Man-eaters of the Sunderbans

Captain Abdus Salam Khan

(Published in The Pakistan Times, Sept.30, 1988)

Very few people seem to know the difference between different varieties of jungle cats. To them all these – tigers, panthers, jaguars, cheetah or lion – are, “Shair” or “Bagh”. There was recently a news item in the Press about a tiger having wrought havoc in the Murree Hills although it is a fact that there are no tigers left in Pakistan. According to another news item in an Urdu daily, a “cheetah” was supposed to have killed many in the Sundarbans. In fact, it was a tiger.Another confusion arises when the word “cheetah” is used: in English it means a cat with doglike face and intractable claws like those of a dog, found in Africa (said to be the fastest animal in the world); in Urdu it is generally used for leopard and panther and also for cheetah.There are very few lions left in the wild outside Africa: the only exception is the Gir reserve forest in India, where lions have been introduced (in 1965) after having been brought from Africa.Another confusion exists about Royal Bengal Tiger: all Bengal tigers are not Royal. The Royal Bengal Tiger is a denizen of the Terai area north of Bengal which comes down into Bengal only during winter. It is quite a gentle animal and apart from a little cattle-lifting (which is also a hobby of our gentle feudal class), it means no harm.

But the Sunderban tiger is a different thing. There are about 500 of them in the 4000 square miles of this mangrove forest and most of these are maneaters.Tigers are also found in Bharat, Nepal, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, China, Russia, Iran and Turkey. Not so long ago, a Manchurian tiger was killed by a herd of buffaloes when it tried to lift one of them.

The Sunderban tiger is not so large as the Royal Bengal variety (which can measure up to ten feet two inches from the tip of the nose to the end of the tail) yet it far exceeds its northern cousin in viciousness and guile. It can flake itself off in grass only six inches high so that the herd of deer it is stalking would not see it. It would backtrack and overtake a pursuing hunter from the rear, as it happened once with us – but more of that later.

Funny episode

The recent reports in the Press about an alarming increase in attacks on humans by the Sunderban tigers and a great loss of human lives brought to mind my own nine years spent in the Sunderbans as a pilot of foreign ships calling at the port of Chalna. At least twice a day I had to traverse about forty miles of the Pussur river through this beautiful jungle, and in about one night in every three was spent in the Sunderbans. We had a lovely rest-house built at Hiran Point, at the mouth of the Pussur, for the use of the pilots waiting overnight to take the vessels upriver next morning. But it was seldom used, for it was hard to sleep peacefully when one knew that the man-eating tigers were lurking only a few yards away. So, we used to spend the nights in our pilot launch, anchoring it in the middle of the Nilkanwal Khal, so as to ensure safety from tigers. A tiger would find it hard to climb on board a launch from the water, though it once tried with one of our port launches. It was rather a funny episode, for the man who was making tea near the stern of the launch suddenly saw two big paws trying to get a hold on the wooden deck and thus hoping to haul itself on board and make a breakfast of the man making breakfast (the man happened to be alone, the rest of the party having gone tiger-hunting into the jungle). Happily, the tiger had the worst of the encounters because the man had the presence of mind to pour the boiling tea water into the tiger´s face which made it roar and dive into the river to cool its burnt face. Still it came back and again put its paws on board. This time the man was ready with the “danda” they used for grinding the “masalas” and let the tiger have a whack of the best on each paw. The tiger withdrew, immersed its paws in the water, and came back to get more of the same treatment. This kept happening for some time till the tiger felt that the pain in its injured paws was much more than the prospects of a gratification through making breakfast of our man. It finally decided to give up the chase and quietly swam ashore. It is said to have case a dirty glance back at our man before disappearing into the jungle, as if saying: “It is not fair to deprive one of his breakfast in such a harsh manner!”

Why does a Sunderban tiger turn into a man-eater? There are various theories, but I think the most plausible is that the tiger finds it difficult to hunt deer during the high tides, when the entire island is flooded by water. The deer can easily outrun the tiger in ankle-deep water and perhaps stalking a deer through water make more noise than stalking through grass which gives the prey enough warning to escape. Another plausible theory is that the entire deer population may decide to migrate to another island across the river, leaving the tiger without any means of sustenance. This migration is a wonderful spectacle to watch; the deer normally carry the monkey population on their backs, for the monkeys cannot swim. The monkeys, in return feed the deer everyday at an appointed time by breaking and throwing down branches of the kewra trees. I wouldn´t have believed such a rational behaviour from animals had I not seen it with my own eyes on several occasions. The monkey starts off the dinner gong by shouting, khow,khow,khow …” Then it vigorously shakes the branches and jumps up and down. These sounds can be heard for up to a mile away, and it is a treat to see the deer come running from all over to gather under the kewra tree, looking hungrily up towards the monkey, who takes great delight in snapping tender shoots and throwing them down to the waiting deer.

Having once killed a human out of sheer desperation born out of gnawing hunger, the tiger finds the flesh quite delicious and repeats the act. The tiger vomits some of the food for its cubs and they also become accustomed to the taste of human flesh. Three authoritative books have been written on the subject of hunting of man-eating tigers; one by Jim Corbett, another by Anderson and the third one (and by fare the most thrilling) by Tahawar Ali khan.

