TIGER BY THE TAIL

Venita Coelho

Illustrations by Priya Kuriyan

First published in India in 2013 by Hachette India
(Registered name: Hachette Book Publishing India Pvt. Ltd)
An Hachette UK company
www.hachetteindia.com

This ebook published in 2013

Text copyright © 2013 Venita Coelho
Illustrations Copyright © 2013 Priya Kuriyan

Venita Coelho asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Photograph credits: Page 87: Wheel of Existence, Bhavanchakra,
Tibet; early 20th century;
Pigments on cloth: Copyright © Rubin Museum of Art,
New York C2004.21.1 (HAR 65356)
Page 87: Red ochre pictograph Copyright © John Vincent Bellezza
Pages 242, 243 and 257: All tiger photos: Copyright Vivek Menon,
Wildlife Trust of India
Page 271: Tiger painting by Gita, by courtesy of Aircel
All efforts have been made to identify the copyright owners of the photographs used. In case of an omission, please write to the address below.

All rights reserved. No part of the publication may be copied, reproduced, downloaded, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover or digital format other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Print edition ISBN 978-93-5009-550-8
Ebook edition ISBN 978-93-5009-560-7

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales is purely coincidental.

Hachette Book Publishing India Pvt. Ltd
4th/5th Floors, Corporate Centre
Plot No. 94, Sector 44, Gurgaon 122009, India

Cover design by Priya Kuriyan
Back cover photographs: (top) Vivek Menon, (bottom) Jayant Mathew

Originally typeset in Verdana 9.5/14
by Eleven Arts, New Delhi

Dogs lives are too short. Their only fault, really.

—Agnes Sligh Turnbull

For my beloved Kajri, with whom each day is precious now that she is seventeen. For Chinar, who was a Princess in her previous life; for Biscuit, valiant slayer of large lozards, and for Beauty who has decided that all the men in my life belong to her. For Soxy who showed four dogs that the kitten was boss. And for Orphan Annie who watches over us all in the night.

This is for all the animals who became family and who showed me what an immense capacity for love they have.

1

WHAT’S IN A NAME

No one really expects a tiger on the doorstep when they open the door in the morning. Nor do they expect it to speak.

The tiger was big and fierce and looked very real. He yawned, all yellow fangs and awful morning breath, and said, ‘Hey, kid. It’s been a long walk. How about breakfast?’

Rana shut the door and turned and walked back into the kitchen where his grandfather was burning the breakfast toast. He sat down at the table, feeling a little dizzy.

‘I think I just saw something.’

‘Mr Singh stealing our paper? I’ve suspected for some time it might be him. I was planning to invent a trap.’

‘No, Dada. Something that’s not really there.’

‘Like a hallucination?’ Grandfather always enjoyed the unusual. ‘How interesting. Was it an awful vision of warning, or pink elephants, or sort of seeing double?’

Rana took a deep breath to steady his beating heart. ‘I thought I saw a tiger and he talked to me. And I understood what he said.’

For one very long moment Dada stood frozen. It was the longest that Rana had ever seen his grandfather stand still in one place. The eggs spluttered in the pan. Then he whispered, ‘Did the tiger seem angry?’

‘No. Just hungry. He asked about breakfast.’

‘Good. I’ll put some more eggs on. A dozen or so.’

‘Dada – it’s not a real tiger. He spoke to me. Tigers don’t speak.’

‘Of course they do,’ said Dada.

‘Well, I understood him, which is not humanly possible.’

Dada paused between cracking eggs three at a time to smile proudly. ‘Of course you did,’ he said. ‘I taught you JungleSpeak before I taught you English. Did it while you were a little kid. Children lose their ability to learn JungleSpeak, the common animal tongue, past the age of three.’

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Rana, completely bewildered. ‘Is this one of your projects?’

‘Sort of,’ said Dada, looking a bit shifty. ‘I’ll explain it all in a bit. But, meanwhile, we do have a hungry tiger to feed. And yes, you can understand what he says.’

‘Can you speak Jungle?’ asked Rana.

Dada shrugged, ‘JungleSpeak. Of course. Along with 17 other animal languages including Mongoose and Monkey. Crow is not fit for company. Absolutely riddled with bad words. And sparrows can barely manage words of two syllables. Snake, however, is extremely sophisticated and as close to Sanskrit as is possible. Lots of sibilants.’ Dada tipped the giant bowl of eggs into the frying pan and nearly set it on fire. ‘JungleSpeak is the common language animals use when they have to talk to each other. Not very sophisticated. More a dialect than a real language, but it gets the job done.’

