Gladiators of Gondwana - 1

Panthera tigris tigris

ENDANGERED

Adegaon-Dewada, Tadoba Andhari National Park

India is a land of diversity and proudly embraces communities and tribes of diverse origins. It is a land where people from a multitude of cultures have coexisted in harmony with each other and with nature. One such community, with a Dravidian base, that has peacefully existed in the heart of the Indian subcontinent are the Gondi people. They are the original inhabitants of central India and have a glorious history of empires and victories dating their origins back to the pre-Aryan times. The area they inhabited was called Gondwana - Land of the Gond.

The word “Gond” comes from the Dravidian word ‘Kond’ which translates to ‘Green Mountains’. A term rightly depicting the green mountains the Gond community inhabited from the Godavari gorges in the south to the Vindhya Mountains in the north. One of the oldest tribes in India, tracing their origin to Proto-Australoid race, the Gond were featured in The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. They have a fascinating history going back eons when they were ruled by mighty kings who expanded their kingdom across all of Central India. It is said that Gondwana and the Gond tribe was considered one of the largest and most powerful tribes in South Asia with a rule that lasted 500 years. The Akbarnama, the official chronicle of the reign of Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar by Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak, mentions that the Gond kingdom of Garha Katanga had 70,000 villages.

The Gonds came to prominence after a cataclysmic event in the early 14th Century. Alauddin Khilji, the then Sultan of Delhi, defeated the powerful Kakatiyas of Warangal (1310 CE) and the Yadavas of Devagiri (1311 CE), victories that forever changed the history of the Deccan. The defeat of these powers in the south disrupted the existing political systems and in the chaos that followed the Gond dynasties emerged. They ruled the hilly region of Central India for 500 years from the 13th to the 18th centuries. These dynasties were either independent or served as tributary chief during the Mughal times. Of these, there were four powerful Gond kingdoms - Garha Katanga also called Garha Mandla of Jabalpur, Deogarh kingdom of Chhindwara, Chanda kingdom of Chandrapur and the Kherla kingdom of Betul.

According to Gond lore, there rose among them, a hero called Kol Bhil. He was a man of great strength and wisdom and it was he who taught his fellow Bhils the use of iron thus transforming their culture and turning them into a powerful fighting force. Gond power was at its zenith during the reign of Akbar as described in the Ain-i-Akbari. It names Babji Ballal Shah (1572-1597 CE), a contemporary of Akbar, as the powerful ruler of the Chanda kingdom. And finally, in the 18th century, all the Gond kingdoms were conquered and absorbed into the Maratha empire by the Bhosle rulers of Nagpur.

Gonds can be classified into the Raj-Gonds, Khatola-Gonds, Madia-Gonds, Dhur-Gonds, Dadve-Gonds, Mokasi-Gonds, Gaita-Gonds, Koyas. All members of the Gond community are highly skilled in arts and crafts and especially famous are the Gond Paintings which originated in the Mesolithic Age and through which they pass on their stories and beliefs to the future generations. These natural colour paintings depict folk tales, religious stories and their gratitude to nature expressed in the form of murals. The modern form of Gond Paintings has its origins in a decorative and symbolic art known as Dighna. Dighna is used to celebrate all occasions in the lives of the Gonds. The Gond community strongly believe that their artworks help ward off evil and spread positivity all around. The Pardhan Gonds are designated with the responsibility of carrying forward the task of translating oral histories and folklore into beautiful paintings. They first choose a theme and then apply a simple “dot and line“ technique to create the entire artwork. This technique illustrates a sense of activity and movement in the motifs and the beauty of this artwork lies in its intricacy and simplicity.

Into this enchanted realm of the Gonds we venture again in search of the gladiators of Taru (the legendary Gond chieftain who valiantly fought with a tiger) and the first gladiator who graced us with his presence was Taru (T-185) himself - a magnificent male tiger about 6/7 years old and ready to make his move into the light of fame and glory.

Taru - Adegaon-Dewada, Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve - WildArtWorks

The Gondi’s believe that the tiger should be the king of the jungle as it is the symbol of power, strength and bravery. They believe this because the god “Taru” was killed when he had an encounter with a tiger. Their belief in this is so strong that they worship the tiger and treat it akin to a god and as a protector of the land. Even their art, brought into the public eye, by the famous Gond painter, the late Jangarh Singh Shyam, consistently depicted trees, animals, birds, Gods, village life, and the connect with nature seemed to be unbroken and intrinsic. The Gonds are organically connected with nature - Koyapunem - implying “the way of nature”. Nature and a close interaction with it is the basis of the Gonds’ religion. Parsapen or Fadapen, the supreme deity of the Gonds, is not personified, but a symbol of the supreme creative force at the root of all creation. Parsapen signifies the union of the male and female creative forces, Salla and Gangra.

The Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve is where Gond culture and heritage meet some of the most iconic wildlife of Central India, making it a jewel of the heartland. The richness of Madia Gond heritage reflects in the unique stone pillars once used for relaying announcements during royal processions, still preserved within the tiger reserve. Nowhere else has the intertwining of nature and humankind been iconified as distinctively as in Tadoba, where sculptures of tigers chained with the victims of human animal conflict are placed commonly in the peripheries of villages surrounding the park. While Tadoba's teak, ain and baheda forests offer refuge to tigers, leopards, sloth bears, dholes, honey badgers, small cats and a variety of herbivores like the Gaur, Chital & Sambhar, its lakes are home to mugger crocodiles and a healthy population of the near-threatened Grey-headed Fish Eagle, making the reserve an eco-tourism hotspot. I hope these blogs succeed in serving as a reminder of all that is threatened by the expansion of mining operations and roadways in the region.

Anyway, for the most part, Chital and Sambhar are the preferred prey of any tiger. The chital tip the scales at 60-70 kgs while the sambhar at 300-400 kgs; therefore, a sambhar can serve up a few good meals and is usually preferred by tigers and especially more so by tigresses with cubs. But these deer prefer grasslands to dense forests because it allows them the room to outrun the marauding tiger or tigress. As an outcome of this, in the Kolsa range to the south-east of Tadoba both the males and the females have adapted to hunt the formidable Indian Gaur. A gaur could weigh up to 1500 kgs and can last, even for a family of five, many days. Hailing from this fabled range are the tigress known as the Shivanjari female (T-06) and the Kakarghat male (T-36) who, I think, play a role in our story today.

Taru, appears to have a lot of confusion and uncertainty, regarding his birth and bloodline. Some say he is born to the Shivanjari female (T-06) and most likely fathered by the Kakarghat male (T-36) when they littered Rudra (T-103) and Tala (T-100) in 2016 as the litter had 1 female and 3 male cubs - because he is the right age. Some say he was first spotted in 2018 on a camera trap in the Shindewahi area far to the east. Then he appears to have made his way into the Navegaon range before being seen around Khatoda in the core. At the time of these sightings he was very shy and kept to the shadows for the most part. If and when he was spotted in the open he was very quick to fade into the brush so much so that he was considered a “bhagoda“ a Hindi word which means he who runs away. But later on he seems to have taken advantage of Khali’s (T-50) decline in the south and started to make forays into the Dewada range. Interestingly Rudra & Tala both migrated from the Kolsa Range on the far south-eastern side of the park to the Tadoba range. So if Taru is their missing brother did he too follow suit and migrate first to the north and then to the south? Or did the third male and solitary female cub from the Shivanjari and Kakarghat litter die?

Tadoba is where the wheels of time turn simultaneously on many fronts. By 2018, subadults Rudra & Tala from the Shivanjari family were trying to establish their own territories. The massive Shiva (T-51), the son of Wagdoh and Kori, set off a chain of events by ousting every male in the Kolsa range. Gangaram and Kakarghat tigers probably moved to the fringes, while four tigers viz., Rudra, Tala, Paras and Mowgli made inroads to Tadoba range. Rudra and Tala’s move to the north was when Matkasur (T-49) ruled a major portion of the Tadoba range, a territory he had claimed from the Katezhari male and Saturn (T-47) male many years ago. Matkasur had also successfully defended this territory from a rampaging Gabbar (T-42) and old stalwarts like Narasimha (T-65). By this time the mighty Wagdoh (T-38) had abandoned the Moharli range and this allowed Bajrang to take over and rule a major chunk of the Moharli and Kolara ranges. The first to disrupt the order of the Matkasur-Bajrang duo was Rudra arriving on the scene in late 2019. Matkasur and Rudra were perpetually at each others throats, quite literally, and both sustained injuries. They would then retreat, recuperate and get back in the ring. This back and forth went on till Tala announced himself as a contender and took on the powerful Bajrang. It was at the Telia Lake where Bajrang put the skids on the upstart Tala and chased him out of Moharli northwards into the Tadoba range.

