Valor of a Mother

Valor of a Mother – Probably a True, Well-Known Incident

In southern tips of West Bengal, near it’s Bay of Bengal washed south sea-shore, there lies a dense forest region called The Sundarbans.

In the fringes of this forest, in a village-hut, one evening, a young rural housewife was cooking supper.

Her child, an infant, was lying on a worn-out blanket, safely tucked out beyond the range of the burning earthen-chullah, the infant was lying behind the lady.

The lady was lost in her own thoughts. Her husband, a professional honey-gatherer is away inside the forest for the last one week with a group of same professionals from the same village.

Sundarban is infamous for it’s famous man-eating, cunning, huge and menacing tigers, called the Royal Bengal Tigers. Every year, almost every group of such wood-cutters, honey-gatherers, fishermen, who depend on Sundarban forest for filling up their belly, who ventures deep inside the forest, loses one or two persons who fall victims to these man-eaters.

Their wives, mothers, sisters at home bid them adieu tearfully when they leave. Some returns, some never. Who’ll come back and who’ll be gone forever nobody knows. Even the rivers and canals inside the forest are full of massive man-eating crocodiles. And also there are pirates who loot and kill these poor villagers.

Probably the lady was too imbibed in these thoughts and deeply worried about her husband’s state of affairs as there was no news for the last one week that she did not hear a soft, silent sound that indicated a gentle pushing of the weakly bolted door of the hutment.

The next instant, there was a thunderous roar and with a bang the weak, loose door literally de-bolted and  broke apart as the startled lady sprang to her feet and stared almost face-to-face in the closest range at a full-grown male royal Bengal tiger, the putrid warm breath of the same touching the lady and the baby on floor who’s now crying loudly, calling helplessly for her mother.

The tigers’ gaze was at the baby on the floor who for the man-eater is a lump of soft, tempting lump of delicious flesh almost ready for it’s dinner. The lady, stunned and dumb-fixed at the initial shock, could somehow follow the tiger’s gaze and read it’s intention immediately.

What followed next has now entered into the folklore of untold braveries of this forestland. As the beast moved towards the baby with an intention to pull it, it’s tail facing the lady, the mother, she forgot everything and grabbed the tail of the beast and pulled it hard with all the strength of her feeble, malnourished body, shouting and exclaiming at the top of the voice alarming all other villagers “Tiger…Tiger…Tiger is taking away my baby..my poor baby…please save us..!!!”

Touching the tail of a tiger is probably beyond the thought of the bravest of the brave. Going or standing near a man-eater is in itself a fearsome proposition, leave along even touching it’s tail. And here was a situation in which a mother, in an effort to save her child, was pulling the tail of the beast really hard, stretching the tail fully, and the beast is roaring menacingly and both the tiger and the lady are rapidly moving in full circles with the tiger in a desperate effort bending backwards repeatedly in a circle to catch hold of the lady; in the process it’s attention from the baby has got completely diverted.

A group of villagers standing outside the house witnessed this unequal battle which continued for a while; shouting they were, banging their sticks; but these efforts are nothing in front of a badly insulted, humiliated man-eater, who probably never imagined a poor human being will ever touch it’s tail, leave alone pulling the same and moving in circle with him, harassing him so long and depriving him of the delicious pray.

Finally the inevitable happened. The furious maneater managed to grab and clung his teeth and jaw ferociously on the waist of the lady whose grip on the beast’s tail loosened in extreme pain of it’s bite, snatched and lifted her up like a piece of fish fresh out of river in the jaws of a riverside bird, jumped – almost floated out in air crossing the accumulated milieu of people around the house and vanished in the deep dark abyss of the surrounding dense forest with the brave mother’s body still dangling down from it’s mouth, her one last gaze fixed at her infant child, now lying safe and unscathed on the floor. That was the last, finale, ultimate consolation of a brave mother.