Tiger Tiger

By Gaurav Parab

Dark brown eyes reflecting untamed depth and royal pride,
The strongest strength god created now cruely cut open wide.
Wish rich men fancied silver vases more than bright striped skin,
Wish they knew more than a tiger dies every time a hunter notches a win.

Dark stripes of glory across the most powerful body every bred,
Meeting their end in dark shots of cheap Chinese made led.
Wish men with headaches knew the pure life lost in the balm,
The healing lie that ends another wild tiger’s charm.

As I search for words that rhyme well with tiger,
I wish I could say the search ends with fighter.
But the truth is the tiger has come up against the only beast,
Who kills for fun, a herb, for a room and an expensive feast.

If we can’t ask for an end to the killing of the most magnificent life soon,
My children will hear a growling tiger only on grainy film in a dark room
I hope my son will never ask me about my generation’s biggest sin,
Dad, who is that friendly big cat in the book with Calvin?




Note:

The Indian tiger is in trouble. A recent count has put the number of Indian tigers in the wild at around 1400. While we as individuals cannot do much directly for tiger conservation, we can indirectly contribute by acknowledging the problem,, and creating pressure groups to galvanize the government to action. All is not lost. Amidst stories of forest guards being outgunned by modern well armed poachers, some sanctuaries have reported that they have managed to safeguard tiger populations.

NDTV has started a Save the Tiger campaign recently. While personally, I am not a big fan of online petitions, I endorse this campaign because this is one of the causes that calls for such pressure points to be created on the government for doing more towards tiger conservation. You can visit the Save the Tiger campaign at http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/savetiger/sthome.aspx.

- Gaurav Parab