Born Free!

I recall my days in the forest of north Bengal in India where I wandered merrily with my mother. My father died of snake bite long back when I was just two years old. Since then my mother killed game for me and fed me until I was trained to be the predator. The apex predator that is. 

It was such a joy to chase, hunt and feed on my prey each time. I was just four years old semi-adult predator in the wild and ruled my territory pompously alone with all other animals fearing my presence and humans, flocked in groups, dying to get a glimpse of my mighty appearance. They found it phenomenal. They clicked my pictures and talked about me even after I had disappeared into the thickets. I was enjoying every bit of my kingly existence.

One day a group of hunters came down to my neighbourhood slyly and shot my mother point blank. She groaned for nearly half-an-hour and eventually gave up in the hands of those cruel hunters called “humans”. They carried her away with them. I know now what they must have done with her shining layer of the skin. Her teeth that were as dead as her body. Her claws that could not any longer shred the skin right off the bone of her assassins. 

They do it for some paper like thing called “money”, I heard humans buy happiness with money. They make pelts and door rugs with our fur and some life saving medicines from our body parts to cure their diseases, so that they live longer and kill more tigers!

In the beginning, I was doomed and dejected. I felt sick for not eating for consecutive five days. I missed my mother being around whenever I would go back to my childhood habitat under a big old banyan tree. Bit by bit, I gathered myself to get used to living on my own. I changed my abode into a small cave hidden in the tick bushes. I promised myself not to fall prey to humans, to be watchful at all time and sternly attack in case I feel endangered in any way. 

It was the onset of summer and I was roving to reach the nearby water hole to quench my thirst after a heavy meal. I heard a call, the calls kept on being repeated at short intervals, it was rather a deep - throated roar of some tigress, “probably in need of some sort of help”, I thought, and went on looking for her into the undergrowth. Here, I must tell you that by now, I was a fully grown adult, an excellent swimmer and look extremely elegant and intimidating in my striped coat while patrolling my territory and if I roar, the creatures run for their lives, the monkeys and the sambars call at the top of their voice to alarm other creatures. Standing in awe and disbelief, I came across a fully grown attractive tigress who, after 10 minutes of growling, emerged from the underbrush. It was a delight to see her walking up to me; there is no denial of the fact that it was ‘a love at first sight’ situation for both us. This fascinating love affair bestowed us with our four little cubs and I still remember how my two daughters resembled their mother. She was as caring as my other, feeding her cubs and protecting them from every little vulnerability; we were happy and contented.

Then came the cursed day of my destiny when my wife got killed and I was shot in one of my legs by none other than a hostile human stalker. I managed to somehow escape his grapple but my wounds failed to heal. Days and months passed away while I, sitting behind a rock, would curse my poor destiny; I could no more hunt for myself. I was turning into a gruesome livestock-eater, a future man-eater, so to speak. Yes you heard me right. My legs failed me, I was starving for the past one week and could not help but attack as soon as the farmer’s cattle came browsing within my precinct. By the time I was in my senses and my hunger was in control, the few gory parts of the bodies were lying on the ground. It was unlikely of my predator character, but I was helpless.

I did not know where my cubs were, whether alive or dead. I was hoping for my wounds to heal and again start tracking, chasing and hunting my games down but fate had some other plans.

I slept too long one day or may be several days, so long and so deep that I did not realize that I got trapped and taken somewhere full of those tiny humans and less of trees and bushes. I felt pathetic, I was in a barred enclosure sort of a setting, it had a small pond and a few shrubs to hide the cemented ground, no other animals or tigers were found in my vicinity, I was chained to my wounded leg, I was alone and deprived of my freedom. I now know how they had drugged me to take me to this place called “zoo” that day fearing that I would resist and attack them. I wish I could, in reality, bite into their collar bones, tear the flesh apart, see them draining and dying out bit by bit. I wish I could avenge the death of my mother, wife and all those big cat kinfolks falling prey to the hands of these grimy gluttonous creatures on earth, God’s greatest creation humans.

Every day crowds of visitors come and stare at me. I hate to be stared at like that. Some of them even pester me by pushing sticks or rods into my cage. If only I were free, I would have taught them a good lesson. How I want to could go back to my jungle home and find my cubs, who I am sure now, if alive, have learnt how to hunt and be the king of my territory or rather their territory. I do not want to be a national animal for you, humans, I AM A TIGER, and I too have a life, diseases and my own miseries and yet have no medicines or money to treat them. I just want to be free and wild.