Of all the thoughts struggling in Rana’s head, the one that swam to the top was one of absolute relief – ‘Then I’m not nuts!’

For some time now Rana had thought he was going absolutely crackers. It began with the neighbour’s dog who stopped at the door to ask if he could borrow a few biscuits, because dinner was late. Then, on the way to school, a couple of pigeons told him he should have ironed his shirt and that his socks were a disgrace. A crow at the classroom window had winked at him and said, ‘Can’t think how you can stand it. Locked in a cage all day, being bored to death.’ It was history and Mr Sinha was the worst teacher they had, mumbling away to himself and falling asleep mid-sentence from time to time.

It was an utter relief to learn that it was all connected to one of Dada’s projects. Dada’s schemes were aplenty and they were almost all of them incredible. He had them build an underground bunker in the garden – just in case. He didn’t say in case of what. He had invented a Super Species Launcher that shot Bahadur, the Colonel’s dog, across the fence. The Colonel had almost shot Dada in return. His special Toning Tonic made you see pink for half an hour. Dada was an inventor who said his mission was to save the world, ‘with a special emphasis on the wellbeing of animals’.

Dada had spent a large part of his life as a Forest Officer in one of India’s biggest wildlife parks. He’d even lost a leg and an eye to an animal attack. That was one story that he always refused to tell. He had dozens of others, and Rana learned to enjoy them without believing them at all. He had resigned himself to the fact that his only living relative was eccentric, and had taken to listening to Dada with half an ear, discounting most of what he said. It made life interesting, even if the other kids avoided your home a bit and threw stones when they thought no one was looking.

Now he had a hundred questions. But, with a hungry tiger on the doorstep, this clearly wasn’t the time to ask them.

Dada seemed to suddenly make up his mind. ‘You go out and tell that tiger to come in. I’ll lay the table. Let’s see – I think there’s some mince in the freezer to go with those eggs.’

Rana took a deep breath before he opened the door. He was hoping it had been a giant hallucination and the tiger would be gone. But it was still on the doorstep, not looking very happy.

‘Don’t you think you should let me in before the neighbours start screaming?’ he asked.

Rana did, squeezing back against the door to let 250 kilos of pure muscle slide past him. The tail flicked him across the face. Rana noticed that the tiger limped slightly, favouring the front right leg.

Dada looked nervous as the tiger flowed into the kitchen. The two of them regarded each other; the tiger giving Dada a slow yellow look that burned dangerously. Then Dada said, ‘Oh hello, Bagha. Didn’t expect to see you again so soon.’

‘Quite,’ said the tiger. ‘It’s only been eleven and a half years. I remember it like it was yesterday. One moment I’m sleeping, the next I wake up in a cage. No signs of the traitor who tranquillized his best friend while he lay asleep.’ His whiskers trembled as a low growl rumbled from him.

Dada hastily put the breakfast table between him and the tiger. ‘How did you ever get out of the zoo?’ ‘Picked the lock with my claw. Took me about five minutes. You taught me how. Along with a whole lot of other things that tigers shouldn’t know.’

‘If we are going to talk about old times, perhaps we better have breakfast first,’ said Dada soothingly. ‘You’re always calmer on a full stomach.’

The growl grew louder. ‘You walked out on me, old man. You tricked me and cheated me and left me.’

‘There were extenuating circumstances,’ said Dada.

‘I can’t imagine what,’ said the tiger, extruding one claw at a time with a series of little sharp clicks on the floor. The tension was palpable.

It was broken by an enormous sneeze. Rana almost blew himself backwards out of the door. He let off another. And another. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, wiping his dripping nose on his sleeve. ‘I’m allergic to cats.’ He could feel his nose stuffing up.

The tiger turned his slow, burning look on Rana. ‘Is this the kid?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ said Dada.

‘Still looks a bit like a frog.’

‘Eggsoose me?’ asked Rana. ‘A fog?!’

‘He never told you about your name?’

‘By name is Bana. It means boyal.’

Dada cleared his throat. ‘Actually, you were named after a famous Indian species. You see, I wanted you to grow up to be brave like a tiger. But Bagha here thought – er –’

‘I thought you looked like a frog.’

‘So I found the perfect solution,’ said Dada, beaming. ‘Rana tigrina. One of my favourite species.’

‘You bamed me after the Bindian bullfrog?’ Rana could scarcely believe it.

‘What’s wrong with bullfrogs?’ asked Dada. ‘They can leap ten times their body length.’ Rana was about to argue when the tiger coughed quietly but menacingly.

