Olive Green Memoirs – 2… Shikar, The Blood Sport

By Colonel Akhil Gupta, Retd

In school, I had received “Maneaters of Kumaon” as a book prize. Jim Corbett in his book dwells on the various tiger kills, but the Tiger of Champawat which had more than 400 killings on his score card remains etched in my memory besides the highly coloured stories of our school Shikar Club nicknamed as Country (side) Club headed by our art & craft teacher Mr Noor… pug marks, droppings and even face-to-face encounter with leopards and tiger et al.

That was an impressionable age. Then there was an exposure in 1970s to Kumaon Regimental Training Centre, Ranikhet full of innumerable trophies of stuffed Tigers, Bears, Bisons…. Add to it an air gun came my way for a few years as a family pass down from my cousins leaving an indelible impression about the exhilarating wonder of Shikar, the Bloody Sport of the Royals.

Little did I know, I would be presented with a few opportunities soon after my commissioning at Bhuj – Kutch.

In late 1970s, while out on exercises, my versatile Battery Commander, a gem from
Manipur would take us out for shooting sand partridges in the afternoon and wild rabbits at
night. Fishing was set aside for Sundays.

Every night was a feast. He would assemble his own cartridges too… was fully equipped with crimper, detonator, ball bearings. God bless his soul.

While the big hunts were different. In the unit, there would invariable be a shikar outing, a pre mess function for wild boars or on an occasional request from the District Commissioner as aid to civil authorities when the boars would become a nuisance for the villagers. These would be led by our ace Coorgi hunter or the Manipuri maverick.

SHIKAR ON THE RUNN

I was initiated in my first hunt by none other, but the Commanding Officer aka Tiger. On a sunny day, I had just finished my breakfast in the Officers Mess and was ready to cycle off to the Gun Radar park, my refuge for the day, when the Tiger’s vehicle roared into the Mess.

The Mess staff had been asked to pack sandwiches and other delicacies for a field trip.

Tiger with his pipe hanging from his lips, saw me from the corner of his eye and, on a whiff, asked me to jump into his vehicle. Soon, I came to know that the Sub Maj who was to proceed on retirement by the end of the week, had been offered one wish that he would like the Tiger to do for him.

He had asked the Tiger to take him out on a hunting trip and that was the raison-d-etre for this outing.

It was not long before we were driving in the Runn. Not fully in the salt plains but the vast flat grassy islands which are just a little bit higher than the water line. It has small bushes (1-2 feet high) growing everywhere with a clear 360 degrees view of miles all around.

Just a few odd clumps of tree could be seen here and there as we moved forward unhindered blowing clouds of dust all around.

The terrain was slightly undulating causing the open jeep to bounce every now and then. After about 20-30 minutes of having crossed the last village, we started seeing a few Nilgai (blue bulls), from the family of antelopes.

The males have small 5-6 inch horns. This shikar trip would turn out to be a Nilgai hunt since this was a daytime shikar.

Tiger and the Sub Maj positioned themselves on the open jeep to get their catch but nilgais are no easy prey.

Long distance visibility with strong running legs like that of a horse, nilgais were always a step ahead and a bouncing jeep in the grassy knotty land was no match.

A number of attempts to get the running animals in the cross sights failed. Its then that the Tiger decided to take the wheel and give the Sub Maj the correct angle to fire.

He drove like an arrow that knew no speed barriers and caught up with the herd but to get them broad side would still take a lot
more attempts.

With difficulty, when he did that and was driving parallel to the group of nilgais offering our Sub Maj a clear broadside shot, the 7.62 mm Rifle with blunted nosed bullets jammed.

I handed over the standby Rifle to the Sub Maj. He fired again and once more, a second time, but missed bringing down the kill both the times.

Tiger was not willing to let the chance go which he had made possible only after a lot of failed attempts.

While not taking off his eyes from the herd and the wheel, he barked his orders to me to take the shot. I had the jammed rifle with me.

Thanks to the IMA (Indian Military Academy)
weapons training, I stood up, expertly did the Khalee Khokha (empty round) clearing drill without giving another thought and fired. The well-built adult didn’t appear to go down right away.

I was tense. I swung my sights to another and fired. This one certainly went down. What an exhilarating feeling that was. I had made my 1st kill.

