A Tiger's Tale

Chapter 4

I woke up early in the morning and saw that the family of tigers were still asleep until Shikharna had awoken and stretched out her legs and gave a really loud yawn that had disturbed Kharn and Broken Ear whilst they were sleeping. Shikharna looked at me with her deep eyes then turned her head slowly towards the view which lay in front of her. Kharn looked at Syeed and I with a puzzled look upon his cute face.

"Why you still there?" is what Kharn had probably been thinking. Broken Ear wasn't all that bothered he stared at the amazing view in front of him, I was thinking that maybe he was trying to copy his mother. Broken Ear was a bit of a cheeky cub. But I loved him to pieces, he was definitely my favourite by far. Shikharna looked so powerful standing at the edge of the cliff but she was so caring. I took a picture of Shikharna and I also took a picture of Broken Ear as he was following his mother and joining in with staring at the landscape in front of him. Eventually, Kharn felt left out and also copied Shikharna, the two cubs were like peas in a pod.

Once again they were on the move again. I recorded the two cubs as they followed behind their mother in a line, one by one they trudged along the rocky floor and then gradually came upon the tall grass that was so high I lost Syeed in it. Shikharna hid the cubs then she went hunting. I stayed there with the cubs until Shikharna came back with a dead deer in her mouth. The body trailed along behind her, leaving stains of blood on her floor and on the grass too. I saw blood dripping from her jaws as she dropped the carcass on the floor in front of the cubs and laid down to watch her cubs happily munch on the deer ripping off pieces of meat. I recorded the cubs on my camera. When the cub's tummies were full up with deer meat the mother started to feast on the deer as well, her eating manners were much more gross than the cubs.

I've been out here for so long with these tigers. Just learning their way of living life, their life style was much more complicated than us humans. When I was younger I heard so many tales of these beautiful creatures I imagined them as stealthy, big, powerful animals and nothing got in their way. But out here right now I now know these animals would never hurt a living being, I never thought they'd be so caring and delicate. I feel so sorry for all their ancestors, they were hunted, killed, their meat being roasted for a man's dinner. I wonder if the tigers know what might happen to them one day. I just hope nothing will harm this family because I have never seen a group of tigers get along so well. It just warms my heart.

Through out the weeks I've been here with Shikharna, Kharn and Broken Ear I have learnt so many things. I wish I could never leave them but I know I'm going to have to. I will be so devastated when I have to go, I wish I was a tiger and my wife and my kids. But then I remembered that the male tiger always leaves the female to raise the cubs and I would not want to leave my family. Ever.

My journal is half full with all these sketches and writing all about my travels and what I've seen, smelt and touched. The food I've bought with me has almost ran out, I don't want Syeed and I to die of starvation. But when we do run out of food we'll have to do things tiger style. We'll have to search for food, I don't want to eat a living animal. So I'll look at trees and search for fruit, I could search for meal worms if they're in India. This was a matter of survival.