MY TIGER TALE(Archer) I belong to North 24 Parganas, a small district in West Bengal. Today I am here to narrate my first encounter with a tiger. When I was 15 years old, my family decided to go on a vacation in the Sundarbans in the month of March after my board exam was over. I have a big brother (23 years) who is a professional photographer. Our main aim was to click some good pictures of the famous Royal Bengal Tigers.

After we reached there, we took permission from the forest officials for two days of photo shooting. We had to make a platform (traditionally known as ‘Macha’) on a tree to stay and click photos of tigers because it was quite risky on the ground. The thought of a possible attack by a tiger discomforted me. However, the officials showed me the trail of the tigers from where they could appear at any possible time, they said “we have to monitor your movement, sir as it is very risky here and we can’t allow anyone to roam like a vagabond” which became the ‘life-saving’ the life-saving decision later for both of us. So, we stacked food for two days, my big bro’s DSLR (Canon EOS), and some basic survival equipment. We chose a medium tree to stay on, which would favor our shooting, so we started our work by setting the tripod and pointing the camera at the open part of the forest where a tiger can appear.

There was no sign of any animal until one day I found out that a big, fat, strong, and hungry royal Bengal tiger was watching us from the backside of our operation, we were horrified. There was no signal in our phones, not a single way to communicate and what we would do nothing would distract the wild beast. Even if we do not die from the tiger’s paws we would surely die from starving as our stock was at the bottom. I have to say that the tiger was very intelligent, perhaps the Einstein of his community. He sat there for one whole day waiting for us to come down, with our water and food finished we began chanting our last prayers, but no God willed otherwise and erased our names from the book of Chitragupta, we heard jeeps rushing towards the forest and we yelled “HELP”. The tiger ran away with its most angry face perhaps of being scolded by his wife. We got onto the jeep and some food on the way to our bungalow for we were hungrier than the tiger himself.

The next day we visited the same tree where we planned to run our operation, the same tree looked different now, it seemed like a wild animal had scratched the tree projecting its full power showing a symbol of anger.

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