After a break of nearly two years, I mustered the courage to leave Bengaluru for a vacation, towards the forests of Tadoba and Kabini, both national tiger reserves.
Choti Taara, Maya, Sonu, Babli. Beautiful names of pretty maidens no wonder stir in one’s mind elegant, charming and graceful women of tender and attractive age just like Cinderella, Snow White, Alice, et al conjure up in one’s mind nimble-footed, dancing and beautiful princesses.
These are of the princesses of the forest. They are ferocious yet beautiful. They seem rugged but adorn a shiny and elegant coat. They have a natural beauty shorn of facial, but yet have colourful lines of white, black and orange drawn, with eyes lined as if with make up and liners by beauticians (truly by divine beauticians).
They are big but shapely. They walk firmly on rough terrain but with the elegance of a queen, with the grace of a cat walk at a fashion show. They are earthly but divine and dignified. They do move sternly but softly and silently and strut with the elegance of a peacock.
They show their pride by their indifference to surroundings. They unashamedly proclaim and assert their right to territory, sometimes aggressively, without tolerating any intrusions. Over all, they command respect and not demand it.
It is these ‘tygers’ who inhabit the jungles of Tadoba and Kabini. They are the pretty women of the forests whose sight excites, delights and makes one wonder at the marvel created by the same creator who created the lesser mortals like us. They are a feast to the eyes and the pride of the forest.
On the prowl, they generate fear among the others in the habitat who with their protective cries warn of impending danger, evidencing bonhomie not easily experienced in life outside the jungle. Contradictions rage when it comes to tigresses - beauty in the beast; elegance amidst sternness, dignity with pride, and an iron fist in a velvet glove.
This is a short tribute in prose to that creature of wonder whom William Blake praised in poetry like this:
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water’d heaven with their tears;
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?