A few days ago, fisherman Bablu Mondal, 35, was invited to a new school in his native Chargheri, considered to be the last human habitation in southwest Sunderbans, to share his experiences of having wrestled with a tiger in a creek last year.
Forty children aged six and below at the Purbasha Rural Child Education Centre listened in rapt attention as Mondal recounted how he evaded the tiger.
“Can a tiger swim?” a sixyear-old boy from Chargheri village of Satjelia island asked him.
Mondal assented and explained how the tiger had targeted him in the creek and how he tried to escape by diving from one point to another.
“If the tiger did not know how to swim, how could he search me out in the water?” he laughed with the children.
Mondal told the students how the tiger finally lunged at him and how he had to wrestle with it to anyhow save his life.
Mondal later said he would visit the school again to share stories of villagers’ encounters with deer, birds, crabs, crocodiles, king cobras and tigers in the mangrove forests.
The school with around 40 children opened on January 12 at Chargheri village. Unlike any other kindergarten or pre-primary school in the region, the school intends to provide lasting lessons on the biodiversity of the area.
“We opened the school with a different motive. We give basic and formal education to preschool learners but in different forms. Here they recite poems on tigers, mangrove plants and crocodiles,” said Umashankar Mandal, who played a key role in starting the school in his village.