Before I begin my tragic tale, I should tell you that we tigers have feelings just like humans. Our hearts can be bruised and broken just like anybody else's. Do not mistake our pride and strength for heartlessness and callousness. Tigers have been portrayed in rather unfortunate ways in many stories, including the story humans crafted about me and my ungrateful wife. But I am here to set the record straight, once and for all.
As a young tiger, I enjoyed the ability to shape shift, one that I used frequently to my advantage, posing as a Brahmin in the hopes of getting some of that delicious food humans eat. Humans craft the most amazing meals I have ever seen, meals far better than any wild boar I could catch. My love for human food led me to shape shift often. During one such time, as I was posing as an elderly, starving Brahmin, I overheard a group of women discussing a local Brahmin girl who chased after boys and brought shame on her family. An idea popped into my head--I could pretend to be an attractive young Brahmin boy, make the girl fall in love with me, and have a personal chef for the rest of my life, someone to make me masala dosa every evening! Typically tigers do not eat vegetables or potatoes, but in my youth I was obsessed with masala dosa, dosa stuffed with seasoned boiled potatoes and served with chutneys and sambar. Now, I finally had someone to prepare it for me!
I quickly put my plan into action and succeeded easily in wooing the girl and her parents. Everything proceeded smoothly and quickly as her parents were eager to see their daughter wed to such an eligible bachelor as myself. Upon marrying the girl, I informed her and her family that we would be heading back to my home deep inside of the jungle, in a far-off village. Her father shook my hand and kissed his daughter while her mother packed our things, including some delicious meals for the journey. And so we left, the girl happy as could be while I eagerly awaited the food my new wife would prepare.
On our way through the woods, the girl, much to my annoyance, kept asking me questions like "When are we going to get there?" and "How much farther?" I grew increasingly annoyed and finally snapped, telling her that if she would not be quiet, I would show her my true form. At this, she fell silent. Unfortunately, however, she could not hold her tongue and again began with the annoying questions. In my anger, I did something that I deeply regret--I turned into my true form. Instantly, terror and disgust showed on her face and we finished our journey in complete silence. Here I must point out that, contrary to rumors, I never once threatened the girl in all our years of marriage. This was made up by my ungrateful wife to excuse her later betrayal.
And so our married life was far from normal. My wife cooked and cleaned but never spoke a word to me. She could not stand to look at me, even after we had our son together. I gave up on the idea of having a companion and instead focused on hunting for meat and protecting her and our son. I held onto hope that, over time, she would come to accept me, perhaps even love me. But in the meantime, I merely enjoyed the food she prepared and played with our precious boy who, I might say, was a stunning copy of myself, beautiful striped coat and all!
Little did I know, however, that my wife was plotting my demise even as I provided for her. As I later learned, one day, while I was out hunting, she sent a note by a crow to her brothers back home, stating that she was being held against her will and that her husband was actually a vicious tiger. She begged them to help her and so they did. These crafty men located my cave and tricked me using a donkey, an iron tub, an ant, and a palmyra tree. The items combined together resembled a mysterious and rather large beast, one which frightened me half to death. I ran away in terror, as I am sure any sensible creature would do.
After I had made my escape, I fell asleep and awoke after nightfall, much to my chagrin. I approached my home, hungry and ready to eat whatever my wife had prepared and quite over my fear of the gigantic beast. Inside, I faced a true nightmare--my wife had fled and our son was dead, having been killed and skinned with a knife I had given my wife as a wedding present. I instantly knew what the ungrateful woman had done and mourned my son, my precious cub, for days on end, unable to cope with the loss of both my son and wife.
Eventually, I recovered my senses and was able to deal with my grief. I could never forgive her for killing our son, but hoped to plead with my wife to return to me, to forgive me for my form and my nature. I knew I could not bear such crushing loneliness again. Over the years, despite her distaste for me, I had grown to love the girl and still loved her, despite her cruelty and barbarity towards me and our son.
So I put my plan into action and entered my wife's village once more as her Brahmin husband, looking to win her back. I quickly found her family and, at the time, I was unaware of her brothers' roles in helping her flee from me. I truly believed that her family would welcome me in and encourage the girl to return home with me. And they did, at least at first. However, once again I fell victim to human cruelty and deceit. The devils invited me to take a bath, an offer which I accepted after my long journey. When I entered the basin, however, the boards underneath me gave way and I fell into a well below. While drowning and calling for help, I realized that they were going to leave me to my fate. I drowned filled with bitter sorrow at how my life had turned out. But I was determined to haunt the jungle around their village and exact my revenge, one way or another.
Author's Note:
I took the story of the Tamil story of "The Brahmin Girl who Married a Tiger" and retold it from the point of view of the tiger. In the original story, the tiger is portrayed as a heartless tyrant who terrorizes the girl and threatens to kill her. After the girl escapes with her brothers, the tiger follows her and attempts to trick her family into making the girl return with him, once more transformed into the girl's Brahmin husband. I turned the story around and made the tiger more sympathetic and cast the wife as being ungrateful and cruel. She kills her own son, presumably because he is a tiger like his father, and helps her family trick the tiger into falling into a well where he drowns. I also added a more ominous ending, where the tiger remarks that he is going to haunt the jungle around the village in the afterlife, exacting revenge by presumably killing villagers, starting with his deceitful wife and her family. The tiger in my story is more complex. He starts as a selfish character but grows to love his wife and son and is distraught when his wife kills their son and runs off. Even after such a betrayal, the tiger tries to win the girl back but falls victim to her family once again. The tiger is a tragic character who I think all readers will sympathize with on some level.
Photo information: The banner photo is of a board tiger with the words "Let us also live" on it in Tamil, reflecting efforts to protect tigers and conserve their habitat.
Bibliography: The Brahmin-Girl That Married a Tiger from Tales of the Sun, or Folklore of Southern India by Georgiana Kingscote and Natesa Sastri.
Photo Source: Photo taken by Ashok Prabhakaran. Source: Flickr
Background Source: Photo taken by Igor Haritanovich. Source: Pexels