‘Fascinating, I’m sure,’ said the tiger ‘but not quite what I came to discuss.’ The frozen silence fell again. Rana felt a huge sneeze coming up. As it exploded, the tiger moved. With a sudden fluid movement he leaped across the table. But Dada moved as fast. He stuck his wooden leg up in the air and pressed a button. A spray of liquid hit the tiger in the face and he coughed once before falling across Dada. He was fast asleep before he hit the floor. Rana had to help pull his grandfather out from under him, while gentle snores shivered his whiskers.

‘Extract of Morning Glory. That will keep him unconscious for about an hour,’ said Dada.

The last sneeze had cleared Rana’s nose. ‘What on earth was that?! And from your leg?’ A torrent of questions came pouring out of him. ‘Why is a talking tiger mad at you? How come he can pick locks? Where were we eleven and a half years ago? How did you learn JungleSpeak? And why did you name me after a frog?!’

‘Not just any frog! A bullfrog.’ Dada shook his head and sighed. ‘I suppose I had better start at the beginning.’

‘I can’t wait to hear this one,’ said Rana.

2

AGENT NO. 002

‘I learnt JungleSpeak from my mother,’ Dada said. ‘Well, not my real mother. Mum got chickenpox when I was just five days old and wasn’t allowed near me for three months. Dad was out in the wilds of Madhya Pradesh, researching something that involved lots of monkeys. He was mad with worry for my mother and, of course, like all inventors he was a bit forgetful, so he forgot me. We had a troop of monkeys living at home and the troop mother picked me up and took me over. Carried me around, fed me, taught me to swing from branches and scratch myself behind my ear with my left foot. I learnt JungleSpeak from her. You always learn the language your mother speaks.’

‘A monkey brought you up?’ said Rana, deciding that perhaps this entire day was a hallucination. Must be the new medicine for asthma that Dada had concocted.

‘Yes. My mum couldn’t get me away from her, and eventually decided she could do with some help baby-sitting. So I was brought up between human and monkey. I got my inventor bit from my dad. And once I learnt JungleSpeak, I found humans pretty boring. Give me a crocodile over a university professor any day. Better informed and they tell better jokes.’

Bagha rumbled in his sleep and Rana edged nervously away from him. Dada didn’t notice. He was lost in his memories. ‘The happiest day of my life was when I became Chief Wildlife Officer at the Ranthambore National Park. With my abilities, I thought I could do so much for the animals.’ Dada shook his head. ‘But I was a failure. An absolute and utter failure.’

‘You? When you could talk to the animals?’

‘Talk? What good is talk when you need funds, ammunition and manpower? Poachers were running rampant through the Park. And it was the same story across India. I had sworn to protect all the wildlife under my charge, but there was nothing I could do. I was helpless. The poachers were better equipped than us, they were better funded, and they had the latest sophisticated technology. They had AK-47 machine guns while I had my axe and a penknife. We lost animals in droves. I mourned some of my best friends. It was a terrible time.’

Dada suddenly smiled. ‘Until your father had The Idea. He was only 16 when he thought of it. What a boy!’ Rana felt his heart skip at the mention of his father.

‘What we needed was intelligence – information about the enemy. A network of spies. A few agents, who were really tough boys. We needed to turn the battle back onto the poachers. So he came up with the idea of the AIA – the Animal Intelligence Agency.’ Dada’s eyes were shining. ‘A special non-governmental inter-species agency. With the motto: Save the animals! Save the world!’

‘What?!’

‘SAVE THE ANIMALS! SAVE THE WORLD! Are your ears blocked again?’ Rana had heard him all right; he just couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

‘We kept it all very hush-hush. I recruited agents. We tried out all kinds of species, though some were naturally better suited to undercover espionage work. Never tell a secret to a sparrow. Crocodiles are amazing at interrogation – it’s the cold merciless look.’ Beside them the tiger suddenly chuffed in his sleep and turned over. Dada affectionately stroked his whiskers.

‘Bagha here was my first field agent with a licence to kill. Your dad found him as a cub in a poacher’s trap, with a badly mangled paw. Best friends they became. And partners. All the most dangerous work went to Agent 001 and Agent 002.’

‘Dad – and Bagha?’

‘Oh, yes. We set up a network, trained the agents – and then we fought back. The poachers never knew what hit them. I remember Operation Rhino in Kaziranga – seventeen rhinos freed in one night. And the headquarters of the poachers flattened, simply crushed. Operation Olive Ridley left the local police chief explaining his oddly shaped tattoo for years.’ Dada sighed with happy memories. ‘Operation Black Buck destroyed a dam, wiped out a poaching camp and put a film star in jail.’

Rana fought back a sneeze as he listened intently.

