Tigers have more reasons to fear man
An irate White Tiger staring at a student after he fell in its enclosure at the Delhi Zoo on Tuesday. The Tiger killed him later.
Thousands of years of civilisation and scientific achievements have helped man conquer his fear of fire, water and many such forces of nature. But an encounter with a tiger is still as frightening as it was in the prehistoric period. That's because we have conquered all other fears except the fear of being eaten alive. A man may not fear death, but death by being eaten is a thought that can trigger a cardiac arrest.
Man and tiger have lived together, fearing each other. Tigers have more reasons to fear man because men have killed them to near-extinction. Men have multiplied into billions and tigers have shrunk to a few thousands. It's pretty clear who should fear whom. But put a man in front of a tiger, and the equation is reversed. The man cowers into a ball of fear even before the tiger has a need to look fearsome. It just needs to be himself, majestic.
A young man fell/jumped into the moat that separates a white tiger and hundreds of human visitors who come to see him every day at the zoo in Delhi. Since we all have video cameras at our disposal all the time, many of them shot vivid videos of those terrifying five minutes or so. Those visuals brought the tragedy home for us. A tiger and a man in a close encounter. Even if you know what happened in the end, you fervently hope that the man lives. Because we don't want either of them harmed. We want the tiger to not kill. They do. Not because they want to. We fear them. We better, because they aren't house cats. They aren't villains or heroes in what happened at the zoo. It was an accident. The man was scared, the tiger looked curious, but the anxious crowd above the moat made matters worse and what looked like a playful cat turned into a fierce beast, which grabbed the man by his neck and dragged him around to death. He doesn't eat him. That gives us a fair idea that the man wasn't food for the cat.
I have been asked by many people what to do in an event like this. Could it have ended differently? What do you do if a tiger looks at you from such a close distance? Well, you don't do anything. It's the tiger that decides. Tigers are territorial. They like to live alone, even in the jungle. They love to stalk, crouch and pounce on their prey. They don't kill for fun and usually avoid humans. Most man-eaters turn into man-eaters because they have killed and eaten a human by mistake. Many others because they are old or injured and can't run after quick ungulates.
I grew up in tiger territory and tiger encounters were the stuff of lore. I have had various close encounters with leopards, hyenas and other wild creatures but never a tiger. Not a living one. The last tiger in Bhitia jungle died when I was very young. It was the stereotypical case of man-animal conflict. Men won. People have different memories of how to face a tiger. The most popular one refers to locking eyes with the animal. Look the tiger in the eye and don't make any movements. According to this theory, if you turn your gaze away, you're gone. The other is to always use a tool, a stick or anything that you can get hold of. What's common among the theories is that you should stand up and not sit or cower down. You need to look taller than the animal. The other common thing is that one should avoid making quick movements. Instead, try and divert the animal's attention by waving your hand really slowly. Do they work? The only survivor I know wouldn't confirm.
A zoo tiger isn't afraid of humans. Vijay, the tiger in the Delhi zoo, was born in captivity. He was fed by humans and saw hundreds of them every day. It's likely that if Maqsood had been standing and had simply walked away unafraid, he would have lived. Some say if he had played with the tiger, which wasn't hungry, the tiger would have spared him. Some others theorise that people throwing stones and screaming led to the attack. We do not know what went on in Vijay's mind. We can imagine what Maqsood felt. Because we are human. We will not know Vijay's side of the story.