Sita and the blind tiger cub of Bandhavgarh

How does blindness in a big cat get detected? How does a tiger mom respond to dangers that the forest and tourism pose to a very special cub? This fascinating, true story from the Bandhavgarh National Park and Tiger Reserve has been penned by Kay Hassall Tiwari, a long-time resident of Tala village in Bandhavgarh.

Kay is an exceptional artist who has drawn and painted tigers and landscapes for some three decades there. Her Bandhavgarh oeuvre of drawings has appeared in books. What makes this story a singular one is that she has combined sketches with words to tell a little-known tale of Sita and her blind cub in Bandhavgarh.

Sita was a famous tigress, perhaps the most famous one to have graced the jungles there, and Kay has often described her as the matriarch of the forest. Sita’s maternal instincts towards her litter shine through the story as does the pathos and helplessness of her cub.

In 1994-1995, the use of elephants for tourists was banned in Bandhavgarh and Madhya Pradesh. As a result, tiger sightings dropped considerably. The ban was to be lifted later in the season as complaints poured in and income from tourism dropped.

Sita, the dominant tigress of Tala, was...

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