By Dr Dipankar Guha
For Rakhal Haldar, survival is both a blessing and a curse. His face bears the jagged scars of a battle no man should have to fight. The deep lacerations across his cheek, the stiffness in his leg, and the fear that grips him every time he steps into a boat—they are all reminders of a day in 2018 when he looked death in the eye and fought back.
“We were pulling in the nets,” Rakhal recalls, his voice barely above a whisper. “My brother was beside me. The water was calm. Then suddenly—it was there.”
A Royal Bengal tiger, powerful and silent, had lunged from the undergrowth, sinking its teeth into his leg. It dragged him into the mangroves, deeper and deeper, until the only thing he could hear was the frantic beating of his own heart. His brother had run, leaving Rakhal alone in the predator’s grip.
He does not remember the pain. Only the weight of the beast, the smell of its breath, and the sheer terror of being pulled into the dark unknown. “I knew if I stopped fighting, I was dead.” His fingers found the handle of his fishing knife. He struck wildly—once, twice, again and again—until, at last, the tiger let go. Bleeding and barely conscious, Rakhal crawled back to the water, where a passing boat rescued him.
Four surgeries and a year of recovery later, he still walks with a limp. He cannot fish the way he used to. But he lived. And in the tiger’s kingdom, that is no small victory.
Living on the Edge: Sundarbans’ Fishermen and the Shadow of the Tiger
In the heart of the Sundarbans, where land dissolves into water and water into uncertainty, survival is an act of defiance. This vast delta—spread across 10,000 square kilometers, with 4,000 square kilometers in India and the rest in Bangladesh—is the largest tidal halophytic mangrove forest in the world. The Indian Sundarbans itself is divided between the Sundarban Tiger Reserve (STR) and the South 24-Parganas forest division.
The STR spans 2,585 square kilometers, encompassing the Sundarbans National Park (East and West) as the core area, with the Sajnekhali Wildlife Sanctuary and the Basirhat Range acting as buffer zones. These forests are both a refuge and a battleground—home to the mighty Royal Bengal tiger and the men who must navigate its treacherous waters to survive.
For centuries, this delicate balance has held. Man and tiger. Hunter and hunted. A silent truce dictated by necessity. But as the forests shrink, the tides rise, and desperation grows, the line between survival and sacrifice is beginning to blur.
Such heart-rending tales are rife among residents who reside in a clutch of villages in the 140,000-hectare Sundarbans. The UNESCO world heritage site is also home to more than 100 tigers, according to the most recent census, down from 440 in 2004. Unlike in other sanctuaries, the Royal Bengal tiger in this enclosed territory is able to survive both on land and water.
The Sundarbans: A Natural Shield Against Disasters
The mangroves of the Sundarbans are more than just a dense labyrinth of forests—they are a natural fortress. They stand between the Bay of Bengal and the fragile human settlements of West Bengal and Bangladesh, absorbing the fury of the sea, mitigating the force of cyclones, and preventing coastal erosion.
In 2019, when Cyclone Bulbul tore through Khulna, Bangladesh, it was the Sundarbans that bore the brunt of the storm, slowing the wind speeds and weakening its impact. Without this natural barrier, the devastation would have been far worse. Mangroves act as buffers, shielding inland villages from the worst effects of storms, tidal waves, and even tsunamis.
Role of Sundarbans as an Environmental Protector
By reducing the force of waves, storm surges, and high winds, the Sundarbans significantly decrease the loss of life and property during natural disasters.
Mangrove forests act as natural sediment traps, preventing coastal erosion and stabilizing shorelines.
By absorbing the impact of wind and waves, they minimize the destruction caused by cyclones and tsunamis.
As someone who has studied tsunamis and natural disasters extensively, I have seen firsthand how critical coastal ecosystems are in disaster mitigation. In 2004, when the Indian Ocean tsunami struck, regions with intact mangrove forests suffered significantly less damage compared to those that had cleared their coastal vegetation. The Sundarbans, in that sense, are not just a battleground between man and beast—they are the last line of defense against the sea itself.
The Men Who Challenge Death
Khogen Mondal: The Price of Survival. Mondal was knee-deep in the swampy waters when death came for him. A flash of gold and black. A blur of claws. The tiger had him by the head, its teeth sinking deep. Before he could even scream, his left eye was gone.
“It felt like the sky had cracked open,” he says, fingers tracing the deep scars along his face. He remembers the shock, the suffocating weight of the beast, and the raw instinct that forced him to fight. His knife—his only weapon—became his lifeline. He stabbed blindly, again and again, until the tiger relented. His companions dragged him onto the boat, blood pooling beneath him.
Today, Khogen is a survivor. But the price of survival is steep. His vision is gone. The ₹2,50,000 surgery he needs remains out of reach. And yet, the only thing more terrifying than the tiger is the idea of leaving the waters that have fed his family for generations.
Markers of the Dead
Deep in the mangrove forests, where the air is thick with salt and decay, the past lingers in the most haunting of ways. Lungis, gamchhas, and tattered cloth hang from branches—silent sentinels marking the places where men were taken.
“This one?” A fisherman points to a faded red cloth tied to a tree. “This is where a father of three was killed last year. That one, over there, belonged to a boy. He was just sixteen.”
Each marker is a reminder. A warning. A memorial. A testament to the fine line between life and death in these waters.
For Montu Majhi, 50, those markers should have been enough. But in 2019, as he waded into the shallows to push his boat free from a sandbar, a tiger emerged from nowhere, clamping its jaws around his shoulder. His companions beat drums and shouted, but the tiger only released Montu after mauling his face. He survived, but lost an eye and now carries his disfigured face like a cautionary tale.
But some are not as fortunate. In 2017, a fishing boat was attacked, and two men were killed before their crewmates could fend off the beast. Survivor Mihir Sardar, 25, still remembers the terror. “We tried to fight, but it was too strong. It finished them before we could react.” Mihir was lucky—his skull was fractured, and his face permanently disfigured, but he lived.
The jungle does not always kill instantly. Kartik Mondal, a honey collector attacked in 2012, was dragged deep into the mangroves. He fought back, managing to wound the tiger, but as he fled, he slipped into a river. Swept away by the currents, he clung to a branch for three days, half-starved and delirious, before villagers found him. His body survived; his spirit did not.
The Delicate Truce: Living With the Tiger
For all their fear, the people of the Sundarbans do not hate the tiger. They respect it. Fear it. Even revere it. Bonbibi, the forest goddess, is worshipped before every fishing or honey-collecting trip—a desperate prayer that man and beast might coexist without bloodshed.
But coexistence is growing harder. As rising sea levels swallow villages, more people are forced into the forests, competing with tigers for space. Attacks have increased. And in response, so have retaliations—poisoned carcasses, hidden traps, an unspoken war that no one dares name.
Conservationists celebrate the survival of the Bengal tiger. But for those who live here, survival is something else entirely.
What Comes Next?
The fishermen and honey collectors do not ask for much. Not for the tiger to disappear. Not for the land to change. Just for a chance. For early warning systems. For protective gear. For alternative livelihoods that do not force them into the jaws of death.
Without these, the Sundarbans will remain what it has always been—a place where man and beast are locked in an ancient struggle, where men like Khogen, Rakhal, and Montu will continue to fight battles they were never meant to win.
Because here, in the kingdom of the tiger, the only certainty is this: one day, the jungle will call again. And not everyone will return.
(The writer is the author of bestseller ‘Tsunami Catastrophe’)
