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Wildbuzz : Passion for golf & big cats
The tricity is currently hosting national and international professionals, who are playing back-to-back championships at the Panchkula and Chandigarh Golf Clubs for prize funds of ₹2.5 crore
*Golf courses afford a glimpse of common birds and sometimes snakes to those privileged to play them. But when a professional golfer, who is also deeply interested in wildlife photography and wild cat behaviours, extends his forays into the jungles in his golfing off season, the blend of golf and wildlife gets enriched.
The tricity is currently hosting national and international professionals, who are playing back-to-back championships at the Panchkula and Chandigarh Golf Clubs for prize funds of ₹2.5 crore. Among them is Pranav Mardikar, 27, from Nagpur, who took to golf and wildlife when he was just 13-14 years, having inherited the interests from his doctor father, who had himself grown up in the proximity of the great Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh. Mardikar spends his holidays in renowned wildlife sanctuaries, with the Tadoba National Park just 90 minutes away from his hometown. Barring the Jaguar, Mardikar has photographed virtually all the other big cats in his travels abroad and through India.
Mardikar strives not to reduce himself to the archetypal big cat photographer armed with a ‘big bore’, ₹10 lakh lens, who turns his back on the subject the minute a dazzling photo is procured and posted on social media with the motive that it goes viral and gets showered with ‘likes and shares’. His interest lingers beyond the photograph to tiger behaviour, lineage and tracking.
His most memorable moment came when he ventured into an offbeat part of Tadoba where tourists rarely go as tigers are not easily viewed in haunts identified by guides as ‘tiger selfie points’. “In that part of Tadoba, deer are few and tigers prey on bison. There was no one around, none of the tourist vehicle caravans. And then, a stroke of sheer fortune. Tigers had brought down a bison. It was a family of six with four cubs and male, female tigers. One by one, the family came to eat the bison. I was able to photograph the tigers without any disturbance and assess which Tadoba lineage this clan drew its genes from,” Mardikar told this writer.
Shaheen failed His Highness
*Court intrigue, ‘jee huzoori (sycophancy)’ culture and royal displeasure fully attended the erstwhile pursuit of shikar with trained falcons. The Shaheen, though highly esteemed as the ‘Royal Falcon of the East’, was in a memorable incident once the butt of ridicule and her trainer punished severely.
Sarfrazuddin Malik, scion of a family of erstwhile jagirdars from Dasada, Gujarat, and the last of the great falconers, recalls an anecdote from the Bhavnagar royals that evokes the nobility’s dictatorial indulgences. “His Highness (H.H.) Shivbhadrasinhji ‘Shiv Bapa’ had procured a beautiful female Shaheen with a dazzling cinnamon wash to her plumage. He assigned the Shaheen’s training to Hussain Khan, who hailed from a family of Pathans from Punjab who had since generations been hereditary falconers of the Bhavnagar court. It is a challenging task to train falcons and it takes time. But H.H. was impatient and asked Khan if the Shaheen was ready. The falcon was not yet fully trained but given the court culture, Khan dared not say no and falsely told him, ‘Your Highness, Shaheen is ready’. Off went the royal party and the Shaheen was flown at a covey of partridges,” Malik told this writer.
Showing scant regard for her royal patron’s expectations, the wilful Shaheen instead of going for the partridges and affording the much-awaited spectacle of a chase, flew off in the opposite direction. This led to murmurs in the royal entourage that Shaheen ‘ne dum dikhaya’ (showed her tail and fled). “H.H. was incensed. Royal punishment was meted out. H.H. drove off in a huff in his jeep station wagon to Bhavnagar 50 km away leaving Khan, who was ordered to trudge back home!” recalled Malik.
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