The Ranis of Ranthamobre

The wild tiger is a source of powerful inspiration, and tigers are the subjects of a great body of art and literature. Below, we have included excerpts of writings by Kailash Sankhala, the founder of Tiger Trust, as well as a reading list. Happy reading!

Five Tigresses -- Padmini, Laxmi, Noon, Nuri and Nisha -- have placed Ranthambore on the world map. The study of their ecology and behaviour has helped us understand the life history of the tiger in the wild better. The photographic opportunity that these tigresses and their cubs created have resulted in a greater awareness of tigers. The excellent breeding tigresses began a baby boom in Ranthambore during 1986, increasing the population of the tiger reserve and enhancing the success of Project Tiger. A portrait and a brief sketch of each of them is relevant here.

Padmini: This four year old tigress was first located near Lakarda soon after the village was shifted in 1976. She was raising an exceptionally large litter of five cubs: Babar, Akbar, Hammir, Begum and Laxmi. I had several several encounters with her in the Lakarda grassland. The cubs grew well. One by one they dispersed, and I could keep only track of Laxmi. Padmini shifted to Nalgathi and gave birth to another litter of three cubs in 1978. Her third litter of three cubs (one male and two females, one of whom we know as Noon) came in 1980. She disappeared in 1982.

Laxmi: She shaped into a beautiful tigress who pushed her mother Padmini out of her home range extending from Lakarda to Mirag Talab and took hold of it. Her appearance during the day and her familiarity with jeeps began to attract people to Ranthambore. She delivered her first litter of three cubs in 1980. At Mirag Talab I had a hair-raising encounter with her in which she charged me. The tiger Changez came into her life in 1983-4. Laxmi shifted to the Semali waterholes, raised another litter of three cubs in 1986 and yet another of two cubs in 1988.

Noon: A fine, friendly, photogenic tigress with excellent colour and a well-proportioned body, she quickly learnt the art of living and love. She accepted jeeps not only as part of the landscape but also as cover to stalk prey unnoticed. Her range extended to Rajbagh, where she confronted crocodiles as co-predators. Stanley Breedon of the National Geographic photographed her courtship and mating near Rajbagh. The same year Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi photographed her making a kill and raising her family. She learnt to prey in the lakes by observing Changez, who had perfected the technique. In January 1985 I recorded a sequence of her preying on a sambar in Rajbagh. Kublai mated with her at Rajbagh in April 1985. Her first litter of two cubs came in May 1986. The almost public rearing of this litter (one of them Nuri) appeared on television the world over. She had her second litter, again of two cubs, in 1989, and yielded the better half of her home range -- Padam Talab, Jharokha and Rajbagh -- to Nuri and shifted to Singhdwar-Kachida valley.

Nuri: Nuri is an example of how young tigresses learn to be devoted mothers. She delivered her litter of three cubs Nisha, Neera and Nirmal in March 1990 close to Jogi Mahal, reposing full confidence in human presence. When she shifted the cubs to Kanwaldhar in Nalgathi, her coming out to feed her less than 40-day-old cubs was witnessed by thousands. The next winter I had excellent opportunities to study her training the cubs at Rajbagh and Padam Talab.

Nisha: This cub was shaping up to take over from her mother Nuri when the reserve was overtaken by poachers. The entire tiger population of Ranthambore was disturbed. No one knows which of the tigresses are dead or alive. It is only certain that some of them are no more.