The Great Downpour

Chapter XXVIII

Chapter XXVIIII

The SAR team made very good progress during the first three hours of the day. By 10 a.m., the convoy had reached the point beyond which there was no motorable road. The buses and the trucks would stop here. Most of the civilians would remain here. Only the doctors and paramedics, plus the police elements would go further. From here on, these essential elements of the SAR would travel on bicycles and motorbikes. The SAR had come equipped with nine bicycles and four bikes. The four all-terrain jeeps would continue onward, since they were able to negotiate this terrain with little difficulty. These four jeeps quickly got occupied by Commander Pradeep and his men, plus the four doctors and the five paramedics. Sundeep would be travelling on one of the bikes. The remaining three bikes would be used by the policemen of the search party. The nine bicycles would also be manned by the police, who would use them to carry some of the additional supplies that could not be accommodated in the jeeps.

It was at around noon that the constituents of the convoy finally reached the spot where the two tributaries of the Pench River met. Sundeep saw the fluttering cloth on the branch and raced his bike ahead of all the jeeps. He got down off the bike and went close to the cloth to examine it. He read the label and immediately shouted with joy.

“It is theirs! It is theirs!”

Commander Pradeep Mehra stopped the jeep he was in and ambled out into the open.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Sir, read the label … it says “Groove”. This is a clothing retail shop in Jabalpur, Sir!” Sundeep said this with a lot of excitement. Something shone in the sunlight. He bent down to see what it was. It was an ear-ring that was hung on to a small wooden outcropping from the branch. He looked at the ear-ring. It was shaped like a rose flower. Immediately, he recognized it.

“This is my sister Seeta’s ear-ring, Sir. I am positive!”

Commander Mehra needed no further proof or prodding. He ran back to his jeep and asked his assistant to call up the Chief I.G. on the radio. When connected, he breathlessly informed the Chief about the find.

“I can feel it in my bones, Sir. They are close by, Sir,” he added.

“Okay, get to them and call me!”

Commander Mehra got back inside the jeep and asked his driver to push forward. The other vehicles followed too.

***

It was a moment that would remain forever in the memory of each and every student who stood there. For the first time in their lives, they were face to face with a beast about whom they had heard such a lot. If this was the man-eating tiger they were facing, they were in deep trouble. What could they hope to do against a fully grown male tiger with their one knife and the collection of sticks?

Sandesh quickly collected everyone near him. They put Chand’s stretcher behind them and stood in a group, tightly so that the tiger would see them as one enemy.

“I am going to make a run for it!” said Nanda in a whisper. Gangadin restrained her with his grasp over her wrist, muttering, “Madam, aap chup ho jaao! Please keep quiet!”

“I don’t want to die here, not like this,” muttered Yash, who was surrounded by all his friends.

“Just keep quiet. He might simply assess us and pass on,” said Sandesh hopefully.

Then, before they had got over the shock of seeing the tiger, they espied another tiger – a smaller, daintier version of the first one – emerging from behind the trunks of the trees.

The group was stunned to see not one, but two tigers! Some of them were so scared they kneeled down to pray – among them Muhammad, Nazima and Nanda. Gangadin maintained his dignity by herding everyone behind him! Sandesh was touched by this gesture of Gangadin. He came up ahead of the peon and asked him to stay behind him.

“Saheb, let me guard you all … but if I should die, please see that I get a proper funeral,” he said.

“Don’t be silly, Ganga!” Sandesh told him. “Nobody is going to die, not if I can help it. Tell everyone behind to keep their sticks ready to light a fire on them. I am going to sit down now and try to start a fire.

“Easy, Sir, the tiger will attack if he sees anything out of the ordinary,” said Gangadin.

Sandesh slowly sat on his haunches while the tiger continued to stare at them from a distance of less than 20 feet. Sandesh knew that a full-grown tiger can leap up to a distance of 12-15 feet; he gritted his teeth and while keeping his eye on the tiger, he began to rub the flint stones together while Rati held a dry stick of wood covered with cloth next to them. The first four attempts were unsuccessful. Although the stones sparked, the fire did not catch so easily. The fifth try was successful. The cloth caught fire immediately.

The tiger saw the flame and instinctively growled and took a step backward. So did the other one, whose growl was not as loud, but equally scary! The group members formed a tight circle while Sandesh began to move forward, the burning stick in his hand, to try and frighten the animal away.

When he had gone about a dozen steps forward, he stopped and looked at the tiger. The beast eyed him, as if wondering whether this was a worthy adversary. He looked at his mate as if to ask for her opinion. His mate growled and gored him to attack. Do not flee she seemed to be telling him, for Sandesh saw the spark in the tiger’s eye brighten for an instant when he looked at the fire fearlessly. He began to take backward steps, afraid now that the tiger meant business. He signalled to the others to move back too, against the bank of the river, as the tigers would have no room to attack them from behind once they were at the edge of the water, and they could then defend themselves from the front.

