Five hundred Bengal
tigers live in the largest mangrove forest on earth, situated on the
border of India and Bangladesh. But so do more than a million humans.
Every year the tigers attack up to 60 people, and only half survive to
tell the tale.
Nothing strikes more fear into the hearts and minds of the
people of the Sundarbans - the vast river delta on the northern shore of
the Bay of Bengal - than the word "tiger". Even the mention of this
word can send villagers into a blind panic. Eager to catch a glimpse of a tiger, I asked a passing fisherman if he had seen one on his travels that morning. Up to that point he had been happy to pass time with me - but immediately he packed up his crabs and left without a word.
"If you talk about the tiger, it will come," said my boatman. "That is why."
There is hardly a person here whose life hasn't been touched by a tiger in some way.
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