Tigers

 It's not even 10 am and the thermometer built into my Casio watch has hit a new high; 110.8 degrees.  That's 43.7 in the Celsius world and sitting on an elephant tripod in full sunlight without the slightest hint of a breeze makes it seem even hotter.  Why, you may ask, am I putting myself though this brain-baking ordeal.  Well, I've come to Bandhavgarh National Park in central India to film tigers in their native habitat for the IMAX film "India, Kingdom of the Tiger".  This 168 square mile wildlife sanctuary was established in 1968 to help preserve the tiger.

Bandhavgarh is home to approximately 40 wild tigers, as well as, a very large assortment of other wildlife.  Every morning, several mahouts and their elephants go out in search of tigers.  When one is found, the "tiger show" begins.  Tourists, who are driven around the park in jeeps, are brought to the site where they board the elephants and head off into the jungle to see the tigers.

We received word through our guide/naturalist that a mating pair of tigers had been found not far from where we are filming.  After a short trip, which took us toward the southern edge of the park, we arrived at the area where the tigers had been seen.

To our dismay, there were several jeeps filled with tourists boarding elephants for the tiger show.  They come from all over the world to Bandhavgarh National Park to see tigers in the wild, and the best and safest way to do that is from an elephant.  Why elephants?  Tigers do not consider elephants as a threat and, in theory, won't attack the elephant, so as long as one remains on the elephant all is well.  If for some reason you get off the elephant, one of two things will happen; the tigers run away or the tigers eat you, neither of which is good for tourism.  Also, elephants make great "all terrain vehicles", they can carry a huge load and they work for peanuts!

Most days we have a "dedicated" elephant named Gotum and our mahout is Kuttapan, (the mahout is the person that handles the elephant) so there's not a problem waiting for the tourists.  Today, however, we had to wait our turn because Gotum and Kuttapan were on the other side of the park.  The wait is not such a bad thing because if the tourists complain about a film crew, the park officials could make our lives difficult and besides if we wait till all the tourist are finished we don't have to worry about loosing our elephant.

After about an hour all the tourists had been cycled through the tiger show and we were able to get on with our filming and it didn't take long to find our tigers.  Just about 200 meters from the road we found them doing what most tigers do at this time of the day; they were lying around under some bamboo taking catnaps.  In the jungle, when you're at the top of the food chain all you really have to do is sleep, eat and make more tigers and the latter is what these two had been up to this morning!

The male tiger was Akela, named for the wolf character in Kipling's The Jungle Book.    Akela is the offspring of Mohini, the female we've been filming from the past two weeks, and she along with her two cubs are going to be the "stars" of our film.  Kuttapan says the Akela is fast becoming the dominant male in this part of the park.

 Filming tigers is not exactly the easiest thing in the world to do; in fact this is the first time wild tigers have been filmed with a large format camera.  Filming tigers mating is even trickier.  First you have to find tigers that are in "the mood", which in this case had been easy (lucky).  Next you have to be set up and ready to shoot when the "urge" strikes the tigers.  This part was not as easy and we missed several "filming opportunities" simply from not being able to get the camera set up quickly enough.  It seems tigers employ a "hit and run" tactic in their mating affairs, once the female has had enough she turns around and whacks the male up side the head sending him off to recoup.  After several attempts, we finally got lucky, as did Akela.

After a couple of hours of this the two tigers headed off into a small box canyon where they settled down in some cool shade.  We ended up stuck out in the hot sun.  The setting was almost too perfect; it looked like something you might see at Disney's Animal Kingdom; a wide, open ended recess with various nooks and crannies, vines hanging down, lush vegetation above, a very nice location, photographically, a torturous one comfort wise.  So there we sat for about two hours, broiling in the mid-day heat while the tigers lounged in the shade, doing what tigers do this time of day, nothing.  Around noon we decided to call it quits, and headed back to our base camp, the White Tiger Jungle Lodge, for some lunch and something cold to drink.

