A Tiger for Malgudi Read Online Free Page B

I had thought that there could never be any creature stronger than a tiger. I was mistaken. A human being may look small, without prominent teeth or claws, but he is endowed with some strange power, which can manoeuvre a tiger or an elephant as if they were toys.
     
After my attack on the village, people there not only began to guard their cattle better, but also approached the authorities for help. They sent their spokesmen to the town to meet the Collector and demand his help. They were vociferous and gave sensational and exaggerated reports of how a tiger was terrorizing the countryside, invading the villages and carrying away cattle, and mauling and maiming people going into the forests to gather firewood: they gave a list of names of persons who were killed. They were building a case against me and were inventing stories. I had always tried to avoid encounters with human beings, and if I had wanted, could have mangled and messed up the human creatures that had entered the stockade that night in the village. But I didn’t, I didn’t want to. If I had been present at that meeting with the Collector I would have proved that the villagers were lying. But I came to know of it only later in my life.
    The Collector, being a man used to such representations, just said: ‘I’ll look into your case. I can’t promise anything. How do you know that there is a tiger around?’
    ‘We saw it.’
     
‘How many of you saw it?’
    ‘All of us ...’said the deputation.
    ‘How many persons live in your village?’
    They looked at each other in consternation, being unfamiliar with numbers. ‘More than a hundred, sir,’ventured an elder.
    ‘Have all the hundred seen the tiger?’asked the Collector.
    ‘Yes,’they chorused.
    The Collector fixed his gaze on someone arbitrarily and asked, ‘How big was the tiger?’
    The man blinked for a minute and then indicated with his hands some size, whereupon another man pushed himself forward and said, ‘He is wrong. The tiger was this big ...’
    A heated argument started, many others joined for and against, until the Collector said, ‘Silence, are you both talking of the same tiger or two different ones? Was there one tiger or two or three?’
    Someone said, ‘Five in all, sir. Four cubs and a tigress, which were shot.’
    ‘Who shot them?’asked the Collector.
    ‘Some shikari from the town...’
    ‘Which town?’
    ‘We can’t say, sir, we don’t know.’
    ‘Did they have a licence to shoot? Who gave them licence?’
    The petitioners, feeling they were being dragged beyond their depths, became tongue-tied.
    The Collector observed them for a moment and said, ‘Have you brought your petition in writing?’They looked terrified, having no notion of the world of letters. The Collector felt compassionate and said, ‘I can’t take action unless there is a written petition. Go to a petition-writer ... you’ll find one in the veranda of the law court or at the market gate. Get the petition engrossed on a stamp-paper of one rupee and fifty paise, and leave it with my clerk at the office. Then I’ll fix a date for inspection and take action ... For all I know there may be no tiger whatever. You may be imagining ! One mentions one tiger and another says five!’And he permitted himself a dignified grin at the joke. ‘However, it is my duty to look into it, if you have a grievance.’
    The deputation of villagers had to visit the Collector almost once a week, spending time and money to no purpose. From within the jungle where their villages were situated, they had to trudge ten miles to the highway and wait endlessly for a chance lift in a passing bus or lorry. At the Collector’s office they could see, after much waiting, only the Collector’s clerk, who took their petitions and then directed them to satisfy further official formalities. At the end of the day they returned to their villages, dreading lest the tiger should waylay them.
    I had perfected my system of snatching