The nineteen men who faced him varied in age from a mere fifteen to over forty-five. The eldest one, a Rajasthani man, went by the unusual sobriquet of Nishaanbaaz. His actual name was Beer Thakur. He was touching 49, but he had a keen eye-sight and one of the best aims among the entire gang. It was rumoured that he had once shot a victim from a moving jeep from a distance of over 500 metres straight in the middle of the forehead. Beer was the Pahelwan’s chosen lieutenant and second in command within the gang.

“Chalo, tell me: Is everyone ready?” asked the Pahelwan.

All heads nodded in unison. The men were holding long sturdy sticks or lathis in their hands. Some of them had wrapped red scarves around their necks while some had put bandannas around their foreheads. More than half of them were bearded; one had an eye-patch that covered his right eye – a souvenir from a leopard attack sustained almost six months ago; a few of the seniors also carried a .303 bore rifle and belts of bullets around their torsos. Nishaanbaaz Beer had a pistol on his belt as well as a more modern rifle on his shoulder: the rifle had a telescopic barrel fitted to it. Pahelwan carried a sub-machine gun and at least 3000 rounds of bullets on him. With his large size, unkempt beard and a large mole on his left cheek, he looked the most menacing of all.

“Do you all remember the lessons I taught you over the night fire yesterday?”

“Yes, Sardar, we do.” This was mouthed by one of the younger dacoits, Shyamu.

“Good. The key word here is to create panic and to rob swiftly and sharply before the Park authorities realize what has happened. We have inside help, as you no doubt know already,” here the leader stopped for dramatic effect, “and we may have to make these people happy by sharing some of our booty with them so that they remain loyal to our cause.”

“Sardar, are these … er … helpers from the College?” asked Nishaanbaaz.

“Yes … those too.” This is all that Pahelwan would divulge.

“We move at eight,” said the leader as he gave them the signal to take it easy for the next hour or so as it was still just six in the morning.

While the dacoits milled around the cave where they all hid, they could hear increasingly frequent growls of tigers from quite close by. Living with wild animals had inured their hearing to a great extent, and yet, little by little, the growling noises reached the conscious level of one dacoit after another. Most still pretended not to be affected by the noises, but all felt queasy at the thought of being attacked by tigers. They knew that tigers feared guns and bullets, but they also knew that a determined hungry tiger who encountered a lone human could finish off his victim much before the latter even had a chance to cock his gun and raise it to the level of his eye to aim and fire.

Thus a tense and nervous feeling was in the air when the Sardar finally announced that it was time to move.

**********