Until you spend some time in a location such as this you don't really miss things like ICE.  But when you're in the middle of India and it's over 110 degrees outside, having a big glass of iced tea or even just ice water is something you can only dream about.  For some reason or another, putting ice in beverages is something that is not done in this part of the world.  Unlike in North America where you have to ask, even beg, for less ice in your Wendy's soft drink, here you're lucky if you get any at all, you're lucky if the drink you order is below room temperature.  Part of this has to do with the fact that any ice you get is made from the local, untreated, unfiltered water and will likely contain a lot of really nasty things that will make you very ill.  Part of it is due to the lack of reliable refrigeration and a continuous power supply.   The electricity goes out here at least six or eight times a day, sometimes for five or ten minutes sometimes for hours on end.  We've discovered a method of judging how long the power was on during the day by how cold the drinks are at dinner.

The other thing you miss is salads; crisp lettuce, firm ripe tomatoes, shredded carrots, it's something you just can't find and if you do chances are the produce has been washed in the above mentioned water and/or stored in the above mentioned refrigerator.  Then there's pizza..... sorry, I digress.

After our lunch break we drove back out to where we had left the tigers, and our elephants, to continue filming.  In the afternoons we don't have to compete with the tourists for elephants because tourists have to book an elephant in advance if they want one in the afternoon.  Most tourists either don't realize they have this option, or don't take advantage of the opportunity, opting instead to drive around the park looking for the myriad wildlife to be found here.

Arriving back at tiger central we found that there were no elephants.  This didn't bode well for the afternoon.  A couple of jeeps were parked along side the road and we recognized them as belonging to the other two film crews working in the park.  We assume the other guys got here first and made off with our rides, we're not happy campers since we had booked the elephant for the afternoon. 

Up the road we saw an elephant heading our way and then another appeared from in the direction of the tigers.  The crew shooting for Discovery India had arrived ahead of us, but their elephant was not there and rather than waiting they took our elephant and went on in and set up.  Once they were in position they sent our elephant back to the road to fetch us.  In the mean time their ride showed up and we played musical elephants and everyone was happy. 

We found the tigers right where we had left them.  As it turned out we were lucky that the Discovery crew had taken our elephant.  When they arrived at the tigers a group of tourists/amateur photographers, who had booked an elephant for the afternoon, was in the process of trying to move my tripod.  After being informed about how bad a breach of conduct such an act would be the errant group moved off to find their own spot. 

We finally got to our tripod, not an easy task when you have four elephants, three elephant tripods and a group of amateurs crowded into a space the size of small hotel room.   

When shooting motion pictures or video it's best if your camera does not move when you don't want it to, so shooting from the back of an elephant is not the greatest thing in the world to do.  So the trick is to get off the elephant and onto an "elephant tripod".  They're contraptions invented specifically for filming tigers from an elephant.  The legs of the tripod are constructed from long (10' - 12') aluminum pipes, these legs attach to a heavy duty "lazy Susan" with a flat aluminum plate on top.  This plate serves as a seat for the camera operator and as a mount for the camera.  You arrive at the tiger location on the elephant, set-up the tripod, which is about the same height as the elephant's back.  The camera operator then carefully moves from the elephant onto the tripod, sets up the camera and goes to work, all without ever setting foot on the ground.  All is well, at least until the elephant starts noodling tripod legs with his trunk.

 Back at the tiger location, things were getting a bit tense in the old jungle.  On one side we have two tigers who just want a few minutes of piece and quiet and on other side we have a whole gaggle of cameras and photographers intent on not missing a single instant of what's about to transpire.  Almost any move made by the tigers triggered host of cameras clicking and whirring away.  Finally around 5:30 the tigers decided to give us what we've all waiting for, and for the next 30 minutes the roars, growls and snarls of the tiger's romancing was accompanied by the sound of cameras running, shutters clicking, and film advancing.

 After the dust had settled, the tigers headed off up a steep embankment toward their watering hole, pausing only briefly to make sure they were not being followed.  The jungle paparazzi packed it up and headed off for their respective watering holes.

 This was our last day with the tigers, at least for this trip.  We had lots of other shots to get and only four days to do them in.  We had gotten some really amazing tiger footage, especially considering the fact that some very well known experts in the industry thought we might not get anything at all.  The tigers are truly wonderful animals and are deserving of all the protection we can give them.  They are still being hunted, although illegally, and are on the verge of extinction in the wild.  Nation wide there are approximately 3500 tigers in India, in this part of country, Madhya Pradesh, about 900 tigers survive.  We saw a total of seven, Mohini and her cubs, Akela and his mate, a male known as B3 and Charger - the old man of the park. 

