Tigers always fascinated me. As a kid I used to watch in the night in front of my house where there were shrubs and a cat would be searching for food. During those time in the 70s cats were wild and they used to fend for themselves. Nowadays I find cats very domesticated, lazy and there are good hearted people who will feed them. During my childhood when there was no national geographic channel I used to watch a cat silently moving towards its prey and quickly pounce on it. Unlike Lions, Tigers are a big replica of a cat. Some cats can have stripes but every Tiger is known for its stripes. Just like every thumb print of every human being differs though all look surprisingly similar, all tigers stripes look similar but no tiger stripes are same. Lions are majestic and tigers are magnificent. In 1972 the Royal Bengal Tiger was declared as the national animal of India. 

Around fifteen years back I was on a flight journey and as usual I reached for the airline magazine. These were take away magazines, during those times airlines use to encourage a passenger to take as its good advertising for the airline when it is seen out and about with you. Though recently on a Vistara flight just to be sure I was not committing a crime I asked the air hostess could I take the magazine, she said you cannot probably post covid rules have changed or it is up to a particular airline they want to encourage passengers to take away the magazine for a later time to read some good write ups. Coming back to my flight fifteen years back, many times I flip through it and if I find an interesting article would read it. If no interesting article were there still I would keep it my handbag for the good pictures which would come handy when I wanted inspiration for painting a oil landscapes. The flight had taken off and in an hour of the journey it was at an altitude of thirty thousand feet above sea level when I spotted the tiger in the centre page of the magazine. The centre page of a magazine has an advantage to catch the attention of the reader and the picture transforms to landscape mode just like a picture in a horizontal position in a mobile transforms when you turn it to landscape mode. The centre spread picture was from edge to edge of the magazine. Wild life photographers are a rare breed. They are there at the right time at the right place. Imagine a rare moment to click a picture of a tiger, much rarer to get the reflection of the magnificent beast in the stream. A light orange colour forest, most of it golden brown grass and there was a stream and a huge log floating and the photographer clicked the picture at the right magical moment when the tiger stepped on to the log to swim across the stream. Personally I consider the tiger one up compared to a lion though a lion is considered the king of the jungle, but concerning whom is the better swimmer, the tiger comes out as the winner. They like swimming and playing in water and because they are such good swimmers no prey can escape by taking refuge in a river. Cruel it might sound but they are born as beast and they kill to survive, unlike humans. 

I do not know how much time I spent in reading and admiring the picture but one thing was sure I had decided that I will translate the picture in to an oil painting. I always wanted to paint a picture of a tiger as a landscape painting. Just painting a tiger is very boring for a viewer but when you paint a tiger with its natural habitat as the background is a thriller and more thrilling to have a reflection of the tiger in the stream. Its a rarest of the rare sight. Few months went by after the flight journey and the day came when I decided to do the oil painting. A landscape artist has an advantage compared to a photographer. The photographer had framed the picture with the vast backdrop of the forest and the tiger occupied a small space. With photoshop the photographer can zoom in on the tiger but he will have to compromise on the vast background. I kept the vast backdrop as it is but drew the tiger large so the viewer’s attention is drawn towards the tiger and the reflection of it in the stream and then slowly the backdrop, the log, tree and leaves comes into focus.