A Bright Insight: TIGER IN SIGHT

 Tiger in Sight

By Astrid Bergman Sucksdorff

The tiger is the king of all jungles. the most beautiful beautiful beast on earth. With his strength and power and sinuousness, he gives fresh dimensions to beauty. He is a perfect living being, a sovereign animal.

But I can kill the most beautiful animal that I know - because I happen to be on the side of the human race, to whom the tiger can be a terrible enemy... 

[The pain on the faces of those who lost a loved one to a tiger] can never turn pale or fade away at the sight of a tiger, however incredibly beautiful, however sovereign he may be as a beast, as a living creature.

This is the essence of the book Tiger in Sight by Astrid Bergman Sucksdorff.

Now for those of you (like me) who would rather read the book than read about the book, here's how it was:

REFRESHING AND WILDLY ONE OF A KIND

So bye. Oh yeah, you can find this book in the left-side Forestry shelf in the first floor of the TNAU library, most likely in the bottom racks. It is a medium-sized book (73191) with a chocolate-brown hardbound cover. See you!

Ok so for the rest of you who are still reading this, I hope this blog post makes you want to try out Tiger in Sight or gain some information on it.

Here's the plot: the author, Astrid Bergman Sucksdorff is a Swedish photographer who has come to India for filming nature and the tribes in Chhattisgarh. Astrid shoots with her camera as well as her gun and right from the beginning she "had an idea that shooting would constitute part of [her] work as it is not always possible to live in a state of peaceful coexistence with animals that pay visits on people in order to make a meal of them." This book exclusively talks of her exploits against man-eating and cattle-killing tigers and leopards, but is certainly not starved of context. What makes this story this story is that Astrid narrated it in a humble and friendly voice which makes you want to know more of what happened. And of course, the black and white photographs in which animals have human eyes and the tribal people look like demi-gods are the icing on the cake. Or put it this way - like a real tiger sighting in a safari and not just pugmarks or scat!

Astrid is fondly called Seile, meaning "the smiling one" by the forest people who know her, especially the Muria tribe. As soon as she hears of a tiger or a leopard attack on cattle or people, she is driven down to the place by her companions with her Huqsvarna 30.06 (popular and lightweight Swedish break-action shotgun in the 1960s) or Holland & Holland double-barrelled British rifle and always her Smith and Wesson revolver (USA) in an open holster. The kill is secured using rope or a live goat or bull is tethered, a machan built over it on a suitable tree and when Astrid climbs up into it with everything she would need to kill the killer, the ladder is removed and "hidden so that the tiger cannot see it."

Sometimes drives and beats are organised too. While reading Tiger in Sight for the first time, I was full of contempt for Astrid for killing big cats before confirming whether they were really a nuisance by being man- or cattle-eaters, like Jim Corbett (the famous English hunter-turned-conservationist after whom the Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand is named) did. And I also felt that she did more of hunting than what she actually came to India for. I also remembered what a wildlife photographer friend once told me - that most wildlife photographers are into wildlife photography just so that they can satisfy their hunting instincts, the urge to kill animals. And being a fan of Carpet-Sahib and his writings, I couldn't brush aside the feeling that Astrid was just another European trophy hunter.

I wasn't correct and what Astrid did wasn't technically wrong since the ban on hunting wildlife in India came up only in 1972 while the events in the book are of the early 1960s - 1960 to 1965 to be precise. Also, I learnt a very important thing - you shouldn't judge the author before reading the book. Not once in the entire book have the words "trophy" and "game" appeared, except in quote-unquote situations. And of course, Astrid most probably did not kill as many animals as Corbett did.

What I immensely liked about the story is Astrid's genuine concern for people in general that weaves into the narrative. That is what fuelled her to guard people and their cattle from the carnivores of the jungle with her gun. And it is impressive how someone from Sweden came all the way to India leaving behind her children and family to learn about and film the tribe, the forest-dwellers that we barely pay attention to and are usually only too quick in calling out their "uncivilised" ways. The fact that this lady was able to click so many natural photographs of the tribespeople in their element speaks of her good-natured ties with them.

The language is clear and endearing. Astrid's smiling countenance (Seile again) is in line with the appropriate sprinkling of exclamation marks that adds to the reader's delight. The names of the chapters are simple yet smart and the captions for the photographs drive home the picture and are sometimes really cute. "Hunting is hunting in Bastar and the prey does not always have to be a tiger or a leopard." reads under the photo of a young girl adorned in beads seriously looking for lice in another girl's head.

One thing that could have been better about this amazing book is the placement of the photographs. The story behind the first photograph in the book, of a herdsboy named Soko is actually in the final chapter. Likewise, we see the photograph of Astrid inspecting the teeth of the slain man-eating tiger of Gahr Bengal before knowing anything about the tiger's habit and the hunting operation. Of course the story is good enough without the pictures as Astrid describes everything right from the colours and sounds to the temperature. But that does not mean that the pictures can end up as spoilers. 

On the whole, Tiger in Sight is an exciting book since you get to learn about the Indian jungle of that time with its animals and birds (cool descriptions here) and insects and of course the people who lived with and worshipped nature. "Dusk fell quickly and almost before I noticed we were in full moonlight. The great leaning tree with all its branches drew a dark shadow pattern over the light sand. I could not help thinking of another moonlit evening. We had been sitting with some young boys around an open fire, talking and sharing a calabash of palm wine. The full moon shone down through the leaves of the banyan tree and was reflected in the happy, flashing smiles in the dark faces." The second-hand stories, the ones that Astrid hears from various others and passes on to us are awfully amusing. The leopard who knew the village houses better than the villagers themselves, the tiger that ate only post-boys, the man whose death was more interesting than his life, an unlucky woman and her hot-headed husband and the Gond man whose weapons against a hungry tiger were just nonchalant bravery and some stones!

Sadly, even the jungle of then was not devoid of the wickedness of some humans as we come to know. Murders knowingly passed off as tiger killings. "Sometimes the tiger is merely a scapegoat." Astrid says.

Almost the entire story is set in the forests of today's Chhattisgarh, in Narainpur (Narayanpur), Kondagaon, Bastar and Raipur. You'll get a glimpse of busy Bombay (Mumbai) too. So yes, what are you waiting for? Hop into the jeep with Astrid, trek on foot, sit in the machan with her and enjoy the hospitality of the forest and its dwellers. And tell me about it!