BHOPAL: Panchtantra met Jungle Book in the forests of Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, when a tigress chasing a boar fell into a well, along with the prey, in the heat of pursuit. Trapped in a battle for survival, both the hunter and hunted treaded the water together, often rubbing against each other in the closed confines.
The two mostly faced away from each other. The tigress probably realised predation was pointless if it couldn’t eat the kill. The boar, with nowhere to run, followed the predator’s lead, even leaning on it when tired. Both were rescued by evening by forest officials with some jungle jugaad. Thereafter, each went its own way.
Fittingly, this drama played out in the forest that was the setting for Kipling’s ‘Jungle Book’. Mowgli’s Seoni is in Pench national park, around 400km from Bhopal. Villagers of Piparia Harduli, in Jikurai forest area, were in for a shock when they made their morning walk to the well to fetch water – a tigress and a boar were looking up at them. The tigress, exhausted from swimming, was visibly tired but remained calm. The boar would struggle from time to time just to stay afloat, trembling more from its proximity to the tigress than the cold water.
Villagers alerted forest office. Kurai forest range assistant Shariq Khan got the call. A team from Pench tiger reserve, along with police, arrived on the scene and realised that there was no manual for such a rescue and they had to come up with some jugaad.
The well was roped off to keep villagers well away from the scene of operation. Foresters worked out a system of ropes and tackles and used a JCB and a hydraulic crane to lower a cot and a cage into the well. The tigress lunged at it, and grabbed on to it, roaring, growling and refusing to let go. Foresters knew the cot would break under the tigress’ weight and tried to push it away with a stick. The tigress snarled and roared and swiped at the stick, but it eventually got the message and went back into the water. When the cage was lowered, with its trapdoor open, the tigress attacked it. It took a while to understand that the metal beast wasn’t going to swallow it and gingerly climbed into it, to cheers from the rescue team. The trapdoor fell shut.
The boar, meanwhile, had realised that the cot was meant for it and climbed on to it. Both animals were pulled to safety. The boar was released back into the forest. The tigress, believed to be about three years old, will be released in Nauradehi sanctuary of Veerangana Durgavati tiger reserve in Sagar.