Man-eaters of Sunderbans

FOREWARD

SUNDERBANS! The very name conjures up a vision of a vast stretch of dark dense forest jutting into the sea; and, when you add man-eaters to it, you have some idea of the dangers that lurk in the mighty jungle of this name which, to a lover of nature, looks so alluring from a distance. I have cruised along the line of this magnificent forest; smelt the fragrance of the Sundari, as it came wafted over miles; even seen a tiger ambling majestically to the thicket from a patch of grass on the edge-but, not being much of a big game hunter, have never dared to go deep into it except by boat or when I had to walk a few hundred feet over the forbidding pneumatophores to look for a wounded animal.

To shoot and kill before you can bring your rifle to the shoulder is the degree of skill and judgment required of a hunter who desires to enjoy the thrill of a tiger shoot in this region. Not that the hunter was killed if he failed in that situation, but that a failure is attended with that possibility, is to be present to the mind of every rifle man who wishes to shoot a tiger from the ground.

Of course, the enterprising fisherman or wood-cutter has to penetrate deep into the forest, but he knows that his exploit may one day end in a horrible death. Once, when I was camping in a launch, I heard that the night before, a tiger had carried off in one leap one three men who had anchored their small boat of the three men who had anchored their small boat in the middle of a 20-foot wide creek. And only a few weeks ago, a man was dragged from his companions from a boat moored next to that of a hunting party.

Some lucky sportsmen have bagged a tiger while it was crossing a stream or gazing from the bank under a perfect camouflage of black and orange, provided by the rays of the sun penetrating the shade, and there is many a sportsman who does not go beyond this mode of shooting a tiger in the Sunderbans. But the real thrill comes when you meet the tiger on his own ground, and the author of this little book gives you some measure of such excitement.

In some respects, the book provides more interesting reading than the accounts of the man-eaters of Kumaon or of Ussur, for, whether you have handled a gun in your life or not, it takes you through situations in which you imagine yourself to be the man with the rifle, enjoying the thrill or undergoing the terror of a tense and breath- less moment.

For this reason, the book should not only be a valuable addition to the library of a hunter, but also provide a most interesting reading to the lay man. On its literary merit alone, the work is bound to receive a well-deserved welcome not only by sportsmen but by students of wild life and natural history. It is the first book of its kind written in Pakistan and by a hunter of Indo-Pakistan fame.

––––––––

M. MUNIR

39, Gulberg, V

Lahore, 6th February, 1961.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

IT is a matter of deep pride for me that the Foreword to this book has been written by Mr. Mohammad Munir, who was Chief Justice of Pakistan, and whose fame extends far beyond the frontiers of this country. That so distinguished a person has responded so magnificently to the request of an unknown journalist-publisher like me, is proof of brotherhood among sportsmen, because Mr. Munir is a keen and capable hunter of repute. He knows the jungles of the Sunderbans intimately and his Foreword, therefore, has a special value for the reader.

I am greatly indebted to the officials and men of the Forest Department of the Government of East Pakistan for their friendly help, unfailing courtesy. and-above all-cheerful sharing of danger, which made it possible for me to see so much of the Sunderbans with minimum worry and maximum pleasure.

Mr. N.A. Razvi, Deputy Inspector-General of Police, is a friend, mentor and guide to whom I owe more than I can hope to repay. He was kind enough to find time for revising the manuscript although he is one of the busiest men that I know.

I must also record my deep appreciation of the services rendered by Qazi Anwar Hussain for revising and editing my manuscript. Merely acknowledging the contribution of Mr. Hussain to this book is an extremely inadequate way of saying Thank you but

I know that he understands the depth of my unspoken gratitude.

The generous co-operation of Syed Hassan Zaidi, Superintendent of Police, West Pakistan Rangers, Mr. Hassan Habib, Deputy Secretary Education, Mr. Aslam Avais C.S.P. and Mr. M. R. Shamim Divisional Engineer Telephones, is thankfully acknowledged.

I am very much indebted to Mr. K. M. Sarwar Officer Incharge, House Building Finance Corporation, Lahore, who has done the entire proof reading of this book.

I can never forget the kind and personal attention of Mr. Aziz Mahmood who has not only printed this book, but revised and edited in its last stages of printing and gave me valuable suggestions as a brother sportsman.

I am also thankful to Mr. Abdul Hafiz Khan, my maternal uncle, for supervision of the various problems regarding printing of the book and to Rana Amjad Ali Khan, my personal assistant, for taking several photographs in the forest of Sunderbans at the personal risk of his life.

I thank Mr. Abdul Salim and his associates in designing the dust jacket and drawing the maps and other line illustrations for this book.

––––––––

Tahawar Ali Khan

––––––––

129-E Main Boulevard

Gulberg 3, Lahore

7thMarch, 1961

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I dreamed of shooting man-eaters when I was just big enough to tuck the barrel of my father’s dismantled gun under my arm and ‘stalk’ my elder brother round the parlour sofa.

To my brother it was, perhaps, a silly game which he played to amuse me; but I remember that, for me, it was serious business full of all the excitement and terrors of a real hunt that a child’s imagination could grasp

To me, my father was a greater hero than all the knights and valiant princes and mighty wrestlers whose exploits were recited to me every night by our old servant till I fell asleep. For my father was a renowned hunter who had stalked many man-eating tigers on foot, braved their blood-curdling charges, and laid them low in the grass.