‘It was a glorious time. For years on end, every single poaching operation in the country was shut down. Your dad planned the strategy and handled live operations. I was back-up and technical support. I always had a bent for invention and I let it rip. Of course, it helps when you have agents who can run five times faster than a human, or operate an apparatus with all four limbs.’

‘Dad was a spy? For animals?’

‘We prefer the term Animal Activist. But spy and super-agent are also accurate. And he too had a licence.’

‘Dad killed people?!’

‘Only the bad guys. I believe Bagha always took care of that aspect of operations.’ Dada sat back and sighed. ‘Oh, together we made the AIA into the perfect fighting unit. Tough, mean and hungry. Really hungry.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘The poachers hit back. I don’t know how they figured out the existence of the AIA. I was in my lab when Bagha leapt through the window, yelling that we had to get out. You were a week old. I stuffed you in a backpack and he grabbed you and ran. I was slower. The house blew up when I was just a few yards from it.’

Grandfather knocked on the wood of his fake leg. ‘I didn’t dare go to a hospital. They were all being watched. It cost me my eye and my leg.’

The tiger stirred and half opened one eye. Rana edged back to the kitchen door. ‘Should we tie him up?’ he asked.

‘Not at all,’ said Dada. ‘One of the side effects of Morning Glory is that it makes you feel calm and euphoric and at peace with the world. He won’t be mad when he wakes up.’ The great golden eye closed. Dada continued with his narrative, but reluctantly now.

‘I knew the jungle was no longer safe for us. I had to leave it and come back to mankind. Just blend in for a while. So Bagha couldn’t come with us. He would never have heard of it, so I made plans without consulting him. I had to leave him somewhere he wouldn’t be hunted down. A zoo was the perfect place. I swapped him with another tiger, hoping he’d have the sense to lie low for a bit. I meant to go back, but then I never dared.’

‘Why?’ asked Rana.

Dada sighed. ‘You were all I had left. I was afraid that if I went back, they would track us down and snatch you from me.’

‘And Dad and Mum? What happened to them?’ One part of Rana didn’t want to know, another part just had to ask.

There was a pause before Dada replied. ‘I thought they were both out of the house. I didn’t realize that they had come back home early. They were in the house when it blew up.’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry I told you they died in an accident. Well, they did. Sort of. But it wasn’t a car accident.’

Rana felt sick. Dada blew his nose and a tear slid from under his eye patch. They sat in silence for a while without looking at each other.

A deep voice suddenly rumbled beside them. ‘Your father was a fine partner and friend. He made me rethink my opinion of your species.’

Bagha had woken up. The tiger was paying Rana’s father the highest compliment an animal is capable of.

It didn’t help. Rana made a dash for the toilet. He stayed in there a long time, washing his face. When he came out, he heard Bagha and his grandfather arguing fiercely.

‘Vanished. All gone. Thirty-two tigers in two months. I got the crows to check the other reserves across the border as well. Same story everywhere. Tigers vanishing overnight. More than a hundred gone. The Parks are keeping it very quiet because they have no idea what is going on.’

‘Poachers?’

‘On this scale? Something else is going on. Something I don’t like. We need the AIA again. This is the perfect AIA mission.’

‘The AIA is over. Defunct. Disbanded. All the animals have gone back to the wild.’

‘We need to do something. There will be no tigers left if we don’t. And I can’t do it by myself.’

‘Well, I can’t help you. I’m an old man doing his best to bring up a boy.’

‘You believed it was your mission to help animals. Save the animals, save the world. How can that change?’

‘It did when I lost everything I had,’ said Dada and his voice was sad. ‘I’m happy to see you, Bagha, but that life is over. The AIA is over. I don’t want to lose my grandson. He means the world to me.’

‘I have news for you that will change your mind.’

‘Nothing will,’ said Dada.

‘It’s him,’ said Bagha. ‘It’s the Taker.’

Rana heard his grandfather’s gasp, out in the corridor where he was standing.

‘I smelt him at the site. I never forget a scent. Not his. Nine years I’ve searched for him and never got so much as a whiff. But I did again at last. He is connected with the vanishing tigers. So you see – you have to help me.’

There was pin-drop silence.

Rana stepped through the door and asked, ‘Who is the Taker?’

The tiger turned his deep amber gaze on him. ‘The Taker is the man who takes all the animals. That is all we call him. No one knows his name or his face. Operation after operation I smelt his spoor wherever animals were taken away.’ The tiger did not break the gaze. ‘His smell was at the house where your parents died. I’ve searched for it ever since.’

‘Then,’ said Rana, ‘I am coming with you.’