In an interior village in Falakata block of Alipurduar district in North Bengal, a group of children listened intently to the story. They had heard the story once but there were listening to it again. After the story, there was silence. “Did the tiger really come?” I asked. No one wanted to commit right away. But the expression on children’s faces gave away what they were thinking. Finally, one boy voiced his view. “The tiger was not real” he said. Slowly, the conversation inched forward. Someone else said, “Tigers can’t speak”. A child added, “Jojo should have been scared”. Yet another ventured, “How could the tiger understand Jojo’s language?” By and by, everyone agreed that if the whole thing was a dream, then the story was easier to digest. But the parts did not all add up. It was fine if Jojo was dreaming, but how to account for the tiger’s paw print that had been left behind in the book?
“Have you ever seen a tiger?” I wanted to know. Now there was much more agreement. None of the children had seen a tiger (or “baagh” as they called it), but a baby goat in one child’s house had recently taken away, most probably eaten up by a “baagh”. Another’s cow had been mauled. This was not unlikely. Far from the main road, across several small rivers, this village was tucked away between patches of tea gardens and stretches of jungle. The homes in the village were spread out – between tall thickets of bamboo trees and clusters of wide shouldered mango trees. It had been raining off and on for several days. All around us was lush and green. It was not hard to imagine a tiger prowling around the village at night.
Today’s story:
Jojo was sitting outside on the verandah. There was an open book in front of him. The title of the book was “Tiger’s story.” Jojo was looking carefully at the picture of the tiger in the book. As soon as he lifted his eyes from the book, he saw a big tiger standing in front of him. “Hello Jojo” said the big tiger and gave Jojo a light lick on his cheek. Jojo was very happy to see the big tiger. He lifted the book to show it to the tiger. The tiger was delighted to see the picture. Jojo and the tiger started chatting. The tiger told Jojo many things about the jungle that Jojo did not know. Jojo blinked. When he looked again there was no tiger. When he looked at the book, he saw that the tiger had left a paw mark in the book.
“Can you draw a tiger” I requested the children. “There are no tigers where I come from, so I want to take some tigers back with me.” This task was greeted with enthusiasm and energy. Everyone became busy right away. Flipping through, finding a new blank page in the notebook, opening pencil boxes, sharpening pencils with gusto, sharing erasers, concentrating on drawing. In a short while, there were a pile of tigers for me.
The tiger story travelled with us all day as we visited summer camps in Alipurduar and later in Cooch Behar. We chatted about the tiger story wherever we went. In every village, high school students had gathered children – mostly from class four, five or six. Today, like on other summer camp days, there was a “story of the day” to listen to, to discuss and then to do many activities with. But today’s story – the tiger’s tale – baffled us all.
By late afternoon, we reached a village close to the Bangladesh border. It had rained heavily here the day before. The narrow path that ran from the village lane, past a pond was slippery. There was a group of children sitting in an open space between this pond and a stream on the other side.
We settled down to chat. The tiger story was upper most in my mind. I had to ask the children what they thought about the story. Surprisingly, unlike every other group that day, these children here were not ambivalent at all. Their high school instructor, a clear-eyed girl with a light green dupatta and pink cheeks, explained it very simply. “You see, Jojo is a tiger cub” (“baagher bachchaa). The big tiger is his grandfather (thakurda). There is no reason why Jojo should be afraid of his grandfather. And since they are both tigers, they can talk easily to each other. Also, because Jojo and his grandfather enjoyed the book, they decided to put a paw print in it”.
Rukmini Banerji: May 22, 2025
PS: This write-up has been published in its original form without any editing or alterations. Any grammatical errors, typos, or stylistic variations are preserved to maintain the authenticity of the author’s work. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and do not reflect the views or positions of the organisation.
