Maya’s Zugzwang
In Chess, a player is said to be "in zugzwang" when any move will only worsen his/her position.
The tigress Maya, synonymous with a feminine panache and a tigrine flamboyance, is a paradigmatic conflation of unparalleled beauty and unrivalled dominance. She has defied the power games of even the upper echelons of her tribe.
Her romantic liaisons with the crème da la crème of the tigers have made her the ultimate seductress with an archetypal plot-reversal. Bewitched by her alluring charm, many suitors have risen to the throne of Panderpauni – the hotseat of Maya’s power, while many others have fallen – the only constant factor being the doyen of illusion, Maya herself, as the name suggests.
In a male dominated territory where she rules with a ruthless supremacy and unyielding tenacity, she is not only an enchantress but also a powerful dissident. Battle-hardened yet benevolent, Maya performed her greatest escape acts, not once but many times, to save her cubs, though zugzwang, in a dominion haunted by a skewed male-female ratio.
In 2012, when her mother Nira, the dominant queen of Tadoba lake and Panderpauni died of an apparent snakebite, Maya, a very young and inexperienced tigress, eschewed the throne. The perennial Tadoba lake, at the heart of the entire reserve, named after Taru-Dev, a local chieftain who attained a legendary status after killing a tiger, and the nearby Panderpauni lake support a rich and wide prey-base, which inadvertently attracts predators too.
Maya’s ascension to the throne coincided with the end of reign of W-male, the father of Maya. As he drifted into the oblivion, three tigers entered the territory: Gabbar, Saturn and Tyson. The first litter of Maya was from Gabbar, who seemed to have taken over Panderpauni area. And when the first litter didn’t survive for long, Maya upped the ante.
Gabbar, Saturn and Tyson engaged in bloody battles during the 2013-15 period when Maya gave birth to her second litter from Saturn. Gabbar, the love of her life, and the valiant of them all, was seriously injured in a fight with Saturn, and was exiled from the territory.
Saturn and Tyson too vanished without a trace which exposed the throne of Panderpauni. With no dominant tiger at the helm, invading tigers such as Bobda (or bobadiya, known so for his broken canine) and Narasimha from the adjacent territories already were making inroads. To save her cubs, Maya advanced her move, a zwischenzug – an intermediate move in the form of mock-mating.
Mock-mating is one of the techniques adapted by tigresses to divert the attention of intruding males, thus saving the existing litter. Rejecting the advances of the male can even prove fatal to the tigress. Though induced ovulators, if not in the heat period, tigresses cannot get pregnant.
The interposing move was indeed successful before a new tiger forced Maya into the zugzwang. By mid-2015, a young tiger known as Matkasur advanced into the territory. Despite Maya’s mock-mating combined with tactics like hiding the cubs, Matkasur actively pursued the cubs and seems to have killed 2 of them. The third one was closely guarded by Maya to subadulthood and Matkasur couldn’t outdo Maya, though the cub was also pushed out of the kingdom by February 2017.
The veil of unrest was finally pulled down by Matkasur who established his sovereignty. With no other detractors in the visible horizon, Maya conceded to Matkasur’s authority. She conceived her third litter consisting of two cubs. The cubs grew under the protective umbrella of Matkasur and Maya, though perils slowly started to shape in the form of Matkasur’s own sons from another tigress – Choti Tara. Two known attacks on the cubs were thwarted by Matkasur and by Maya on different occasions. Maya is not always at her seductive best but her irresistible pulchritude stems from her diligence and assessment of the situation. When confronted by one of the subadults of Choti Tara, Maya just put up a spirited display of defense, moving like a strong cat, with her piloerector muscles fluffing her up and her ostentatiously showing aggression. The subadults were neither physically strong nor are experienced, and Maya seemed to know this very well.
The two cubs of Maya almost grew to subadulthood, before the female cub succumbed to injuries (inflicted by an unknown source). The male cub moved to a different forest where he established his kingdom. The sad ending of her daughter meant that Maya didn’t have any challenges, but dangers are known to lurk the kingdom of Panderpauni.
Two brothers, migrating from a nearby range, slowly started to take control of Matkasur’s kingdom. Matkasur was becoming old, and no tiger has ever ruled the territory of Panderpauni for more than 4 years. With both the brothers launching attack after attack on Matkasur, he was forced to go into exile. The two brothers, Rudra and Tala, then tried to woo Maya. Matkasur always would come back and fight valiantly with Tala, to no avail, who firmly established his territory.
Maya gave birth, for a 4th time; rumoured to have delivered 5 cubs. And the father was, likely, Matkasur. The family was often seen hanging out by their favourite waterhole, but as uneventful as it always was, Tala took full control of the territory. The cubs were unharmed, thanks to the perspicacious Maya.
Four litters over a decade, and Maya still is under the mercy of dominant tigers. Unsettlingly, one of the cubs of the five died very young, and three were seemingly killed by another intruding male, Mowgli. This leaves Maya with only one cub whom she must be guarding with the might and wit of her life.
At the fag-end of her illustrious reign, Maya might not have been able to successfully raise many cubs, like most of her contemporaries did, but surviving in the midst of the bloodiest battlefields with balance of power tipping at an unprecedented pace, mating and thwarting the moves of atleast 10 wieldy and indomitable tigers, Maya is the tiger-world’s Cleopatra; her story is laced with the darkest hours, true lies, enchantment and Darwinian's survival that intrigued and enthralled tourists and her suitors alike.
She’s always forced into the zugzwang, and she had lost always. But, even to this day, as she sashays down the catwalk with insouciance, the forest bows down to her in respect, everyone else follows her - tiger or human, smitten by her charm and acuity, and she remains the ultimate illusion.