Teer/ Arrowhead
Panthera tigris tigris
ENDANGERED
Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary
The jungles of central India, dating back millions of years, are home to some of the most varied wildlife in India. From bears to boars, monkeys to mongoose, from the forest floor to the tree tops, from the smallest species to the largest, this is Kipling’s Jungle Book made flesh and blood and home to arguably the earth’s most beautiful killer - the Bengal Tiger. A solitary hunter that combines stealth and power to kill with a swipe of its paw or one bite of its powerful jaws and NOTHING quite prepares you for a tryst with a bengal tiger in the wild neither Jim Corbett’s lilting colonial prose nor Disney’s brilliant films.
More often than not, spotting a tiger, is an exciting game of hide-and-seek with small clues sprinkled randomly all over the jungle – a strangely silent and deserted waterhole on a warm evening, a skittish sambhar stomping his hoof for no obvious reason, a herd of chital with ears tuned to whispers of the tiger's prowl, a pug-mark in the still damp mud, a nervous langur peering at a lantana bush – all pushing the adrenaline as you await a climactic encounter with the apex predator of the jungle. It does not matter where and how it happens, the moment is always mesmeric. Something beautiful and primal stirs within our dulled urban souls and it is virtually impossible to be unmoved by the up, close and very personal experience of meeting almost 220 kilos of majesty and raw muscle.
Tiger authority extraordinaire Valmik Thapar said tigers have always "captured the human imagination" and "from the beginning of civilisation, they [tigers] have been feared, worshipped, admired, hunted, studied, photographed, written about, immortalised in art and poetry...” As William Blake – who at best probably just managed to spot a gambolling tiger cub at London Zoo – gushed in his 1794 illustrated poem contemplating and immortalising this beast, "Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry?"
This was the stage set for us amidst the beautiful green and gold hills of the Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary, home to a rich menagerie of denizens that make up the tiger’s world and, often, its unwitting buffet. Here, almost on the western fringe of the forest, just beyond a nullah still bearing water from the recent rains, we finally found Teer - or as he is also known - Arrowhead. His Namakarana or naming was done by Ajinder Singh who runs the beautiful and comfortable Tiger Tales Eco Resort very close to the Sunna Gate.
Teer/ Arrowhead was born in February 2023, one of three cubs, in the fifth litter of the legendary Talabwali female when she mated with the dominant Zanjeer.
Read on and immerse yourself in the experience of searching for a tiger in the wild jungles of central India.
For more: Video & Film
Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary has emerged as a successful tiger-cradle in the Eastern Vidarbha Landscape (one of the prominent Tiger Conservation Landscapes of India) and has demonstrated the potential to populate nearby tiger reserves like the Kawal Sanctuary in Telangana. However, like almost all other tiger reserves in India, Tipeshwar too, is plagued by the usual suspects – it is surrounded by densely populated and human dominated landscape with all the associated baggage that unhindered human activity brings - poaching, cattle grazing, trespassing etc., development – illegal mining, highway expansion etc., forest and prey-base degradation, human-tiger conflict etc. There are also a number of villages within the sanctuary area and their inhabitants are dependent on the forest for their livelihood.
But that said Tipeshwar has gone from being a sink, collecting surplus tigers from the larger sanctuaries, to becoming a source, generating increasing tiger numbers with village relocation playing a particularly important part. The three villages in the sanctuary - Tipeshwar, Pitapingri and Maregaon - mostly dominated by the Kolam tribe were relocated, I think, in 2014-15.
Read about the Meadow queen of Maregaon who has recently given birth to three cubs which I will write about soon. For now you can meet the cubs here.
Five tribes occupy the Tipeshwar forest region viz., Pardhan, Gond, Kolam, Navbuddha & Kunbi, of which the former three are said to be aboriginal. The total populations of these tribes range from a few hundred to thousand and are seemingly vanishing; these tribes are stricken with poverty with a high mortality rate in infants, and a high incidence of sickle cell disease. Albeit in the recent years the increase in tourism has improved their condition to some degree. I have done a piece on these Gond tribes and their struggles in the forest recently albeit in the Kawal Tiger Sanctuary. You can watch this heart wrenching video where a Gond from the neighbouring village describes their daily struggle with a basic need - the availability of water. The blog is here.
The inviolate spaces created for the tigers through this village relocation exercise and additional measures such as the introduction of prey like sambar has helped the increase in the population of tigers.
Our trip to the now lush forests of Tipeshwar was planned on an spontaneous urge to spend time as a family in the forest. We arrived at Ajinder Singh’s Tiger Tales Eco Resort on 7 June and started out in search of the young male cub from the 5th litter of the legendary Talabwali female - Teer or Arrowhead as he is also known. Teer is two and a half years old now and was born in February 2023. He was named “Teer“ for the distinct arrow mark on his forehead. The word in Hindi for an arrow is “teer”. This video documents our journey to find him in these green and golden forests.
A brief note about Ajinder’s beautiful Tiger Tales Eco Resort. He has spent the last 12 years in and around the sanctuary documenting its magnificent tigers and the illustrious lineages similar to those in neighbouring Tadoba. Both Tipeshwar and Tadoba are home to beautiful resident tigresses like Archi, 4-Mark, Choti Tara, Maya & the W-mark Female who are mating with the strongest males like Veer, Zanjeer, Shambhu, Taru & C2 and birthing equally strong cubs maintaining the bloodlines. The tigers of Tipeshwar, however, are not as bloody as Tadoba when it comes to the battles for supremacy. You can read about some of the Tadoba lineages here and some tigers of Central and South India below where I discuss about more lineages across various forests of central and south India.
The Tiger has always been a subject of curiosity to humans, even mysticism - worshipped by the ethnic Gond tribes who reminisce legendary tales of tigers around their campfires. Ajinder Singh’s resort is an homage to these tales some of which he too has witnessed, over the years, as they were enacted in the precincts of the jungle. These tales form a major part of his visual documentation of the resident tigers and is the inspiration for his esoteric association with Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary with the resort the apogee. He has also created an excellent chart illustrating the various lineages over the last decade or so.
With that said, our search for Teer/ Arrowhead started with the usual waterholes, first one then the other. We covered a fair bit of distance from the Sunna Gate and all along we stopped by his usual haunts in the tall grass hoping for some sign of his presence. The entire jungle was quiet and there was absolutely no trace of the tiger who albeit his age and size is not as bold as Veer, when he was the same age, and is considerably more reclusive and shy. He is also still hanging around in his mother’s erstwhile territory I am told. But that said - not too far from where I saw him - I also saw Archi - that video will come later. Eventually, as the sun rose higher, we decided to wait for the jungle to tell us, but the jungle kept its secrets well betraying no clues.
Our patience and perseverance paid off when, finally, the jungle started to come alive - first with some Dhole (Wild Dogs) and then with other species. On an earlier occasion I had witnessed Archi chasing away some Dhole in a spit second of explosive action to protect her cubs. I have that in a two part series because the entire episode was a few seconds and the Dhole chase itself was all of half a second giving me 7 spectacular frames -
Then word came, from far away Mangisawargaon, almost at the western fringe of the forest that Teer had been spotted, just barely, on a cattle kill. We excitedly made our way there and found him sleeping his meal off. At first it was difficult to find him in the grass but eventually the flies pestering him gave away his position. The kill itself was not visible because it was hidden but when we had seen him the previous evening at the same location, each time the wind was in our faces, there was a very strong odour typical of a kill.
After the excitement of finding him, we waited, in the hope that he will get up and move, but the cattle kill had basically served all his worldly purposes. There was no more need to hunt for food with some of the kill still left; the recent rains had ensured there was water in the nullah just below his position in front of us; there was no other predator in the vicinity to disturb him - apart from Archi but that was much later and I am sure he would not mind the company of an attractive lady. Therefore there was not a single reason in the world for him to move away from his current position.
He spent the entire afternoon twitching his tail and flicking his ears at the flies. Sometimes turning this way and sometimes the other. It was a cloudy day and the sun kept moving in and out of the clouds and finally as it started drop in the west, Teer sat up. From our point of view although he was visible while lying down, he was not once he sat up. So we had to change positions - first a little to our right hoping to get a clear view through all the brush - which didn’t really work too well. Then later to a point further to the right which provided a frontal view but all the brush on the banks of the nullah prevented an unobstructed view.
And all through these, comings and goings and movings - because it wasn’t just us there - he knew we were there. Towards the evening when the excitement reached a frenzy as expectations went through the roof anticipating his movement he simply didn’t budge but he did get a wee bit agitated with all the noise and disturbance. Shortly after he went back into the denser brush behind him completely disappearing from view.
But I am sure, that although we couldn’t see him, he most certainly could still see us. This reminded me of the quote, “Whether you see a tiger or not, the tiger, most certainly, has seen you,"
Although it is difficult to pinpoint a single, definitive author, this quote reflects the awareness that tigers are often hidden and elusive hunters, and that their presence is likely felt even when not directly observed.
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