We slowed, turned around and examined the hunt. The first had been hit way down in the
backside and hence had continued to run for another 15-20 m before dropping to the ground while the second, was hit high up in the middle of the body nearing the chest.

I had made my first kills. I expected a big round of applause. Though I did get a backslap of “Well Done” but also received a prompt chiding. I was to always remember where the empty cases would be flying.

In this case they had missed the Tiger’s cheeks by a whisper. He belonged to a different era, very aristocratic,sort of royalty, though not by birth but surely through his actions. God bless his soul.

He does not make people like that anymore. We dropped the vehicle driver at the site and signalled the 2nd vehicle to catch up to load the shikar. The shikar was handed over to the nearby muslim village.

They could feast on the body but needed to hand over the cleaned out outer skin as memento for the Sub Maj while we would have our pack lunch at a vantage point before returning with the prize.

I would like to believe that the Sub Maj though a good shot, missed this time due to his inability to keep his balance.

Thanks to the bouncing vehicle in the undulating terrain and his wobbly knees at the retiring age, I was presented with the God sent opportunity.

WILD BOAR SHIKAR

Now this was a manly sport. Here for the youngsters, our leader, teacher and guide was the soft spoken tall officer from Coorg.

We would go out in open jeeps and wait for the wild boars to turn up at the water hole or in close proximity of the villages where they were causing trouble: essentially, where their vegetables and crops were being destroyed repeatedly.

This was done with all jungle tactics in place. The boars have an acute sense of smell so we had to be careful of the direction of wind.

They are extremely aggressive and if felt threatened would charge at anything moving in their path and hence, we had to be so positioned that we were not bang on in their travel path.

The open jeep would be mounted with search light to be switched on only when a boar is identified and the chase starts.

I remember in one our hunts we had been unsuccessful and the dawn was just breaking. After having been tired of moving from one place to another chasing a loner, here and there, we thought of taking a break. We had got down from our jeeps and had just spread on the ground on our backs when there was a shout of sighting wild boar.

It turned out to be a herd across a narrow water channel, we thought they wouldn’t cross. With wind in the opposite direction, they didn’t get our smell and with their strong legs swam quickly across towards us.

When they realized we were in their path, they bull-charged at us. Our weapons were in the jeep leaving us no option but to take cover behind the jeep.

Today, the hunter was afraid of getting trodden down upon by the herd of wild boars. We were stunned and before we could gather our wits, the fearless agile Coorgi was already in the jeep, picking up the rifle and soon a big one was down – a bounty.

The usual cooking procedure which I came to
know from the mess cooks was that first task
would be to remove its digestive tract and then burn its skin sufficiently removing even fine traces of hair. Thereafter the boar is kept
dipped in liberal rum, water and spices mix.

The lacerations allow the soaking in of the
right juices. This is followed up by hoisting the
boar on a contraption similar to ACL (Cable
reeling equipment mounted on a vehicle) that
has a bipod on either side and supports a rod
that can be rotated.

Like the mounting of the wire spool on the central rod of ACL. In here the rod is used as a skewer and is pierced through the boar.

And then, the boar is slowly rotated over and over again to allow roasting over live slow fire for which a charcoal carriage way, suitable modified from a horizontally cut gasoline barrel is kept below.

After a few hours, the fat rises to the surface, allowing it to be roasted in its own fat. The dripping fat is the cue that all is set and ready for the feast.

And, as the evening melts into an outdoor party, the roasted slices are carefully chopped off to be served fresh with a pinch of
lemon and masala sprinkling.

Much to the excitement of the guests, once a mess waiter dressed as a tribal holding a cutlass/scimitar (which I still possess) to give a tribal-jungle look, was also positioned near the boar with its protruding tusk in full glory.

It was a sight to behold as he would slice with a flourish and then place it on the side table for the waiting guests.

I still possess a chinkara – deer skin
presented to me by our shikari mentor from
Coorg, as a reminder of those hunting trips.
And, how I came into the possession of
scimitar and 2 swords is a story for another
day.

I cannot say so for sure if the shikar of yester
years was good or bad for ecology or
environment but I know, I would still opt to
go out with the same gusto for the thrill and
the rush of it even today.