At 5:00 PM, I once again got down onto the canal bank…This time accompanied by 25 forest sentries from the launch. I was carrying my 7x57mm Mauser in my hands, while my forest sentries were armed with their standard issue .303 caliber Lee Enfields. We began to take up the blood trail of the wounded Royal Bengal tiger and all of us advanced cautiously. At roughly 5:50 PM, we found him lying still in a ditch under some Goran trees… surrounded by a massive pool of frothy blood. I ordered 2 of my forest sentries to cautiously approach the animal and pelt him with rocks, while the other forest sentries and I stood at the ready with our rifles poised. If we detected the slightest signs of movement, then we were to immediately open fire.
These precautionary measures proved to be rather superfluous, because the man eater of Atharobeki was indeed no more. Judging from the rate of decomposition of the Royal Bengal tiger’s carcass (and the distance he had gone from where I had first shot him), it was estimated that he succumbed to the gunshot wound roughly 3 hours after I had shot him.
A postmortem revealed that my Winchester Super X 175 grain soft nosed bullet had broken through the great cat’s scapula, penetrating into the right lung of the tiger and tearing open a massive wound cavity. The animal eventually succumbed to his injuries, by suffocating on his own blood. The postmortem also revealed to us why the Royal Bengal tiger had developed such pathologically homicidal tendencies towards human beings. In the animal’s brain, we found a large number of maggots which had no doubt caused some serious brain damage to the striped feline. Even though he had killed and eaten a jarring number of 58 human beings, I could not help but feel an iota of pity for the poor creature. Having maggots move around in one’s head slowly eating away at different parts of the brain, is no doubt a hellish phenomenon. Nature truly is cruel.
And that, dear readers… was how I dispatched my final man eating Royal Bengal tiger. To the best of my knowledge, the Royal Bengal tigers which I had shot (in 1981, 1988 and 1989) were 3 of the only 4 man eating tigers to have been legally killed in the Sundarban mangrove forests after the country became independent in 1971. And as far as I am aware, the man eater of Atharobeki was the very last Royal Bengal tiger (or indeed, ANY endangered animal) for which the Ministry of Forests had issued a Death-Order (as of this time of writing in 2022).
Amongst my fellow hunters, I admit that I became something of a celebrity. 3 of the only 4 man eating Royal Bengal tigers to be legally killed in the Sundarbans (with the other one being the man eater of Talpatti which Pachabdi had dispatched by setting up a gun-trap in 1987) had died by my hand. And each of them were felled with only a single shot. But the raw truth is that I was no great hunter or fearless hero. I had only succeeded due to a combination of luck and very good logistical support from the Sundarban Department of Forests. I got the first 2 man eaters by exploiting their natural kill-sites. And I happened upon the final man eater by PURE CHANCE. I never shot a charging Royal Bengal tiger and only ever hunted the final man eater on foot. Not once was I able to drop any of the man eaters which I had shot at, on the spot. The first one died 7 hours after I had shot him. The second one died 4 hours after I had shot him. And the final one died 3 hours after I had shot him.
By reading these 3 chapters, my dear readers will have their attention drawn towards the numerous mistakes I had also made while going after man eating Royal Bengal tigers. Indeed, I do not consider myself to be particularly talented in the field of hunting the great cats. Sometimes, I still look back at my actions and find myself wondering… exactly how did I manage to hunt down 3 Royal Bengal tigers without any prior tiger hunting experience ? And how did I manage to get away doing all of this ABSOLUTELY UNSCATHED?
Clearly, someone from above was looking out for me.
THE END
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End Of An Era