How Valmik Thapar came to know the tigress queen Padmini and her cubs

During these risk-laden journeys on foot Badhyaya and I became very close and I learnt much from his instinctive knowledge of the language of the forest. He remained my favourite forest guard until his death in the mid-1990s. Slim and diminutive, he had no fear of tigers.

One evening Fateh said to me, “Let’s see how fearless you are.” At about 10 pm, after a couple of drinks, we got into a jeep and Fateh told Badhyaya to load a small buffalo in the back of the vehicle. He then turned to me and said, “If we find Padmini you are going to pull this buffalo out and tie it to a tree in front of her.”

My heart thudded in panic. I did not come from a “buffalo tying in front of a tiger” background or family. But with Fateh you could never say no. I remember breaking out in a sweat and wishing we would never encounter Padmini. But no such luck and soon in the valley of Nalghati the searchlight encountered a row of glinting eyes. There, dazzling us, was Padmini with her four cubs, now nearly eleven months old. Fateh turned off the engine of the jeep and the lights. Silence and darkness descended. The buffalo groaned and Padmini knew that a feast awaited her.

Fateh literally pushed me out of the jeep and asked Badhyaya to push out the buffalo and hand me the rope with which it was tied. He turned the light on to the trunk of a tree and told me to tie the rope to the trunk. I saw Padmini watching us intently from 40 feet away. Paralysed by fear, I stumbled forward in a stupor and tied the buffalo to the tree trunk and fled back into the jeep where Fateh had the searchlight focused on Padmini.

She was already stalking the buffalo, her muscles rippling.

When the buffalo saw the tigress it freed itself with a great pull of the rope. In my panic I must have tied a loose knot. As the buffalo fled Padmini raced in and walloped it, disabling its rear leg. Not only was Fateh training me to lose my fear of the tiger, but Padmini seemed to be training her cubs in the art of hunting. Padmini went and lay down behind a bush. Akbar and Babur moved in.

For thirty minutes the three-legged buffalo defended himself valiantly, charging the two young tigers who kept retreating. It was fascinating to watch. It was like boxers in a ring sparring without touching each other. Then suddenly Akbar leapt on the buffalo, forcing it to the ground and struggled with it – much like a wrestler – until he finally found a grip on the neck. Babur joined the fray and jumped on the hindquarters. The buffalo died a slow death.

The cubs had much to learn. Soon they were feasting but after about forty minutes Padmini came up and coughed at them, forcing them to retreat. Then Hamir slowly made his way to the kill followed by Laxmi. Padmini controlled the feeding carefully. In between she helped herself. I was watching mesmerised and all fear of tigers had vanished.

The hours rolled by. In front of us the secret lives of tigers were unfolding. In the next months as the cubs grew their feeding would be closely managed by their mother so that each cub ate alone, the first feeder being the most dominant. This prevented aggression and conflict amongst the cubs.

Most of my nights were spent watching the cubs in the Nalghati Valley. Many of these were full moon nights that made the scene around surreal. Silver, bluish light struck the forest and reflected off the tiger’s coat. Where in the world could you find this kind of natural beauty? How many had the opportunity to soak it in? I lived as if in a dream.

Padmini would go off and leave the cubs sprawled on the black rocks on the slopes of the hills. I used to watch them with a searchlight and a torch waiting expectantly for first light and a glimpse of them before they moved upwards. Akbar, the dominant male cub, would jump on these rocks to pose for us and get really close. The rest would watch from a little distance above.

The setting was splendid and I got what I then considered were unique portraits of these young ones as they draped the black rocks of Nalghati. They were still basically nocturnal and wanted to vanish from our presence at first light but slowly each day they would spend a little more time watching us. Even forty years later, Nalghati is a place I frequently visit and play back incredible memories of those unforgettable times.

I think of 1977 and 1978 as the Padmini years during which we played a game of hide-and-seek with her.

Our observations increased as the family slowly became comfortable in our presence. They were becoming less elusive and evasive and were shedding their nocturnal cloak just like a snake sheds its skin. This change indicated that they were reposing their trust in those who managed these areas. Padmini was a most devoted mother and was now hunting non-stop to feed the ever growing appetite of her cubs.

Her dominant cub Akbar was the most curious and always approached us first. He was also the last to leave in the mornings. He was easily recognisable, with a V-shaped mark on his cheek, and was fearless compared to his siblings. He initially associated the jeep with buffalo and food, but Fateh had slowly phased out baits from the diet as the months went by.

There were plenty of night excursions to look for Padmini and her cubs and on one of these we encountered four tigers feeding on the remnants of a spotted deer. We watched them with a searchlight that was jeep’s battery. Fateh did not realise that the battery was getting discharged. When we were ready to go the jeep did not start. Fateh tried everything but in vain. Finally, he suggested that we walk back. We were 2 kilometres from Jogi Mahal.

With our hearts in our mouths, the four of us left the jeep in pitch darkness with tigers just 20 feet away and feeding.

Fateh told us not to look back and sang film songs and ghazals for more than a half hour until we arrived at Jogi Mahal. It was an experience that I can summon up effortlessly to this day. Tigers lurking in the shadows behind us and Fateh singing, “Yeh raaten, yeh mausam, yeh hasna hasana, mujhe na bhulna bhulana?” But it was experiences such as this one that helped in my understanding of tigers.

Our challenge was to watch the family over a natural kill in full daylight, something that we had never seen until then. It happened one day late in 1977 in the Semli Valley when we pulled over on a grassy verge and found Padmini grooming herself close by. In the grass two cubs were engaged in a tug of war over the remnants of an enormous spotted deer stag. It was our first sighting of them on a natural kill.

The male cubs were aggressive and Akbar was at his best, getting the lion’s share. Babur and Hamir awaited their turn and even tried a tug of war with the carcass to break it into bits. Laxmi was the calmest, eating last but able to fend off her brothers. Tigers still had memories of man and cowbells – with their association to livestock and food – attracted them.

I had a bell in the jeep and one evening in Malik Talao, while waiting for Padmini’s cubs, I started ringing it. Nothing happened for a few minutes. Then suddenly Badhyaya, who was sitting next to me, said, “Tiger.” I got a shock. I was outside the jeep and there was Laxmi approaching us.

She was slouched low as if ready to stalk and pounce. I still remember the grass moving under her feet as she paced forward. I clicked a few photographs – they are some of my favourite ones even today – and leapt back into the jeep. She walked around the jeep to check if there was a buffalo inside!

On another occasion I was walking in Nalghati looking for a missing bait. We couldn’t see either bait or tiger and for some ungodly reason I started ringing the cowbell believing if there was a tiger it would show itself. From a few feet away a tiger leapt out of a ravine and raced over the hill. I stood petrified. The driver later told me that he thought that would be the end of me.

Excerpted with permission from Living with Tigers, Valmik Thapar, sketches by Rose Corcoran, Aleph Book Company.