Veteran hunters

My association with the last-named gentleman began when I met him by chance at Khulna helicopter. He had just arrived by helicopter from Dacca along with two veteran hunters from the United States – Mr. Frost and Mr. Marckle. Both of them were at that time working as engineers on the Mangla Dam. I invited them home to my bungalow in Khulna and we discussed the strategy for a hunting expiation together. They had taped the agony-ridden shrieks of a domestic sow, after subjecting it to some of the third-degree methods used by the Punjab Police, and had brought the tape and an amplifier along. The idea was to play the tape in the Sunderbans, near the site of the tiger´s daily midmorning sleep, and thus making it get up and come out of its lair to investigate the noise.

I advised them to take along at least a hundred green coconuts, the only source of pure fresh water in Bengal, but it seems that they failed to heed my advice. I met them next at Hiran Point, about 80 miles downriver, after about a week, looking quite emaciated and exuding a very offensive smell. It seemed the two Americans had developed loose motions after having drunk water from the tank of the launch. Not being able to get down from the tree because of the proximity of the tiger, they were also forced to ease themselves from their difficult perch aloft. But they had got a tigress, and all was well. The first question they asked me confidentially was whether I could give them the name of the pill that Tahawar Ali Khan must be taking for his unbelievable stamina. “The man has not slept for seven days!” they exclaimed. “He has been on the go all the time and he has also run us ragged.” (Recently, I saw Tahawar lying in Ganga Ram Hospital – an image of his former self, and still full of plans for his next tiger-hunt. That brought to mind the famous couplet of Ghalib:

Go haath mein jumbis nahin, aankhon mein to dum hai

Rehnay doe abhi saghir-o-meena meray aagay.

Apart from his stamina, Tahawar´s marksmanship and zest for the game were unbelievable. He would venture alone into the dense jungle in pursuit of a man-eater. Once we were all engaged in tracking a man-eater near the Dubla Khal by following its pug-marks but a deep khal made us give up the chase. Later, we found that the tiger had backtracked and had been following us.

We had two most successful hunts together in the Sunderbans. The first was in 1965, in which, apart from the late Masood Khaddarposh, Tahawar and myself, some crew members from our pilot vessel and our shore establishment at Hiran Point took part. The climax of this hunt came when Tahawar shot the man-eater from point-blank range, putting a bullet through its heart. But the most poignant moment of this hunt was when a young fawn was set free by our party (my dog Tiger had caught it a few moments earlier) only half an hour before the encounter with the tiger, out of compassion for the mother doe that kept following the party. We all believed that Tahawar´s shot through the charging man-eater heart that brought it down was the direct result of this act of compassion.

The other very memorable hunt was the one with Capt.Gauhar Ayub Khan in 1967. Gauhar Ayub´s remarkable marksmanship was demonstrad when he shot and killed a 22 feel long crocodile that chanced to put its snout of the water for a couple of seconds. Mohammad Issa of blessed memory, affectionately known as Issa Bhai, a seasoned hunter, also accompanied us on tis trip. Although the encounter with the tiger, when it came, did not afford us a chance to take a shot (for it suddenly broke cover and jumped a deep khal), the thrill of tracking it in the jungle still tingles my spine on a lonely winter night.

The only tiger that I personally bagged was shot in a most undramatic manner. As the pilot launch was taking us – four pilots of the Pussur river – down to Hiran Point, we decided to proceed into the khal on the eastern side of Tinkonia island for the purpose of bagging a deer for the pot. As the launch was cruising slowly along the bank, we saw an animal standing on the river bank. I signalled to the master to cut the engines and let the launch glide up to the animal. On coming near, we perceived that it was a tiger. The other three pilots fled the scene and took refuge in the cabin, leaving me on the foredeck sprawling and beholding the tiger. Just as the tiger came within range, it took off; but I managed to get a shot at him – and hit him.

The most unforgettable moment out of my Sunderbans memories has nothing to do with the tigers. It pertains to the sighting of four UFOs. Four of us – Liet. Commander Arbab (a gentleman from Sindh), Capt. Kazmi, Capt. Muqaddam (both muhajirs) and myself – were proceeding down the river in the pilot launch Ameen so as to reach Hiran Point early the next morning and board the four waiting ships, when, at about 11 p.m. while we were getting to sleep, our cabin was suddenly lit up by a bright light. We all rushed out to the deck, only to be confronted with a most astounding sight: four rotating and whirring objects, emitting bright lights, passed just 200 feet above us, travelling in a west-to-east direction. The noise was not that of a helicopter. No silhouette of the body of the craft could be seen in the pitch dark but all of us were unanimous that we had seen unidentified Flying Objects.

The most frightening moment of my years in the Sunderbans was an encounter with a very large-size man-eater at close quarters. We had entered the Kagaboga Khal late one night with the pilot cutter and were slowly cruising close to the bank for the purpose of bagging a buck, when I asked the master to switch on the searchlight. What I saw left me amazed and frozen in terror. A large-size tiger was sitting up on its forelegs only a few feet away from us. I only had a small-bore rifle in my hand. It could easily jump or board and attack us. The few moments that it took us to put the engines full astern and beat a hasty retreat out of the khal will always remain the most terror-filled moments of my life. I have never seen such a huge tiger. Not even in a zoo!