Just then, the whirring of helicopter rotors began to be heard by everyone. The sound intensified, and it became apparent that there were two helicopters approaching them from above and from the Reserve office side. The members of the group, Sandesh and the tigers looked up to see the copters. The tiger was a bit confused since he was expecting the human below to attack him. The human was, however, walking in the reverse direction. He ignored the sound of the helicopters. He sat on his haunches and began to move forward ever so slightly that it was impossible to say that he was making progress.

Sandesh was preparing to go on the offense when a shot rang out. He saw the smaller tiger jerking and falling to the ground in a heap.

“What the …” he yelled.

At the same time, the bigger tiger took four quick forward steps and jumped into the air in Sandesh’s direction.

***

One of the helicopters landed just next to the river on the far side, while the other remained stationary in the air. Both the pilots had just been given the co-ordinates of where the students were. Upon learning them, the two pilots had flown the copters to the exact point and seen the students standing in a tight group, one of them moving out to show a burning stick to something or someone who was just outside their field of vision.

“What do you think it is?”

“Some wild animal, I think!”

“Okay, I am gonna put this bird on that flat piece of land out there,” said the first pilot.

And that is how the pilot was just resting the two stands on the ground and emerging from the bowel of his helicopter.

“Look!!” shouted the second pilot. “It’s a tiger! No, change that to tigers!”

“What?”

“Yes, it is true! The group is under attack by at least two if not more tigers.”

“We must help them, quick!”

The pilot whose copter had just landed on the opposite side of the river climbed on to a rocky promontory and looked at the scene on the opposite side. He knew that if he did not act fast, the group of young men and women were doomed. He drew the Smith and Wesson 0.22 service gun from its holster that he carried on his flank, and aimed it at the smaller tiger. Now he was almost sixty feet away, and there was no chance for his bullet to go across such a long distance and fell the beast.

Therefore, he decided to just shoot a bullet without aiming it at the tiger. He raised the gun above his head and fired.

***

Vijay Dubey and his constables lurked behind the trunks of the deodar and the teak trees as the drama unfolded before them. With the students all standing more or less in a huddle at the edge of the river, he knew he would have a reasonably clear target to shoot. However, he also knew that the tigers were irritable, and Rising Water was unpredictable as well, so he had to be very careful before aiming and shooting.

The helicopter noises complicated the issue further. He wished they hadn’t come at this moment. However, he realized that they were as much a part of the scene as the others were. He aimed his telescopic sight on the smaller tiger. It is a female, he observed. This bullet will fell her and scare her consort too! He aimed the gun at the female and fired.

***

Rising Water saw his mate fall, but he was already on a leap. He leapt up and towards Sandesh. He is my prey. I won’t leave this human. The tiger fell just ahead of Sandesh because the latter had stepped back in a jiffy to avert a direct attack. Sandesh knew he had little time now as the second tiger’s fall must have infuriated the larger beast. He would turn and attack with a far greater sense of violence.

The others stood and screamed as the tiger leapt; there was a collective sigh of relief when the leap fell short of its target. Everyone goaded Sandesh to come back, while a few started shouting “Shoo! Shoo!” to the tiger.

The tiger licked at his flank wound and turned around to see where the shot had come from. There, before him, stood his old adversary: the old man with his shooting stick. He growled angrily and ran to attack the man with his weapon. Before Vijay could take aim and fire again, the tiger was upon him and was clawing at his torso.

The hawaldars could only watch helplessly as the tiger violently pulled at a skin fold and tore it off Vijay’s body.

“Aaaa …agh!” shouted Vijay. The burning pain where the tiger had pulled away his skin was as nothing compared to the agonising pain that he felt on the back of his head. The tiger was about to scalp him!

It was at this moment that Sundeep’s bike appeared on the scene, accompanied by yet another bike driven by a uniformed constable.

***

The entire group held its breath as Sundeep rushed to the Inspector’s side, still astride the bike he was driving and raised the gas so loudly that the tiger was forced to let go of the man in his grasp and turn to face his new adversary. He growled, displaying his three-inch long teeth and a large maw of a mouth that scared almost everyone in his vicinity.

As the constables ran to help lift their Inspector, more vehicles arrived at the spot. The tiger was cornered from all directions and kept moving in smaller and smaller circles, now really scared of human-beings.

“Sundeep!” It was Seeta who screamed his name, and Sundeep was so glad to hear her voice that he jumped off his bike and ran to embrace his beloved little sister. One of the inspectors who got down from the leading jeep had a tranquilizer gun in his hand. He hid behind the others, and then rapidly emerged in front of Rising Water to shoot the gun. The tiger desperately tried to remove the offending object in his right flank, but soon gave up as the strength in his body fled and his eyelids began to get heavy. Within a minute, he had crumpled into a heap on the ground.

Some of the Forest Department people who had come in the jeeps now got out with their stuff and threw a net over the dangerous tiger. They then got together and dragged him to their jeep and lifting him, they heaved it inside to take him away from the National Park. They then returned to where the female tiger lay. She had taken the bullet in her neck and was quite dead. They lifted her body and took it to the same jeep. The departmental workers then came to report to their superior, who was by Inspector Vijay Dubey’s side and took his permission to take the tigers away to Chhindwara.