In the rocky hills and dry deciduous valleys, plays out a Shakespeare-esque drama replete with its elements of infidelity, intrigue, jealousy, sex, and love. The characters are one of the most lethal predators in the wild. The set: Ranthambore National Park. The storyteller: award-winning wildlife filmmaker Subbiah Nallamuthu, who has been tracking a tiger family for over eight years.
Screened in the city on Sunday as a part of the World Wildlife Week, Tiger’s Revenge follows Sundari, a five-year-old tiger, who after fighting off her mother and sister became the ‘queen tigress’ of Ranthambore (for occupying an abandoned fort there).
Unable to conceive a litter with her current mate, Star — who incidentally also mates with Sundari’s expelled sister, the tigress chooses another mate, the enigmatic Zaleem. A 500-kg mammoth beast of veteran battles, Zaleem is also one of the few males caught on camera single-handedly raising his two cubs. “Males are known to kill cubs, even their own, in their territory. But, here mysteriously, he was raising, protecting and feeding them,” said Mr. Nallamuthu. Sundari gives birth to three cubs.
ADVERTISEMENT
Fearing the arrival of Star, she shifts out of the fort — with a poignant scene of her looking back at her home for the last time. Star tracks her and a brief battle wounds Sundari. The film ends with an injured Sundari having to move to the fringes of the forest (after which she disappears) and her sister, Krishna, reclaiming the fortress as the ‘queen tigress’. The journey of narrating this compelling story was arduous, with over 200 hours of footage taken.
“We travelled 60 to 70 km a day. Forest rules prohibit us from going out of the tourist zone (around 20 per cent of the park limits) and there were strict timings. There was uncertainty in what the story was, but following this one family paid off,” said Mr. Nallamuthu.