E-Paper
Wildbuzz: Twists in tales of tiger skins
Long are the shadows cast by tiger skins on history’s walls. Two such skins of tigers shot shaped the destiny of a young India struggling to find its feet in the aftermath of Independence.
Long are the shadows cast by tiger skins on history’s walls. Two such skins of tigers shot shaped the destiny of a young India struggling to find its feet in the aftermath of Independence.
The wildlife conservationist Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, was dead against tiger shooting. She was instrumental in banning the fabled shikar. The book, Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature, by former Union minister Jairam Ramesh, carries a letter Indira wrote to son, Rajiv, in September 1956. “We have received a huge tiger’s skin. The tiger was shot by the Maharaja of Rewa two months ago. The skin is lying in the ballroom. Everytime I pass it, I feel very sad that instead of lying here he might have been roaming and roaring in the jungle. Our tigers are such beautiful creatures, so graceful. Such a short time ago he must have been the King of the Jungle --- striking terror in the hearts of other animals. I am so glad that nowadays more and more people prefer to go into jungles with cameras instead of guns. It seems such a shame to deprive anything of the joy of living just for our pleasure,” Indira’s letter stated.
Earlier, incarcerated by the British in Allahabad prison, a young Indira wrote to her father, Jawaharlal Nehru, in March 1943. Her budding soul seemed to echo a poetic lament: what is a table, but the bones of a tree buried in a living room, the warmth from the hearth but its funeral pyre. “We have only three shady trees (here). Or, rather had, for one of them, a stately gnarled old neem, fell with such a tremendous thud. It looked so strong, and one would have thought it would last forever. Its roots had all been eaten away by white ants. There was majesty in every branch even as it lay prostrate, but almost immediately it was chopped up for firewood. Remember --- The parent bear whose hug, was feared by all, is now a rug,” she wrote.
The Rewa skin left a sad impression. Putting her might firmly behind the vanishing tiger upon turning PM, Indira brought the Wildlife (Protection) Act in 1972 followed by Project Tiger in 1973. In between she crossed swords with the nobility by abolishing privy purses / titles. One of those affected was the late Maharaja Karni Singh of Bikaner, a five-time Lok Sabha MP and India’s first and enduring world-class shooter.
The maharaja came agonisingly close to bagging gold at the Cairo World Shooting Championship in October 1962. An unimaginable, super-heroic feat for an era characterised by training facilities much below world standards. In a gruelling four-day trap shooting match over 300 clay pigeons, Singh tied for first with the Soviet, V. Zimenko, at 295. Both had to immediately go in for a ‘barrage’ or tie-shoot but were again tied (74 / 75) when halted due to darkness. They were to resume the next morning. In between came a pre-scheduled evening presentation.
In his memoir, From Rome to Moscow, Singh wrote: “I got mixed up in a presentation ceremony of a tiger skin on behalf of India to the UAR Shooting Association and much against my better judgment I had to attend the dinner and make a presentation speech. I knew that the correct thing for me was to go home and sleep. I attended the function as team captain so I could not possibly refuse. The tiger skin (was of one) shot by my grandfather (Maharaja Ganga Singh). This was greatly appreciated by our UAR friends, and I am glad that we had taken this souvenir skin from our country. By the time we dispersed it was 10.30 pm....and my body was stiff, aching with fatigue.”
The next morning, Singh’s reflexes in the brutal contest of trap shooting slowed down due to accumulated fatigue. He missed a few pigeons and had to settle for a silver medal at 96 / 100. Zimenko flew off with the gold, scoring 98 /100. Singh had missed gold by the proverbial tiger’s whisker.
Who knows the neck which would have dangled the Cairo gold had it not been for the shadow cast by a pugmark stilled and a roar frozen in jungles and times, far away.
vjswild2@gmail.com
