With Her Innocent Love, TIGRESS KHAIRI, The Royal Bengal Tiger, Attracted Attention Around The Globe.
A man-eating animal also can sometimes learn love through selflessness and unconditional love.
In today’s busy life, people forget to love people. No one has time. No one thinks for anyone. In this world full of selfishness, the word selfless seems to be lost somewhere.
However, a few aspects of unconditional love are beyond the reach of healthy people. Only animal lovers can understand this selfless relationship and love for animals.
This story is about unconditional love, care, and a heartbreaking story. In 1972 Saroj Raj Choudhury was posted as IFS Forest Officer at Similipal Tiger Reserve. He was also the founder and Director of Similipal National Park in Mayurbhanj district in the Odisha state of India. Who was adopted a cute baby tiger named KHAIRI.
There, he started living in a government bungalow with his wife, Suklambari Rath Choudhury. They had a first daughter who did not survive. Then they had a son, Bibhudutta Choudhury. Saroj Roy Choudhury kept a crocodile, a hyena, a mongoose and another dog. Forest officer Saroj and his wife took care of them and lived with them like family members.
In 1974 changed, the life of forest officer Saroj Raj Choudhury changed. One day, some people from the Kharia Tribals community came to Saroj Raj Choudhury with a beautiful little tiger cub. People of Kharia Tribals said that a female tiger comes to drink water in front of the Khairi river with her cubs. But the people of Kharia Tribals chased away the female tiger by playing the drums. The female tiger can escape with her cubs, but the baby tiger stays behind. So the people of the Kharia community decided to take the tiger cub to Saroj Raj Choudhury.
From that day on, the life of the Choudhury couple changed. They used to raise that tiger cub as their child. Saroj Raj Choudhury named the tiger cub Khairi to rescue her from the river Kairi.
Forest officer Choudhury’s wife Sukhlambari used to feed Khairi with her own hands. She took care of her like her own daughter. The Choudhury couple were so happy to have Khairi.
Saroj Raj Choudhury once left Khairi in the forest because he thought that now she was grown up and she could go to the right to live in the forest area. But she used to roam in the forest and back to the bungalow. When Khairi became an adult, sometimes she used to go alone to the forest area because of finding a partner. But her mind was always with the Choudhury couple, and she started considering the Choudhury couple as her parents. Khairi was never pregnant. It was not a problem for him to stay in the bungalow. The bungalow was huge, even though there was a forest next to it. He used to play with his friend Choudhury’s dog.
And then the time came which had ruined the life of Saroj Raj Choudhury. 1981 when Choudhury was to go to Delhi for a conference. During his conference tour, a stray dog came and bite Khairi. But when Saroj Raj Choudhury arrived, it was too late. Before, he could not give the rabies vaccine to Khairi. Khairi told the world goodbye forever.
It is said that Saroj Raj Choudhury suffered as much pain as the parents of losing a child, after which he went into shock and died of a heart attack in 1982.
There are some such parents and children in our society, between whom there are rifts in the relationship bonding, in which love is not visible. Some children sometimes fight with their parents, while elsewhere, we see that some parents torture their children. But farthest from all this, Khairi made a unique identity in this world and despite being a wild tiger, never bothered his foster parents.
Even after death, she will always be immortal in the hearts of animal lovers, and even those who are not animal lovers will fall in love with Khairi after reading the story of the autobiography Khairi The Beloved Tiger.
And the contribution that the Choudhury couple made by becoming parents, perhaps few parents of modern society can do for their human children.
Khairi and Saroj Raj Choudhury will live forever in our hearts. No one will forget his sacrifice to date, especially in the hearts of animal lovers.
He later wrote the autobiography of Khairi, The Beloved Tiger. He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1983.
Thank you so much, Visrant Choudhury (Grandson of Honarable Saroj Choudhury Sir) for contributing the Padmashree image and information.
Thanks for reading
Written by
Arpita Chakraborty.
