The man-eater of Betla

It was the year1954 & Tun (Kalindi) had just turned 12. She was awaiting her cousins from the holy city of Gaya to arrive to usher in the festival of Holi together. Her cousins, Viju(Vinay) & Niru(Niranjan), a few summers older than her were sprightly robust kids, ever eager to experience the forest environs.

Chipadohar, where Tun lived with her family, was in the Palamu district, in the state of Bihar. Her father, Mr Prasad was a forest ranger posted in Betla, the nearest range head quarter from Chipadohar. This region was heavily forested, with Chipadohar situated at a middle altitude having thick deciduous forest. The higher altitudes in Palamu boasted of alpine forests & thick grasslands followed the serpentine rivulets in the lower planes.

Lumbering was the main occupation in the region. A few british settlers had stayed back after the british raj was over in the Palamu region. Mr Stuart was one such settler living with his mum, Beatrice. His bungalow was about half a mile away from Tun’s house. Viju & Niru would cajole Tun to take them to visit the Stuarts. The trio would land up at the Stuart house at 4pm sharp to watch the Stuart’s eight bloodhounds lapping up their evening snack of tea & biscuits.

Stuart was a contractor dealing in timber, kendu (leaf used to make bidis) & katha (catechu, an ingredient in paan). He owned a vast expanse of land around Chipadohar and had married a local good-looking tribal girl. His favourite past time was hunting big game.

Palamu had a generous collection of wild life. It was also a tiger reserve divided into three zones: the core zone (heavy forestation where most of the big game was available), the buffer zone (where there was wild life with an occasional wandering of the big cats) & the tourist zone (the area on the fringes of the reserve). Chipadohar was situated in the buffer zone & further divided into east & west range under the Project Tiger division.

Tun & her two cousins would wander into the nearby forests to pick mushrooms that had sprung up on the forest floor or an occasional catch of wild fowl or baters (quail) that they would hunt laying traps, to bring home for consumption. One afternoon, they reached a dried up riverbed & found shreds of blood-stained cloth in the nearby shrubbery. They didn’t make much of their findings until the next day.

Phoolmatiya, the vegetable seller & messenger of the latest gossip doing the rounds, had some bad news to share that day with Tun’s mother. Chamra’s three-year-old daughter had been snatched away from their hut in the thick of the night by a tiger. Intensive search parties could only locate her bloodied clothes & a wisp of baby hair. The adivasis had been eagerly awaiting the rangpanchami festival to revel in the mandar dance. But the gloom of death cast a spell & the mournful despondency was only too apparent with the entire village coming together at Chamra’s place to mourn the death of his child.

This was tiger country & incidents like these had been happening occasionally off late. There had been other news about a tiger turning to human settlements in far-flung Mundu & Betla. Little did the locals realize that it was their own doings.

The eco-system of Palamu was being badly abused by the local contractors, with lumbering reducing part of the forested areas to bare flat lands, dwindling the herbivorous population like the chinkara, wild boar, barking deer, sambar & gaur. The Koel, Auranga & Amanat, tributaries of the Ganges snaked through the heart of the tiger reserve. But Betla & Chipadohar, being in the northern tip of the Palamu reserve had to make do with tiny rivulets & seasonal rivers that had dry beds percolating the water that collected in sparse water holes. This made water scarce & there were select places where the animals could congregate to quench their thirst.

The second blow to the people of Chipadohar came within a week. Budhua was a quiet fourteen-year-old who used to deliver milk at the Prasad’s & the Stuart’s. Everyday, he would come at 6am sharp & deliver milk without fail. But one day he surprised everyone with his absence. It was only when he failed to come the next day also that Tun’s mother was alarmed & sent an orderly, Bisnu to inquire at Budhua’s place.

Bisnu brought back the most horrific news. When Budhua had failed to return by mid afternoon the day before, his father & brothers had gone in search of him . They found his upturned pail of milk by the narrow dirt road that he took everyday to reach the Prasad household. The mud was caked where the milk had spilled & seeped into the ground. An itched ground showed signs of a violent struggle. Intense search yielded Budhua’s bloodied clothes in the thicket nearby.

There was a massive search arranged with most of the men folk joining in with drums & mashals as the sun set on that dark day. There was no sign of Budhua anywhere & the despondent crowd returned to a wailing mother. The next day a local tracker from the forest department found a femur bone with odd bits of Budhua’s clothes. He was given a mournful cremation with people from the neighbouring villages in attendance.

A chilling fear descended on Chipadohar. No children were allowed to play in the open in fear of the “Budha Bagh” as the tiger earned its name in the region due to its chronological maturity. The peasants went to work in the paddy fields in groups as more disappearances were linked to Budha Bagh. The forest department was pressured by the public to put down the marauding tiger. Mr Stuart was contacted by the department to step in & take charge in felling the predatory animal.

Betty, Stuart’s mother always accompanied him on shikar’s as she was a sharp shooter & had earned a few big game trophies herself. They studied the moving patterns of Budha Bagh, which afforded no clues to decide their game plan. The aging feline was quick-witted & unpredictable. Even his visits to the watering holes had no set pattern. The tiger was getting bolder & widening his horizons as the summer progressed.

Stuart trudged deep into the jungle bordering the core & buffer zones. He realized that Budha Bagh never spent too much time in one particular area. He had to take his chance & follow his gut instincts. In consultation with the forest department, he proposed to build a machan high up on a sal tree in the heart of the Betla forest. A goat was tethered to a tree-trunk nearby placing the bait at such an angle as to allow a perfect shot.

