2 Bandra Girls in their Shetiverse, Part 21 – It’s a Jungle Out There

The time between sowing our paddy fields and harvesting the rice passes slowly. During these months, we stay busy with occasional weeding, keeping mice and pests at bay, and watching the rice grow. If you haven’t been near a paddy field as the kernels begin to show, you should. The fragrance is intoxicating.

While the monsoon transforms the land into fifty gorgeous shades of green, it also causes the highway to disintegrate into endless kilometres of potholes, making our weekly trips a backbreaking nightmare. It is truly the best of times and the worst of times.

This year, though, the farm has had a steady stream of unexpected visitors that have kept us on our toes.

In mid-August, we reached the farm to find Maruti the Imp and his wife stomping around the periphery of the farm in their gumboots. Seeing them in their wellies was a welcome sight, as we had been trying to persuade them to wear them while walking through the wet fields and tall grass during the monsoon. They’ve ignored our advice for the last three years, and the wellies we bought for them in the first monsoon after we bought the farm remained pristine.

We had barely gotten out of the car when Vandana rushed into the toolshed to get our wellies and insisted we wear them. Completely mystified now, we dutifully struggled into them before asking why they were behaving so oddly. “Ajgar ahe madam,” said Maruti the Imp, pointing towards our Nachni field in the distance.

“Ajgar?” What on earth was a crocodile doing on our farm? No water bodies were nearby, so how on earth had this crocodile landed on our farm? There followed ten embarrassing minutes where I kept asking why and how the ajgar had reached our farm and how they thought the wellies were any protection against an ajgar. Suzann listened to my questions for a bit, till she was exasperated; she finally asked what I was on about with all the water questions. My Marathi had failed me yet again! Ajgar is the Marathi word for Python, not Crocodile, as I had thought. A crocodile is a “magar.”

It turns out that a pregnant python had settled in our Nachni field and was most likely giving birth to multiple babies! Maruti declared the Nachni field out of bounds and insisted we peer into the field from outside the fence. The simple logic of a python being able to slide through a barbed wire fence was lost on him, so we dutifully walked around the farm’s perimeter in our wellies, occasionally stopping to peer over the fence and through the gaps in the live cactus fence. It was hilarious and a complete waste of time. We could only get a glimpse of the Nachni and saw nothing at all of pregnant Ms. Python.

We left her to do what she needed to do and returned to Mumbai. I consulted my star naturalist friend, Surya, who advised us to leave her in peace. She would slither away soon enough. But he warned us to keep kids and small animals away from the field for a few weeks. A forest official friend said pretty much the same thing but added that he could get the experts from the forest department to remove her and place her safely in the forest if she outlived her welcome. We decided to give her a few weeks.

Two weeks passed quickly, and we returned to the farm to watch our rice grow. As we drove past the neighbouring village, we sensed a disturbed buzz, and people huddled, whispered, and pointed at us. Something was up, and from our experience, we sensed trouble. Hoping we weren’t in for the return of the Farm Fiend, we drove quickly to the farm and looked around to see if all was well. All seemed normal to the naked eye, and heaving a sigh of relief, we asked Maruti for an update on the Ms. Python.
“Forget the python! She’s gone,” he almost shouted. “A tigress was on the farm last night!”

At first, we refused to believe him. There had been no known tiger sightings in our area. Ever. “Must have been a leopard,” we said. “No. No. Vaag,” he said, using the Marathi word for tiger. And not just vaag, but a vaag with three cubs. Mr. Stonethrower was deeply cynical. He said that the local Shakha Pramukh from the Shiv Sena must have been prowling. [The symbol for the Shiv Sena being a Tiger]

Unreal. Where? How? When?

By this time, several villagers had dropped by to discuss the vaag. It seems Madam Tigress and her three cubs had walked through the village directly behind our farm and strolled into our farm. She had stopped for a bit and roared, scaring the pants off Maruti and his family. The rest of the story becomes a bit confused as several people claim to have seen her in different places in the vicinity. But the consensus was that she eventually left the farm, walked to the municipal hospital about 2 kilometres away, and spent the rest of the night under a tree in the hospital compound.

The rest of the farm visit was spent discussing Madam Tigress, where she would go next, why she was here, and where she had come from.

Over the next few days, we received daily updates on her movements as she prowled around the area. Sanjay knew someone who knew someone who had a photo of her and the cubs. Manager Mahesh called to say she had eaten some goats and a buffalo. For the next ten days, everyone had a story, a sighting, and a theory about our visiting dignitary.

Then, just as suddenly as she had come, Madam Tigress and her cubs disappeared into the forest.

After an unusual and exciting month, normalcy has returned to the farm, and we are back to watching our rice grow.