Whenever he returned from the jungles, I was the first to rush into his arms shouting, Did you kill it, Baba? Did you kill the man-eater? He would look at me with twinkling eyes and say gently, Patience, little one! Aren’t you going to let me wash and have tea before telling you the story?

But I couldn’t wait that long. I would jump up and down with excitement and say, No, Baba, no! You’ve got to tell me now! Did you shoot the tiger? And Baba would look down into my pleading eyes for a moment, pat me playfully on the cheek, and utter the one magic word: Yes!

I would clap my hands and hug my father’s legs with joy, and run through the house - and then the whole neighborhood - shouting the news that my Baba had killed another man-eater. People would start pouring into our home till the parlour was full, and I would strut about among my envious friends, bursting with pride for my father, and somehow sharing his glory.

Baba was a master of jungle craft, and the wiliest man-eater could not leave a trail that my father was unable to follow. To him, every mark of tooth and claw, every quivering blade of grass, every snapped twig and every poise and movement made by the denizens of the forest, told a clear story. He was an inexhaustible source of jungle lore, and I was his most ardent listener and pupil.

When I was a little older, I learned to identify the various weapons and types of ammunition, and Baba allowed me to clean and look after the guns and put them away lovingly when they were not in use. In other words, I had qualified as Baba’s gun-cleaner; and this was rapid progress which, I felt, was viewed with alarm by all man-eaters!

It was my uncle, however, who taught me to shoot when I was still a school boy. He was a crack marksman and a keen shikari, and under his expert guidance I became adept with the shotgun and small-bore rifle.

I also learned the art of stalking from my uncle. On our shooting excursions he would pick a suitable spot in the forest and sit there with his head and shoulders showing above the tall grass and bushes. I had to start from about 400 yards away and move to within 25 yards of my uncle without betraying my approach. He would watch in all directions and rebuke me sharply whenever I was careless. At the end of the ‘stalk’ we drank tea out of a flask and uncle would comment on my performance, pointing out mistakes and suggesting better routes and methods of approach.

When I went to college, father was transferred to Lakhimpur in the wild Kheri district bordering Nepal in the Himalayan foot-hills. Big game abounded in the forests, and there, during my holidays, I was enabled to add practical experience to the theoretical knowledge that I had gained from my father. By the time I graduated from the University, I had hunted in many well-known jungles of India, but I did not kill my first man-eater till shortly afterwards when I was employed in State service in the Deccan. An old woman was killed at the edge of the forest near my bungalow while she was gathering firewood, and I shot the tigress from the ground as she sat devouring her victim whom she had dragged some distance inside the jungle.

That was the fulfilment of a dream which had stayed with me since I was five years old, and I have never known such inexpressible thrill and feeling of accomplishment though I have shot several tigers and leopards since that day.

In 1956, I went to East Pakistan as a roving journalist and stayed for a year in that fascinating part of my country where I roamed through its rich forests, sailed over its mighty rivers, and spent many happy weeks among the smiling aborigines of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Above all, I was privileged to visit the Sunderbans as a member of the shooting party that, accompanied His Imperial Highness Prince Abdul Reza Pehlavi of Iran.

It was the Prince himself who graciously suggested that I write a book about the Sunderbans which deserved to be better known as one of the loveliest and wildest tropical delta lands in the world, where man-eaters selected victims at will from among the shell and honey collectors, wood-cutters and fishermen who frequented its jungles and salt water creeks.

To gather material for this book, I revisited the Sunderbans four times in 1957 and 1958, armed with rifle and camera. In search of adventure and stories of adventure, I covered hundreds of miles in river launches and country boats, and walked through treacherous swamps and unbelievably difficult forest terrain. I did not set out to ‘bag’ tigers but to kill man-eaters, and I succeeded in shooting two of them. This performance hardly justifies the writing of a book, but those who know the peculiarly hostile nature of that territory and the nerve-shattering hazards of stalking man-eaters on foot where all the advantages lie with the tiger, may agree that no apology is needed.

In this book I have narrated not only my own experiences but also the experiences of others who were either fortunate enough to survive attacks by man-eaters or who witnessed such attacks from close quarters. Every statement was checked by thorough and individual questioning of principals and witnesses, followed by personal visits to sites of occurrence for studying corroborative evidence, the nature of which is clearly presented before the reader.

A shikari is a human being after all, operating under most difficult conditions in an element which is alien to him. He cannot always hope for success and he accepts his failures in a sporting spirit and learns from them.

This book, therefore, records not only my successes but also my failures. My glorious and inglorious moments have been recaptured alike in its pages. I have not always been brave or heroic. I have known fear, and even stark terror, and often beaten an undignified retreat when faced with serious danger. But, because it is your right to know the truth, I have not spared myself in recounting my experiences in the jungles of the Sunderbans. Craven or courageous, I leave it to you to pass judgment on my actions.

If this book should provide some pleasure to fellow sportsmen and lovers of adventure, and add to their knowledge of jungle lore, I shall feel that Baba’s ambitious little gun-cleaner has really achieved something at last!

––––––––

THE SUNDERBANS

THE late Jim Corbett of Man-eaters of Kumaon fame, who probably knew more about jungles and wild animals than any man, once declared that conventional methods of tiger shooting could not be employed in the Sunderbans without taking unnecessary risks. He was referring, of course, to the formidable nature of