The mother-son duo spent their first night up the tree in anticipation of Budha Bagh’s arrival which proved futile. The oppressive hot weather & three more slow & uneventful nights made their enthusiasm dip. On the fifth day of their vigil, at around 2.15am they discerned a shadowy outline approaching the bait. The goat’s agitated bleating set off the papiha that started a beseeching chatter alerting the hunters of the tiger’s presence.

The tiger slowly approached the stupefied animal. The long wait had taken a toll on Stuart’s patience. Without waiting for a perfect angle, Stuart took aim & pulled the trigger. This reckless demeanor cost the Stuarts their five days of penance. He missed & Budha Bagh disappeared into obscurity.

It was as if Budha Bagh sensed their moves now & was always a step ahead of them from then on. The entire summer, they played a cat and mouse game, frustrating the shikaris. Time was running out since the months between November & June was the time when a chance of hunting an animal of such acute senses was possible. The shrubs were scanty during that period, making visibility easier on a moonlit night & the fast drying riverbeds constrained the animals to concentrate on a few water-depleting holes.

Stuart devised many ways to apprehend Budha Bagh but he would always manage to give him the slip leaving Stuart feeling sheepish. It was mid-May when Stuart decided to switch his hunting ground from the Betla forests to the area between Chipadohar & Barwadih. The sun’s bright yellow orb beating down the forest was getting merciless & Barwadih being in the coal belt, the mercury shot higher during peak summer with unbearably hot winds blowing over the hill slopes.

The forest trackers & guards helped the Stuarts construct another machan on one of the trees with a thick trunk, which had good height & stood in a place from where the view was prominent. A goat was again tethered to a nearby tree & the back-up team left the mother-son duo wishing them luck. It was a full moon night & the absence of breeze was a welcome sign. That way they were sure that their scent would not give away their presence. It would also assure that they didn’t fall off to sleep.

The air was filled with the pungent smell of the fallen red palash flowers that were in full bloom during the summer. The night animals started raising an alarm, a lark here, a papiha there…a few chinkara’s nervous calls. Stuart was ready for the confrontation but he knew better than to trust the chinkara’s. They were nervous little beings, easily spooked. But then there were alarmed sambar calls that made Stuart vigilant. Suddenly, the goat started bleating in terror & its desperate movements made Stuart & Betty a picture of complete concentration, guns aimed & ready to be fired the moment the tiger would lunge for the kill.

They could sense the tiger in the vicinity. The hair on the back of their necks stood up as they nervously waited for the attack from the west side where the goat seemed to concentrate. But there was no movement in the thickets to give away Budha Bagh’s presence. In a few minutes the first rays of sunlight spilt over the restless night spoiling the anticipated bushwhack.

The next few nights passed pathetically replacing the initial vigour with emaciated surliness. It was as if they were at the tiger’s mercy now. The moon started waning & as visibility grew feeble, Stuart started worrying if they would ever succeed in their endeavor.

It was not as if Budha Bagh had been lying low. He had made kills in the nearby areas & the pressure was rising on the forest officials as well as the shikaris due to public outcry.

It was the sixth day at Barwadih; the night was sultry due to the torrid weather. As usual, the bait was planted below the tree to lure the tiger. The entire night the barking deers making a ruckus in punctuated intervals, but nothing to alert the hunters of anything unusual.

It was 3.50am. Suddenly, the monkeys in the neighbouring trees started chattering animatedly. The sambar calls sounded genuine too. The nervous goat started to bleat & before Stuart could react, a mammoth tiger appeared from nowhere & lunged straight for the goat’s jugular. The goat writhed under the fatal attack & within minutes, lay limp on the ground, its neck still caught in a steely grip in the tiger’s jaw.

Both the hunters knew this was their only chance: one slip & they might not get another chance to hunt down this feline since the overcast skies were threatening a fast approaching monsoon. Taking careful aim, Stuart pulled the trigger that hit the tiger on its right shoulder. As the bullet pierced & wounded the beast, it flew into an uncontrollable rage. In one concentrated precise aim, Betty shot the tiger in the head & it fell abruptly to the ground. The end had come swiftly & the hunters were in a daze.

The duo wondered if the infamous tiger that had reigned unchallenged the past few months had really gone down? The two carcasses (the tiger’s & the goat’s) lay still, but the hunters knew better than to get off their safe perch at that hour.

They impatiently waited for dawn to set in. As the welcome rays brought clearer resolution to the surroundings, the hunters gazed at the proud beast in disbelief. He was the most beautiful strapping specimen they had ever seen.

It was a day of celebration for the folk living in the surrounding region. A large group comprising the forest officials & villagers gingerly approached Stuarts’ machan & after poking the tiger to ascertain that it had indeed perished, danced in glee beating the drums in a repetitive animated pitch. As Stuart & his mum descended from their perch, the villagers fell at their feet in absolute reverence, thanking the two hunters.

The deceased tiger’s limbs were tied together & a sturdy bamboo inserted in between the tied up limbs to be lifted & the body brought back to the ranger, Mr Prasad’s bungalow.

It was around 9am when the hunters & the hunted arrived at Chipadohar. A sleepy Tun, ran out to check out the commotion outside her house & was awe stuck at the majestic beast that was lying lifeless outside. Budha Bagh was 2.7 meters from head to tail & weighed around 220kgs. Children danced in glee at the end of this noble creature’s era, as it was the beginning of their freedom to play in the open once again.

A sad end to a chapter that was being celebrated by all. The ultimate predator had finally been felled.

(The character Tun in the story is the author’s mother)

Copyright © BuntysBanter 2006