December 02, 2023

Saturday, 11:30 PM

Undisclosed Location,

Nagpur City, 

District Nagpur,

Maharashtra

India

Today, everybody got up late because there was no safari in the morning. And since we did not have to hurriedly get on a gypsy and go circling the jungle, looking for wonderful sights, we decided to catch up on our sleep, which these days can be properly had only on such rest days as today. But in the afternoon, I did have to go to a parlor and have such usual things done to me as are required for a practically jungle-dwelling girl to be minimally presentable at a gathering where normal human beings show up. And it is quite a lot of work (facial and all), and all very annoying — all that sitting at a place with your face painted in weird colours, waiting for something to happen. And it does happen. One looks a little better, cleaner and just a bit presentable. 

Although I do periodically get the facial and other related stuff done just to look less jungle-like, today’s bettering-up was because I had to attend a religious gathering in the evening at the residence of a former Chief Justice of India, which I duly attended at the designated hour. But it took a while and I could get back to our place of stay to finalize today’s Vlog only in the late hours of today.

Today’s Vlog features the second part of tracking Bubbly with her cubs (the first part went live yesterday), and we see four tigers in one frame — Bubbly and her three cubs. To start with, there was just one cub sitting, but later the mother and the cub’s siblings joined in. And all of them played for a while, which is always incredible to watch. 

Tiger cubs remain quiet in the absence of the mother, and start playing only when the mother is around. Whether it is on account of natural cautiousness in the early years, or it is on the mother’s instructions that they keep it quiet is not definitively known (at least I don’t know for sure), but it’s an interesting feature of young tigers’ behaviour.