Old age is a doddle – or so Machali reckons.
Not happy with her ‘meals on wheels’ – the goats or young buffaloes on a rope for dinner, she decided yesterday to go out a find herself a decent wholesome just-like-the-old-days kind of meal.
16 years of age she maybe (or 80 in cat years!) – but there’s life in the old girl yet. Fit and well, Machali - the Grand Dame of Ranthambhore - still managed to hunt down a huge Sambar deer, which will keep her in the equivalent of Sunday lunches for at least 5 days. That’s unless other enemies get their first, like nasty hyena, perky jackals or those skyborne ravenosaurosess - the long billed and white rumped vultures - who can pick a carcass clean in a few minutes of heated argument.
Like all good old tigers she feasts in the cool of the mornings, rests in the heat of the day in the shade of a valley near Lakarda, and comes back for a late afternoon snack. Very civilised indeed.
Machali has infact been having a ball this winter in her retirement, with visits to many of her old Rajbagh lake haunts and the privilege of a feeding station to gladden the heart of an old age tigress pensioner.
But don’t right Machali off just yet – as a BBC documentary did recently – because this old girl ain’t going nowhere.
