The paw of an aged tiger is the time-imprint of a long life spent hunting and weathering the wild in addition to the inescapable ravages of time. As a tiger gets old its paw pads get worn out and the gaps between the digits get wider. This is Ladli’s paw, clicked prior to ATR at Ranthambore, as she, an old tigress, rested after a testing territory fight with another tigress — her own daughter, no less — and was too tired and spent to even shoo away a fly.
