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Suhas Kumar has had a good innings as an Indian Forest Service officer in the central Indian State of Madhya Pradesh. He has closely watched and managed wildlife for long years. He served as Principal Chief Conservator Forest and has distingushed himself as a wildlife expert, who worked ceaselessly with conviction and whose mission to this day remains conservation. In February 2009, he wrote a poem that puts the spotlight on the magnificent Tiger and the glory of Kanha Tiger Reserve. He has a word of caution against reckless tourism and leaves a strong message for tourists entering the tiger habitat only to watch the tiger in the wild. We are reproducing Suhas Kumar’s poem here.

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TRY ONCE

To immerse yourselves in the MAGIC that KANHA has to offer

You will be a different man, woman and child

When you return home

With memories of this NATURE’S MAGNIFICENT COFFER.

Your desire to see a wild tiger

Is very strong

Keeping tigers at bay

You think, is wrong

When you spot a tiger from elephant back

Surrounded by gawking tourists

Elephants, jeeps and cars

You may get thrilled – for once.

But when you would return

You are bound to feel very sad

For the master

Now a slave of man’s caprice and greed.

Let the TIGER’S freedom prevail he will show up near you when would feel,

A true tiger is a beast of free will

Why force him

To behave otherwise to serve man’s thrill

Kanha is not a zoo where tigers walk behind bar

but a land UNTAMED AND WILD

Here tigers roam wide and far

Let it remain that grand

Just engross yourself in this FASCINATING LAND.

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