By Ajay Suri*
Photo:Ajay Suri
NEW DELHI: `Zaalim’ (the heartless) he certainly was not, but the name got stuck with him till his last breath. It was probably his penchant for loud roars and habit of rushing towards the tourists’ vehicles in his younger days which got him that name. But an extended act of kindness towards two orphaned cubs, something never witnessed before in the recorded history of tigers, made him one of the most revered and celebrated big cats of India.
In 2011, I first heard the unconfirmed stories of a male tiger taking care of two very small cubs in the Kachida area of Ranthambore. It was impossible, I told myself. In the world of tigers, it is always the female who rear the cubs and teach them the ways of the jungle. The father has absolutely no role or place in the family.
But when the then Field Director of Ranthambore, Y K Sahu, showed me the CCTV footage of Zaalim with two cubs, all doubts were laid to rest. The story that emerged- which we later made into a film, with authentic location shots, for the National Geographic Channel (NGC)- was equally fascinating.
In February 2011, the cubs’ mother T-5 had died after a brief illness. A search for the cubs yielded no result. The forest department then set up a few trap cameras in the dead tiger’s territory. Co-predators like leopards and jackals in the tiger reserve posed an immediate threat to the cubs, and therefore they had to be secured soon. A few days later, the officials got their first break. One of the cameras picked up the cubs.
Photo: Ajay Suri
But even as the officials were deliberating on how to catch the little ones, another grab by CCTV sprung a big surprise at them. It showed the cubs ambling alongside a tiger, and that too a big male! Checking the tiger’s stripes (a surefire way of identifying the individual) showed it was Zaalim. The officials concluded he was the cubs’ biological father, for any other male tiger would have immediately killed the young ones not sired by him, a phenomenon observed among tigers, lions and other big cats.
The cubs were safe with Zaalim, but for how long? There was no evidence of a male tiger ever having reared a cub. To leave the cubs at the mercy of Zaalim would have been dangerous, but considering the unusual situation and the way things were unfolding, the forest department decided to step aside and see what happened next.
Photo: Ajay Suri
Zaalim, aka T-25 and Dollar Male (for the dollar sign on his right flank), turned out to be a stubborn tiger and a doting father. For the next many months, the trio presented a most unusual sight to the visitors and photographers: a male tiger strolling in the grasslands with two cubs! This was also the time when Zaalim’s popularity soared to the level of Machli, the legendary Ranthambore tigress, and the only tiger for whom a postal stamp was issued.
As we started documenting the evolving story with our video cameras, we found the cubs’ upbringing was not always smooth. In one scary but memorable moment, one of the cubs nearly gets killed when the tigress Sundari lunges at it. But in the nick of time, Zaalim appears out of nowhere, puts his nose on Sundari, and tells her something in a tiger’s language. After that Sundari never approached the cubs!
In the early mornings and late afternoon, the cubs- both females- could be seen playing with Zaalim. The film, `A Tiger’s Heart’ which we made on Zaalim and the two cubs later got me the prestigious Ramnath Goenka Award for Environment Reporting (Broadcast).
Zaalim died yesterday, but his story has not ended. It’s alive and kicking 165 kilometers away, in the Sariska Tiger Reserve, where two tigresses named ST9 and ST10 (brought from Ranthambore) have turned out to be a huge draw for the visitors. Between them, the two have given birth to seven cubs, thereby protecting the fragile tiger population of Sariska. At one time as motherless cubs, both ST9 and ST10 were at a kissing distance from certain death- until Zaalim decided to come to their rescue.
* Ajay Suri is an award-winning wildlife filmmaker and a seasoned journalist based in New Delhi, India. His blog/website is tigersandbeyond.com. He can be contacted at suriajay@gmail.com