With the advent of Tala into the Tadoba range, the brothers, Rudra & Tala combined forces and systematically attacked Matkasur gradually gaining ground. Matkasur, his age showing and the now constant injuries dampening his enthusiasm to fight, eventually took to his heels and disappeared from the fray leaving the brothers to fight it out. Matkasur retreated to the northern part of the park in the Kolara buffer, from where he was further pushed into the fringes of the park by Dagoba (of unknown origin). There was a third cog in this wheel in the form of Chota Matka (T-126) - Matkasur’s son from Choti Tara (T-07) - who was about the same age as the brothers.

Chota Matka was trying to establish his territory in the Navegaon and Alizanja area, when he met with stiff resistance from Mowgli. By the monsoons of 2021, Chota Matka was mauled badly by Mowgli (T-138), a fight that disfigured Chota Matka; Mowgli was then ruling a sizeable portion of the North-Eastern part of Tadoba towards Alizanja and Kolara buffers.

Mowgli was consolidating his territory when his own sons from Jharni posed a threat to his dominance. As he stepped into subadulthood, Chota Mowgli was pushed out of the territory by his father, Mowgli. Chota Mowgli moved to the natal area of his father at Kolsa, and had a brief tiff with the Kuwani female, his own grandmother, who was protecting her 3 cubs. He later settled in the Zari-Peth buffer of Kolsa.

In the meanwhile, Mowgli’s prime nemesis, Chota Matka recovered and launched a spate of attacks on Mowgli. In April 2022, Chota Matka had the upper hand; he injured and exiled Mowgli and claimed the entire territory. He later killed the cubs of Jharni, fathered by Mowgli, and expanded his territory, now encompassing the huge area between Navegoan-Ramdegi and Alizanja areas. Gentle and patient like his mother and dominant and territorial like his father, Chota Matka now, is the biggest tiger of Tadoba ruling the biggest territory amongst his contemporaries and is truly indomitable.

With Chota Matka out of the frame, the brothers, Rudra & Tala, now turned on each other and the pendulum swung sometimes towards one and sometimes to the other. Rudra eventually started to assert his dominance and even managed to steal the prized Maya (T-12) from Tala. Over time Rudra and Tala seem to have reached a fragile and tentative truce with both ruling over the vast territory of the Tadoba range.

The order of kings was slowly and surely falling in place in the northern ranges and further south in the buffers of Adegaon, Dewada & Agarzari similar machinations were afoot.

In the forests encompassing the Moharli, Junona, Dewada, Adegaon, Agarzari ranges there are now four young tigers - Chota Dhadiyal, Paras, Taru & Shambhu. Chota Dhadiyal is the son of the tiger Dhadiyal (T-85) - named for the beard he sported - and Patlin Bai. Paras (T-143) is the son of Gangaram and the Kuwani (T-14) female. Regarding Taru there is a fair amount of confusion but based on all the conversations with guides and naturalists, I have a feeling, he is the son of the Shivanjari female (T-06) & the Kakarghat male (T-36) and finally Shambhu is the son of the mighty Wagdoh with, I think, the Kori (T-09) female. This is the stage set for many a battle I am sure as these gladiators are more or less the same age and fast appearing maturity which is when they will seek to assert their dominance. On December 4th Shambhu and Taru had their first skirmish with Shambhu emerging the winner. Taru, some say, lived up to his former name of “Bhagoda“ and took to his heels quite easily but I think he is simply waiting for the opportune moment.

Tigers engage their opponents through acts of deception. First, tigers mark territories through scent marking and second, when territories overlap, tigers claw the trunks of the trees, sometimes even climbing, to prove how menacingly tall they are, duping any adversary wishing to challenge. In addition to these visual messages, chemicals such as pheromones are also deposited on the bark. Thirdly, in case of an engagement, a tiger will try to intimidate the opponent by flexing the muscles of the neck and shoulder, snarling and growling, standing on its hind legs, and launching a volley of punches and swipes at its opponent. Most fights end at this point, but a few dominants take the warfare a little further. Life doesn’t matter to them as much as their thirst for power. The fight for supremacy puts the ultimate winner on the throne, deposing the loser.

