A tribute to
Charger – the long living tiger
There
have been quite a number of wild tigers that have become famous
during their lifetime, by virtue of either some special
characteristic inherent in them, or due to the mere fact that
their high visibility in the forest has been instrumental in
making them subjects of sustained documentation of their lives
through extensive photographs and text.
The ones that
come readily to mind are Sheroo, the Corbett tiger that attained fame
initially due to his easy demeanour and high visibility, but later
became infamous after his mauling of Subedar Ali, a forest department
staffer posted in Corbett. Then there was Dhitoo, another robust male
tiger from Corbett, whose infamy condemned him to an existence in the
Kanpur zoo after he mauled and killed David Hunt, an English birdwatcher
on a visit to the tiger reserve. In Bandhavgarh tiger reserve, there was
the legendary tigress Sita, who attained international recognition for
her high fecundity and the large number of litters that she bore during
her lifetime.
But very few
wild tigers have been able to achieve a reputation as awesome as the one
that has gone the way of a male tiger called Charger, who was till
recently a resident of Bandhavgarh national park in Madhya Pradesh,
located about 250 kms south of Allahabad. For almost the entire decade
of the nineties, Charger happened to be the most feared and talked about
tiger, for both the tourists as well as the wildlife managers of
Bandhavgarh.
As his name
suggests, Charger was so called because of his instinctive propensity to
charge at vehicles and riding elephants that tended to come too close
for his comfort. Since tiger behaviour can vary extremely with different
individuals, this inherent characteristic of Charger was acknowledged
and respected by all, once he established his territory on the tourism
zone in Bandhavgarh.
Fortunately,
Charger was able to continue holding his territory for almost ten years,
and sired many litters till he died naturally last year of old age and
consequent debility. During his last days he did run into trouble,
unable to hunt after being injured and chased away from his territory by
a young dominant male, but that was all a part of the natural sequence
that wild tigers go through. What was of importance was the fact that
Charger had been able to live naturally as long as wild tigers are
supposed to do, and his passing away left no regrets.
Charger’s
life and times have now been documented in the form of a book titled
‘Charger – the long living tiger’. It has been authored by Shahbaz
Ahmed, a 1981 batch IFS officer of MP cadre, who was Field Director of
Bandhavgarh tiger reserve at the time of Charger’s death, and has been
published by Print World, an Allahabad based publishing house. The book
contains text that delves into the realm of tiger behaviour from a
writer who possesses a deep insight of the subject, and it is also
beautifully embellished with photographs of Charger. It carries a
graphic account of the last days of Charger, when he had to be rescued
from certain starvation, and possible poaching, after he was chased away
from his territory and spotted in the buffer zone of the reserve. There
are also interesting accounts of actual encounters which people had with
Charger, and the viciousness which he was able to convey during all the
mock charges that he made at his terrified targets, although he never as
much as hurt any human being during his entire life.
Which brings
me to my own encounter with Charger – an entirely insipid affair. It was
in 1993 during my first visit to the park, which was around the same
time that Charger had just begun to make his reputation. The forest
guide in my Gypsy had most emphatically made us turn away, to prevent
approaching a huge male tiger that sat in a bamboo thicket bordering the
grassland. In answer to my protest, the guide explained that this
particular tiger was very dangerous, liable to charge us on further
approach. He said it was called PP Singh. Well, I accepted. Maybe it was
named after some tough Field Director who had at one time been the
scourge of the staff. No, I was informed. They called him so because he
had once charged so viciously at an elephant carrying some tourists that
one of the terrified group had lost control of his sphincter muscles,
and let go on the elephant.
It was then
that the penny dropped! Before he became famous as Charger, he was known
as
pee pee Singh.