My Grandma, The Tigress

Rahul stood there burdened with a belief of his grandmother. He had to, as not doing so today would have made him feel like a traitor. He had not yet completely submitted his rational thinking to what Grandma had said. He had researched his family’s history and there was a lot that helped her story but nothing strong enough to prove it. Everything was merely circumstantial. The circus part was true, and the Sri Lanka part too. He had even met his long-lost relatives when he visited the island country a few months back. The rational man he was, fiercely rejected every word of hers, but the grandchild here was respecting her memory today. It was, after all, her death anniversary.

He closed in towards the railing and the creature was there inside the enclosure under the dark shades of the peepal tree. In all his glory, he lay there unconcerned of the attention of hundreds of eyes. The sight took him back to the day his grandma’s tantrums about the creature had reached its peak.

“Son,” she began. “Long before all this. Much before your father became an officer. Our family, by that I mean your grandpa and me, had a circus. A big one. Well, it was passed on to him, but we made it big. You know all this, right ?”

Rahul had grown up listening to all this and couldn’t understand why this was being repeated. He looked at her and realised that the grandma had gone into a sort of sadness that only old people at the end of their lives could enter. A state of not having to do anything more about it, a state of total acceptance of the sadness. She grabbed onto his hand tightly and leaned on with all her strength.

She continued. Those were the days when circuses were the most awaited event anywhere in the subcontinent. And it was most popular in the southern part of India and that’s exactly why I ended up here. Every year, a bunch would come from Ceylon as guest performers and would return after the summer season. Your grandpa’s family owned the circus that hired us, but tragedy struck soon as his parents died in an accident. So all of us were asked to return, but I had already fallen in love with him. At first, our relationship was mocked as just a crush by the elders, but we persisted, and they had to agree. As I was an orphan, my manager was more than happy to leave me here. From then on it was a long struggle for us, fighting against the relatives who wanted a piece of the inheritance, finding new acts, and pleasing the pockets of every town’s administration. And guess what, after all this, your grandpa dropped a bomb on my head.

One night he took me inside a cage and performed the rite. He mumbled the right words and handed over the paste to be applied behind his ears. I followed his instructions. Within minutes, what stood in front of me was the most beautiful and fierce tiger I had ever seen in my life. He jumped onto me and started licking my face. That night, we made a plan, a plan to revive the old circus company. I would become the tiger taming Ms.Tigress and he would be the tamed every night.

Everything after that happened so quickly. The news spread like wildfire. The company dazzled everyone with performers spiralling in the air, shooting their partners into rings of fire, juggling knives, cabaret dancers and dancing elephants. Yet, the limelight was always on me, the woman who danced with the predator.

Children gripped their mothers’ saris out of sheer fear when I arrived, men lurched forward, and the whole circus tent huddled around. Every night, I tiptoed into the limelight and saluted the crowd with twinkling eyes.

The act was simple and effective. As fluorescent lights took over the stage, the predator in all his golden glory, pounced on me. Some screamed while some closed their eyes out of fear. Little did they know that your grandpa could never bite me. When he coyly licked my face, cheers and torn tickets filled the tent. As the final touch, we developed a dance, one that made us famous all over the countryside.

We both were happy. Your grandpa took in a lot of pain, too. The transforming part was always painful. Once I washed off the paste and mumbled the right words before daybreak it would begin. After every show, he writhed inside the cage. The pain that shot through his spine was muffled by my frock. The tail went back in, the backbone straightened, teeth became smaller, and your grandpa used to lay naked and unconscious for the next few hours. For he was the last of a kind, the last of the shape-shifters. It was something only his family could do. He had forgotten why or how they got the power. Anyhow, let me finish this off quickly, my child, I am too tired.

It was when your father was in my belly that the tragedy occurred. That day, as usual, it was a fully booked show. People rushed in, talking about our act. I wore my favourite dress that day. It was supposed to be my last performance before maternity leave. As your grandpa pounced on me again, high-pitched screams filled the tent. The act went on, his purr turned into an earth-shattering growl. I remember happily looking at that terrified and excited audience as I hugged him hard. The growl ended, but the screams didn’t. The tent was no longer red but burned bright orange. The entrance had burned down. Our dreams, our Royal Circus, were in flames. We both ran towards the other exit, but chairs flew towards us. No one wanted a tiger running towards them. I recall a chair hitting me and your grandpa dragging me to a safe spot before waking up in the government hospital. Hundreds died that day, the most tragic in Indian circus history. The legendary Ms. Tigress also perished. Now, I am just an old lady missing her husband.

I don’t know what all your grandpa remembers but the tiger woke up in a cage. Look at him, boy, look at your grandpa. In time, he would receive many names. The Sleeper, Mad Lad, and Diablo were the ones that stuck with him the most. Children booed at him for not walking around like other tigers. Yet, he was fed a lot, for his coat shone brighter than others. By the time he was 15 years old, he had become a celebrity, for no other tiger had lived that long. Decades passed, and people from all over the world flocked to the Madras National Zoological Park to see the lone wonder of the cat world. They tried to make him have sex with many tigresses, but he fathered no children. Your grandpa could never cheat on me. Or being half human, he just can’t. He was tranquillized many times to uncover the secret of his long life, for the state wanted to save its dwindling tiger population, but scientists found nothing. Only he and I know the truth and now you too. Now look at him wobbling daily, from his cave to the eating point and back. He has a new name too, Akela. Do you know what it means? It means the solitary one.

I got many proposals even after birthing your father, yet how could I marry when my husband was caged here? How could I prove it was him and there was no way to turn him back? With that cursed daybreak, your grandpa became a tiger forever.

She fell back to a bench nearby as she finished the story. Rahul had never seen her so emotional. He went through every available literature regarding the circus burning and the logical conclusion was that one among the completely charred bodies found beneath the tents was his grandpa. And also his grandma had spent two months in the psychiatric ward after that incident.

Yet what made him doubt these was his grandma’s conviction. The truth that he saw in her eyes. Maybe she had drifted too much away from the rational world in this case and her truth would never be his. He knew that she held onto it until her death.

The creature descended from the rock inside the enclosure. With two quick jumps, the tiger was near the water body that separated him from humankind. The fur had faded, it was now a dull yellow. People closed in seeing the usually introverted tiger coming out of the shades. Rahul stood astounded. A hundred flashes appeared. The DSLR cameras chirped. Amidst all that he saw the striped big cat staring at him. The stare transfixed him. The chirping became louder. And to this day, Rahul can’t completely accept what happened. A flash was so loud and bright that for one microsecond a human figure stood there. A figure he had seen in old photos. It was his grandpa.

Author’s Biography

Arjun C hails from Kerala, India and is currently pursuing PhD at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has stories forthcoming in Solarpunk Magazine and The Fabulist and Arts.