Tigers are not instinctive animals. They learn – hunting or fighting – from their mother, father and siblings. Despite their sheer size and weight, their reaction times are unbelievably fast and this eventually makes them better hunters and formidable opponents able to dodge swipes and strikes during any serious fight with other tigers. Returning to Taru, we first saw him through the dense brush almost at the edge of the Irai waters some 700 meters south and west of the famous Irai Dam Sunset point. He made his way for a while through the brush before turning directly towards us and stepping out for a few seconds. He was too close for the 600mm I was using at the time.

Then we saw him again near the erstwhile village of Pardi Ambhora a little later in the fast fading winter light as he kept to the edge of the Irai dam waters. This was also the location when he traversed both sides of the track and eventually came out behind our vehicle giving us a head on view as he wandered down the track marking his scent. The guide mentioned there was a kill in the vicinity and we could get a whiff of the rotting carcass each time the wind changed directions. The kill was apparently Choti Madhu’s (T-127) who wanted to bring her cubs to it. But, between making the kill and bringing her cubs to it, the kill was hijacked first by Taru and soon after by Shambhu. I think this was around the same time we had seen Choti Madhu swimming the Irai waters to her cubs. While we were watching Taru he was, in all likelihood, making his way to the kill but as soon as he got Shambhu’s scent he abruptly changed directions and immediately went into the denser jungle on the opposite side avoiding what could have been an interesting conflict. We saw Taru again the next day but much further along in the Dewada zone as he seemed to have crossed over during the night. The part of the jungle we saw him at this time was a few hundred meters north of where we had seen C2 near the same nullah. Obviously at the time C2 was long gone but maybe that’s another battle waiting to happen.

No wonder it is said that Tadoba is not a question of “if“ but more a “when“ one can see a tiger.

The story of the tigers of Tadoba isn’t just the story of a single tiger or the place where he was born or the kingdom he is trying to establish. It is a story of free ranging tigers colonising this cradle of tiger civilisation, naturally engineering the forests and the climate subsequently and the efforts of stakeholders in assisting, preserving & undoing centuries old damage to the ecosystem by earlier generations of humans. With many fertile rivers flowing across this landscape, this land of the Gonds is highly arable which in turn has led to an explosion in the the human population inhabiting these parts, effectively reducing the tiger-scapes to mere patches with almost no connectivity. The corridors that used to be vast swathes of inviolate spaces are now human dominant landscapes.

The biggest challenge of tiger conservation is not the management of the protected area, but the provision of migration corridors to maintain genetic diversity and flow of surplus populations.

This was not my first visit to this enchanted land of the Gonds and neither will it be the last. Read about my other intimate encounters with tigers including those from Tadoba.

Tiger

Thanks to Himanshu Bagde and his team of guides and drivers, our experience in chilly November 2023, in the Dewada - Adegaon - Agarzari Range was nothing short of spectacular. All our safaris, bar one into Moharli, were in the Adegaon-Dewada Range and were exceptionally well handled by Viraj Raut and Dheeraj Katkar. The Adegaon-Dewada Buffer range is teeming with wild boar, sambhar and chital and is prime hunting ground for the numerous tigers who have made it their home. Six vehicles are allowed each morning and evening for the safari from this gate. In one of the hardy gypsies, we made our way into the jungle and the farther we ventured, the wilder it got and more animals and birds came out of their roosts to start their day after the night’s rest. Dominated by the dense clumps of Bamboo, Teakwood, Crocodile Bark (ain) and Coromandel Ebony (tendu) trees, interspersed with Vetiver (khus) grasses, the vegetation of Tadoba is of a diverse blend of tropical and subtropical dry-broadleaf and dry-deciduous trees and thus a motley mix of charms even in the driest of the seasons.

Yours truly with the true heroes of the safaris -
Viraj Raut (on the right), Dheeraj Katkar (in the middle)

These forests have been home to some of the biggest tigers, the largest number of tigers born every year and also the highest number of human-tiger conflicts. These prime territories are encircled by many ranges, each with its unique habitat supporting a different prey-base on which tigers subsist, and only the best of the tigers ruling these territories pass on their genes, a fabulous example of Darwins natural selection is always happening at Tadoba.

This then was the backdrop we drove into and this time the jungle welcomed us with open arms showing us, from close proximity, the amazing wildlife and apex predators it shelters and nourishes. I have already written about our close and intimate encounters with the C2 Male & the W-female and now it is Taru.

The gear used: