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00:17First magical moment when I saw a tiger in Ranthambore,
00:20it was absolutely mesmerizing.
00:25It's a moment where you lose yourself somewhere within yourself.
00:34This is the best place in the world to see wild tigers.
00:41For centuries, India's rulers battled over Ranthambore fort.
00:47Today, it's home to a family with an extraordinary story.
01:16It's about what you don't know is going to happen.
01:20And that's the great joy of Ranthambore.
03:08No one had ever filmed a tiger killing in deep water before.
03:14But then no one had really filmed wild tigers at all.
03:18And I was there, in the heart of it.
03:25In the jungles of northwestern India, there is a magical fort called Ranthambore.
03:38It has stood for more than a thousand years.
03:47There are three lakes, a few hundred feet from each other.
03:50And it's full of wildlife.
04:05Something happening every minute.
04:18More wild tigers live in India than anywhere else on earth.
04:24And this was one of their most important strongholds.
04:32And when a tiger walks through the lakes, the sound, the magic, the explosion of activity.
04:47So yes, the lakes, a place to die for.
04:58But in 1976, when I first came to Ranthambore, it wasn't known for tigers.
05:07Back then, no one really knew anything about wild tigers.
05:14I was very busy in Delhi making documentary films.
05:23My first marriage was collapsing.
05:28And one afternoon, I just walked out of my house, leaving everything behind, and caught a train to Ranthambore.
05:41I went on a whim to escape the city.
05:49It took me nearly a day to meet for the director of the park.
05:54And he looked me up and down and said, what do you want?
05:57I said, I want to go to the forest.
05:59He said, but nobody goes to this forest.
06:01It's an unknown area.
06:04When I was passing the old gate, as you went past the gate and you crossed the rise of a
06:11hill,
06:12there in the distance was Ranthambore Fort looking at you.
06:16And it grabbed me.
06:18And that moment changed my life.
06:23I wasn't a scientist or a naturalist, an activist or a conservationist.
06:29I was simply a filmmaker who fell in love with the beauty of this place and with its tigers.
06:40For the next half century, I've had the great privilege of being amongst them.
06:49All tiger life revolves around the female.
06:53And across the decades, five tigresses became like family.
06:59Now, for the first time, I'm able to piece together the story of their matriarchal clan
07:05and tell you how these five revealed the secret life of tigers.
07:13None are closer to my heart than my first Ranthambore tiger, Padmini.
07:22She lived through some very dark times.
07:36Not that long ago, people estimated that there were 100,000 tigers in India.
07:43When Europeans and their guns arrived in the 18th century, a massacre began.
07:53It makes me sick to think of the Maharajas, the queens and kings who flushed out tigers
07:58and hammered them with their guns.
08:01I mean, one of our Maharajas, just one single man, killed 1,300 tigers and boasts about it.
08:16The kings, the rulers, the emperors, the rich, they all had tiger skins in their house.
08:21I mean, even the Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Elizabeth had gone to Ranthambore and shot tigers there.
08:34In the early 1970s, the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi banned tiger hunting.
08:43A census had revealed that there were just 1,800 wild tigers left in India.
08:56And she set up Project Tiger.
09:01It was a wildlife conservation program with one aim, to protect India's remaining tigers.
09:12In this land where the tiger roams, it is not only an animal but a symbol.
09:21For thousands of years, India has had a culture that goddesses ride a tiger to defeat evil.
09:33The tiger is sacred, the guardian of the forest.
09:40In 1973, we set aside nine areas of the country for tigers.
09:49The old fort of Ranthambore, with its lakes and forests, was the smallest of these special tiger reserves.
10:00And then began a long, difficult task, rehoming the many people and cattle that lived within the boundaries.
10:10Such sacrifices were made for the tiger.
10:16Now, in the heart of Ranthambore, it was thought that just twelve, maybe thirteen tigers remained.
10:26And they only ever came out at night.
10:51I didn't think I had a hope of seeing one.
10:55But I went out anyway, with some of the park guards and a searchlight to try.
11:09Anywhere and everywhere, just couldn't find tigers.
11:16The director of the park, Fatih Singh Rathor, had slowly become my tiger guru.
11:21He knew every inch of this tiger reserve.
11:24Huge, twirling moustache.
11:27Very tough, with a great sense of humour.
11:38And one day, we drove too close to the water.
11:45So we were floating in the shallow water of a lake.
11:52A head appeared.
11:55It was my first Ranthambore tiger.
12:00We called her Padmani.
12:07I was twenty-three, and I'd never felt such a connection to any living thing before.
12:16How sad that these few photos are the only record of my times with her.
12:24But she deserves her place in this history.
12:29She went on to have five cubs.
12:32Four survived.
12:37And it was the beginning of Ranthambore's clan of tigers.
12:42She led that clan.
12:44She was like the godmother of all the tigers I've known in Ranthambore.
12:50And she was the mother of my next tiger.
12:53The one who brought me the most joy.
12:57Noon.
12:58The beginning of Ranthambore's golden age.
13:08In the 1980s, Ranthambore was a place transformed.
13:19Tigers shed their nocturnal cloak.
13:22They suddenly had no fear of man.
13:28And the visibility, the low savannah grasslands here, meant you could see tigers and watch their behaviour like nowhere else
13:37on earth.
13:39Noon was my favourite.
13:41She was called Noon because she was really active at Noon.
13:46Noon was a delight.
13:48She was absolutely the opposite of Padmani.
13:52She was the new generation of tigers that had grown without the fear of man.
14:05I watched Noon drive away other females, fight them over prey, force out her sister.
14:20I began to understand that the few square kilometres around the lakes were her territory.
14:30She had claimed the richest tiger turf, one teeming with prey.
14:35And now the hunters and people were gone.
14:38It was a tiger paradise.
14:40Pure magic.
14:45It was around this time that I bought some land on the edge of Ranthambore.
14:52More and more, this is where I wanted to be, alongside the tigers, learning more about their lives.
15:04Ah, wow!
15:08This is Noon's mate.
15:11A big male called Genghis.
15:16One day, back in 1983, he had appeared suddenly by the lakes.
15:22From where?
15:24From where?
15:25We don't know.
15:26No one was monitoring the tigers in those days.
15:32What we did know was that males move around much more than females.
15:37As adults, they leave their family.
15:41They seek out new, big territories that give them access to several females and lots of prey.
15:48Areas like the lakes.
15:56I remember a day, a few months after he arrived.
16:04Sambar deer had congregated in huge numbers to feast on succulent water plants.
16:14But deer weren't the only animals in the water.
16:21There are about 120 crocodiles in the lakes.
16:37It's one of the only places in the world where Sambar deer face both predators.
16:44We thought tigers only hunted them on land.
16:47But then, we saw Genghis make that extraordinary kill.
16:59Genghis moo !
17:00Genghis moo !
17:01Sing to me !ì–´ìš”~?
17:35I couldn't believe that I was seeing an enormous tiger rushing into the water, killing a sambal.
17:44And we were lucky.
17:53This was the time to record for the world what Ranthambur was giving, because so far the world had no
17:59real wild pictures of tigers.
18:03And Ranthambur's tiger population was growing.
18:08There were 13 tigers when I first arrived.
18:11Now we thought there were 45.
18:17They were the best days of my life.
18:21Days I thought would never end.
18:30I thought I would have another season with Genghis.
18:33I didn't know, but that was the last time I saw Genghis in my life.
18:53When it happened, it was like a nightmare.
19:00Sometime in 1991, I was with Fatih Singh, my tiger guru, and we were wondering what happened to a few
19:08of the tigers that we were watching.
19:10We could no longer find them.
19:13And Fatih Singh felt that they were missing and maybe they could have been poached.
19:19And I said, no, not possible.
19:21Who would poach these incredibly beautiful animals?
19:32But then began our year of horror.
19:36Poachers started to be caught with skins.
19:50It knocked Fatih Singh and me out.
19:53We just couldn't believe that this was a possibility.
20:00The price of bones is soaring as tiger numbers plummet.
20:04India's tigers are being murdered so the Chinese can turn their bones into folk cures for fevers and rheumatism.
20:14I think the population all over India is going down.
20:18I think the primary reason for this is poaching and the bone trade to meet the Chinese demand for medicinal
20:23derivatives.
20:24I think the tiger faces probable extinction in the next decade.
20:31Fatih Singh had no time for poachers.
20:32If he found a poacher, he'd charge after him, take him to jail.
20:36He believed that that was the only way Ranthambar would survive.
20:39And he was beaten up himself.
20:41He nearly died.
20:42His driver jumped on his body to save him and took the beating.
20:49This is a letter my tiger guru, Fatih Singh, wrote at that time.
20:54It is a massacre.
20:56When the police chief showed me the skin, I could not control myself.
21:01Tears were rolling down my cheeks.
21:07It's heartbreaking.
21:09And sometimes I feel guilty that I taught them to have faith in human beings.
21:15All the tigers were shot at point-blank range, just innocently looking at the man with the gun.
21:27I think both Fatih and I felt that over the years we'd worked very hard with the tigers.
21:34They'd lost their fear of man.
21:37And they treated the poachers in the friendliest of ways.
21:41And they lost their lives.
21:48Because by now we had learned to identify individuals by their stripes, we could say with certainty that 30 tigers,
21:58tigers that we knew, were gone.
22:03Around the lakes, just 15 terrified tigers remained.
22:08And I was determined to do all I could to keep them alive.
22:15I entered the arena of government.
22:20Sat on endless committees.
22:22I started a charity with local people.
22:25I wrote books.
22:26I made a TV series.
22:28I'm Valneet Thapa.
22:31It was the most time I'd spent away from Radambore.
22:37But then, my next lake tigress drew me back in.
22:52Of all the tigers, she's the one who would teach me the most about the tiger's life.
23:02We called her Machli, which means fish, because she had marks like fish bones on her cheek.
23:15She was born during the crisis.
23:19And for the first two years of her life, she had stayed with her mother, as all tiger cubs do.
23:31She's all absolutely in her.
23:33Yes, sir.
23:41Now, Machli was nearing adulthood.
23:44I guess soon she would need a territory of her own.
23:47But when and how would she carve one out?
23:53Tigers communicate with each other silently.
23:56They leave their scent in their territories.
24:00This can attract conflict or repel conflict.
24:05And through this process of territorial marking, they talk to each other.
24:16Fateh and I watched the pair closely, certain their time together was coming to an end.
24:23The lakes were rich with prey, but there was only enough for one resident tigress.
24:32Would her mother force Machli out?
24:45The bond Machli once shared with her mother was gone and replaced with aggression.
25:09This time, Machli was the one to back down.
25:13Machli was the one to back down.
25:32At the edge of the lakes is my favourite place, Rajabhaag, the ruined garden of the kings.
25:42Now tigers hold court here.
25:49I suspected Machli would soon try to overthrow her mother so she could rule these ruins.
26:16To me, Machli seemed a little afraid, but she stood her ground.
26:47I wasn't sure who'd won the confrontation.
26:50But shortly after this, Machli's mother left.
26:56Maybe it was the threat of constant conflict.
26:59Maybe she sacrificed her territory for her daughter.
27:03Either way, Machli now ruled here.
27:12Later that year, Fatenai realised that a new male had arrived at the lakes.
27:22He soon picked up Machli's scent.
27:27He called him Bumbu Ram.
27:32And gradually he got closer to Machli, leaving markers of his own.
27:49Then, one day, Machli approached him.
27:55He was aged six or seven, and in his prime.
28:09It wasn't long before Machli decided, she was ready to mate.
28:27It wasn't long before Machli decided, she was ready to mate.
28:34The ferocity of tiger mating always impresses me.
29:03I was excited by the thought of a new generation.
29:06It was like a new dawn.
29:09The dark days of hunting and poaching had long gone, I thought.
29:14This was the chance for the clan to truly thrive.
29:19It was a very happy time for me.
29:22I'd met my wife, Sanjana, and had a son, Hamir, named after one of Ranthambur's greatest rulers.
29:31And soon, Machli herself had a litter.
29:36Two cubs.
29:43This is family life amongst the tiger.
29:46This is the beauty of Ranthambur.
29:50They're both male cubs.
29:53And she's really looking after them at the moment.
29:58Oh, wow, look at them.
30:00Learning the ways of the mother.
30:13It was an absolute delight watching these boys grow up.
30:20And then one day, we heard rumors that trouble was headed their way.
30:26Their father had vanished.
30:29And a new male was patrolling the area.
30:32We called him Nick.
30:41Without the protection of their father, Machli's family were in danger.
30:49I'm really worried about these two cubs, because they're young male cubs.
30:54There could be a new resident male in the area.
30:57So the tigress has to be really careful.
31:00She's got to keep them well protected.
31:03She has to defend them and chase away any male intruder.
31:08In fact, she's bound to fight the male so that he keeps her distance from the cubs.
31:19Nick was a huge male in his prime.
31:25I shuddered to think what he could do to the cubs.
31:33He could easily kill them in order to mate with Machli and father a litter of his own.
31:49A few days later, I found Machli being pursued by Nick.
31:55A few days later, I found Machli being pursued by Nick.
32:12He was definitely interested in mateing.
32:35Would she give in?
32:37Would she give in?
32:39Or would she try and fight him off?
32:57At first, it looked like she was keeping away from Nick,
33:01so he couldn't get behind her and mount her.
33:07But Nick was really enticed by her scent.
33:27He didn't look like he would give up.
33:52For Machli, victory.
33:56For Nick, an injury that would make it hard to hunt.
34:02Now he knew the cubs had a mother who would risk it all to protect them.
34:10A few months later, a few months later,
34:10a big prey would leave a home like a mother who was addicted to her.
34:11A few months later, a lion would be a little while she was dead.
34:13Because his dad would be a little kid.
34:15He was a little kid.
34:35A few months later, a young man would be a little kid.
34:36I saw the most extraordinary moment between a tigress and her cups.
34:57Machli suckled them.
35:07Her cubs were almost two years old.
35:10There would have been no milk for them at this age.
35:17Perhaps it was Machli's way of telling them it was time to say goodbye.
35:45After that, everything changed.
35:50I never saw the family together again.
35:53And the cubs struck out to find territories of their own.
36:11In 2004, I was very busy with a Supreme Court committee.
36:16And we were hearing regularly that there was something going wrong in Sariska.
36:23150 kilometers from the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve.
36:27That poachers were out.
36:30Nobody was sure about it.
36:32The government of the day refused to admit that there was a problem.
36:37Even though the director of the park was crying out for help.
36:42Every tiger in Sariska by September 2004 had been poached and killed.
36:49Sariska had no tigers.
36:51And then in central India, not so far from Ranthambore, the Panna Tiger Reserve.
36:55All the tigers went extinct there.
36:57So poaching took a massive turn.
37:17When it happened the second time, it was the same Chinese pressure.
37:24It was the illegal trade.
37:26And a new demand for ornamental tiger skins.
37:33It was again trying to keep your tigers safe.
37:37How are you going to do it the second time around?
37:59Scattered thoughts.
38:01June 2005.
38:04The future of the tiger is bleak.
38:09God help us.
38:17The monsoon of that year was a critical moment.
38:21It's a time when the rains lash the forest with incredible force.
38:27Ranthambore completely shuts down.
38:31The roads are washed away.
38:33The perfect cover for poachers to strike.
38:38I had no idea where Machli was or if she was still alive.
38:49I kept busy in Delhi working with the then Prime Minister to create a moment of huge change.
38:56In the end, Project Tiger was scrapped and the National Tiger Conservation Authority was launched.
39:05This time, because of various connections with the Empowered Committee, with the Supreme Court Committee, we declared a red alert
39:13and an emergency in Ranthambore.
39:18200 armed men were sent in to surround the periphery and to flush out any intruder.
39:24And it created a scare.
39:29We knew that there were problems in Ranthambore.
39:31We knew that there were problems in Ranthambore.
39:32Fateh Singh, who had by now retired, said that half the tigers of Ranthambore had been poached.
39:38That there were barely 21 tigers left.
39:40Terrified tigers who'd experienced a second round of poaching.
39:46I think the lake tigers must have known what was going on because on the edges of their territory there
39:54were vacant areas.
39:56The tigers on the outer areas had vanished and the silence of death hung in the air.
40:06Every tiger on the lakes would have known that.
40:23Luckily, the area around the lakes was the inner sanctum.
40:29It was very difficult for poachers to get to the lake area.
40:38So the lake tigers survived because the area around is fortified.
40:43There are gates and entry points.
40:45There are lots of forest guards.
40:47So the poachers were not going to take a risk in this area.
40:55So the lake tigers kept on producing cubs that would go out and repopulate areas where tigers had been poached.
41:02And that's what happened.
41:03That's what saved Ranthambore.
41:08And that's what saved Machli.
41:12She survived yet another crisis.
41:16And her final litter would grow up and spread out all over Ranthambore and beyond.
41:42When I first went to Ranthambore, it was a tiny patch of three hundred square kilometers.
41:49Today, adjacent to it are three hundred square kilometers.
41:51There are three tiger reserves.
41:53And we have five thousand square kilometers where tiger populations can go to, where tigers can migrate to.
42:02That's success.
42:05That required hard work by a bunch of people.
42:13And one of those people is my colleague, Dr. Darminder Khandal.
42:19He has data of 20 years of Ranthambore's tigers.
42:25And that enables us to really look back and work out for the first time exactly how Ranthambore's tigers are
42:33related.
42:35Today, we know that Machli's genes are in 75% of all Ranthambore tigers, including my next tiger, Krishna, one
42:47of Machli's daughters, and a tigress that shook my being.
42:53She ruled the lakes for a while and had four little cubs of her own.
43:02It's very rare to find a tigress with four small cubs.
43:08And there was an incredible afternoon when she took her cubs and walked to the palace den.
43:19To get to the palace den, you have to cross a little bit of water.
43:26And that's where a few big crocodiles lie, waiting to get their chance on anything they're passing.
43:39She carefully negotiated the water carrying the weakest cub in her mouth.
43:45While the others followed her.
44:05So she became SCP-square rical-shackling.
44:05She also took her to the palace, however, when she was losing her.
44:05At the palace, I got to the palace in her pocket.
44:06To the palace version, she got to the palace.
44:07And she was like, she was lucky enough to see her.
44:08To the palace, she was looking back to the palace.
44:08So, it was the palace, she was so close to the palace.
44:10So, she was at the palace.
44:12She was quite close.
44:15It was close to the palace, she was Investor's thể and she got to the palace.
44:37She lost one of the cubs
44:57It brought tears to my eyes that day
45:10One of the cubs that survived still lives around the lakes today
45:14She was named arrowhead because she had two pointy eyebrows like two arrows on her forehead
45:24She's family
45:26She always surprises me and I see much of her today
45:35For a while she ruled the lakes
45:39But today this territory is no longer hers and she should not be here
45:43Recently she started behaving in unpredictable ways
45:49I was startled when I saw on a camera's viewfinder
45:55Arrowhead arriving at the lakes and finding a way to attack an enormous soft shell turtle
46:27And she not only grabs a turtle in the shallow water
46:30She picks it up and rushes back into the grass and starts to devour it
46:35Was she, like Genghis all those years before, not afraid of crocodiles in the lakes?
46:43Well, what I saw next made me think that she was not fearless but desperate
46:52Arrowhead's back in the lakes
46:57At this time she chases after a small crocodile
47:04She charges into the water, misses the baby crocodile
47:08But she doesn't realise
47:09She's in a deep place
47:11And there are bigger crocodiles
47:15The big crocodiles
47:16Pounce on her under the water
47:23And I don't know how
47:25She manages to free herself
47:37And then, a short while later
47:40Someone filmed her eating a crocodile
47:54Suddenly, memories of years ago
47:57Come flooding back
47:58And I remembered that my nephew Jaisal had filmed this
48:04Arrowhead's grandmother Muchli
48:06Wrestling and eventually killing a four-meter crocodile
48:11No one had ever recorded such a thing before or since
48:18Severe droughts had driven Muchli to behave in this way
48:22What was driving Arrowhead?
48:30A few days later
48:32We found out
48:35She had been pregnant
48:37And in desperate need of protein
48:40For her milk
48:43Now her cubs have been filmed
48:45Just weeks old
48:49Oh, they're lovely shots
48:51Absolutely lovely
48:57It's amazing
48:58This is really valuable, precious footage
49:02They're barely able to crawl
49:11Wow, it's amazing
49:13This is the secret life of tigers
49:25But how will Arrowhead keep them alive?
49:31She no longer rules the lakes
49:35And she's finding it difficult to survive
49:38She's desperate
49:40Because she has very little prey to hunt
49:45Trespassing into the lake territory
49:47As she'd done before
49:49Is much more risky with such small cubs
50:07Today the lakes are ruled by another tigress
50:13She too has three cubs
50:15Three mouths to feed
50:18She's one of Arrowhead's older daughters from a previous litter
50:24So now we have mother and daughter
50:27With three cubs each
50:28In bordering territories
50:34What will happen?
50:36We have no idea
50:39Which of them will survive?
50:41Will they meet?
50:43Will they fight?
50:45Will they play?
50:47I can't wait to see this new family drama play out
50:56Today, 70 tigers live across this landscape
51:00Instead of the 13 we began with 50 years ago
51:04And I wonder
51:06Which of them will become like family?
51:17When I'm asked
51:19What have I done with my life?
51:21The only answer I can give is this
51:25That I have been amongst the wild tigers
51:27That roam Ranthambore's magnificent lakes
51:30And help them to thrive
51:34And my love for five tigresses in particular
51:38Has moulded me
51:39Badmani
51:45Noon
51:47Achli
51:50Krishna
51:52And Arrowhead
51:57Piecing together the story of their matriarchal clan
52:00Has been the privilege of my life
52:13They have been like family to me
52:20And I can only hope
52:22Hope that this story of their secret lives
52:24Will help others to love them as I do
52:29And endeavour to fight for their future
52:33If you can be
52:35I can only hope to see you
52:37At this point
52:37But I find it
52:38I am
52:38I am
52:38I am
52:39I am
52:42I am
52:42I am
52:42I am
52:42I am
52:42I am
52:43I am
52:48I am
52:49I am
52:50I am
52:55I am
52:57I am
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