 Every year poachers reduce the tiger's numbers for monetary gain.  A single tiger, dead or alive can fetch $35,000.00 or more on the black markets of some Southeast Asian countries.  It is here where people believe that various parts of the animal serve as aphrodisiacs that the tigers face their greatest threat. 

 Monday, May 1, we're up at 3:30 AM to make the trip up a plateau in the middle of the park to the Bandhavgarh Fort.  This fort was established over 2000 years ago and even withstood the Mongol invasion.  After making the drive up the hill I can understand why the Mongols gave up, that's one rough road!  Close to the top, we pass through the gates of the fort and step back in time several hundreds of years. 

Our original plan was to shoot some wide scenic shots of the park from this vantage point, but Mother Nature wouldn't hear of it and presented us with considerable haze that limited our visibility severely.  So it was on to plan "B". 

  Still standing on the plateau are some of the buildings from centuries past, one of which is a schoolhouse.  This unique stone structure has been over grown by a large fig tree and looks like something from the "The Jungle Book", complete with monkeys.  We set up and shoot a roll of film on the schoolhouse.  Then we're off to scout for another location.  After looking for several hours we decide that it just wasn't meant to be and head back down the hill, at least the schoolhouse shot is in the can. 

I spent the afternoon in a hide, a camouflaged hut, at the edge of a meadow known as Rajbehra.  This is a picturesque location with a large water hole, actually a small lake, and huge meadow full of waist high grass.  Trees frame the lake with the meadow and the Bandhavgarh Fort behind.  By late afternoon the spotted deer, sambar deer, langur monkeys, and wild boar all show up for an afternoon drink.  The scene screams INDIA! 

 From my vantage point I was able to get a lot of good animal behavior; a small bird fighting off the advances of a rather large snake; a gray heron fishing; two male spotted deer fighting; several hundred deer grazing and drinking at the water hole, in general the kind of extra shots needed to tell the story of the tiger.

 The remainder of the week was spent picking up these kinds of shots, not as much fun as chasing tigers on an elephant, but still part of the job.  Bandhavgarh National Park is really an embarrassment of riches for the photographer.  Natural and man-made caves, huge statues of Hindu gods, unsurpassed wildlife, tranquil watering holes and bubbling streams make for outstanding photographic opportunities, I only wish we had more time to spend here.

 Thursday afternoon as we load up the jeep to head back to the lodge we get some bad news.  Akela has killed a cub; he was seen dragging the carcass across the road where we were parked earlier in the week.  What's worse is the second cub was nowhere to be found and is assumed to be dead or in hiding.  This was not one of Mohini's cubs, but the cubs of the female he was mating with.  This is not unusual, dominant male tigers often kill male cubs if given the opportunity.  It is thought this is to reduce the competition in the future.  The little guy probably just showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time.  We are all shocked and saddened by the news.

 As we drive through the jungle the light is fading on another day.  Everyone is quiet, lost in thought.  As we round a curve a herd of spotted deer is crossing the road, their coats burnished by the setting sun.  The largest buck stops and stares at us, he knows we are the visitors in his realm.  After a while he continues on, following his herd as they feed along the edge of the forest. 

 We descend into a valley and suddenly the air becomes cool, a welcome respite to the dry heat of the rocky country above.  The stillness is substantial, physical.  The calls of hundreds of voices can be heard, the sounds do not intrude on the silence, only embellish it, like decorative borders of some medieval manuscript.  The jungle prepares for another night.  Overhead, in the constellation Canis Major, Sirius, the brightest star in the sky is just becoming visible. 

 Ahead lies a meadow awash with the muted tones of the fading sunset, as we enter the meadow the alarm call of a sambar deer rings out.  From high in the sal trees at the edge of the meadow, the langur monkeys answer the call with their own.  Soon the spotted deer join the cacophony, and then suddenly, as if some unseen force switched it off, the sounds stop, all is quiet, deadly quiet.  In the distance a tiger roars, a sharp reminder that not all will see the dawn.  Here, night belongs to the predators.  Here, we are in the center of the circle of life.